Oh hello there! Seeing as it is almost
Halloween, I thought I would do a
spooky/scary reads video. But I didn't
know what to call it because last year I
did
spooky reads for scaredy-cats because your girl is
scared of everything and can't actually read
outright horror. I have this beautiful
velvet witch's hat, and I thought, "Let's do a
list of books that any decent witch
would love." Worth noting is that not all
of these books have witches in them.
There's some that are just a
variation and some that are just spooky
that I wanted to talk about, that I think
are Halloween-y. So if you're mad
that I'm not 100% on theme, tough t*ts.
The first book that I have is The Ocean--
oh God, I have to
figure out how to maneuver around this. I
have The Ocean at the End of the Lane by
Neil Gaiman. this is a personal favorite
of Neil Gaiman's books. I know some people
don't like it as much. I really, really
like it. It's about a middle-aged man who
goes back to his hometown for a funeral
and he finds himself drawn to a house at
the end of the lane. Then upon going
there, all of these memories come back.
There's lots of creepy, supernatural
stuff going on. There ARE witches in this!
It's just really good! I love it a lot.
It's very eerie without being outright
scary, so it's right up my alley. I
love this. I love Neil Gaiman in general.
This is a particular favorite. Next I
have another Neil Gaiman book, but it's
only half Neil Gaiman because he
co-wrote it with Terry Pratchett, and
what I'm talking about
is Good Omens: the nice and accurate
prophecies of Agnes Nutter, witch. This is
a satire of the Book of Revelations in
which the Antichrist goes missing as a
baby. You follow an angel and a demon
on Earth trying to find him. It's
hilarious and weird and a perfect blend
of both Gaiman and Pratchett. Another
favorite. I think it's a good read for
Halloween and they're also doing a show!
They're doing an adaptation of it, and
everything that I've seen of the
adaptation--all of the pre-release stuff--
it just looks like it's going to be so very
good! I'm so excited! In the U.S. it's
going to premiere on Amazon Prime, but I'm
not sure when it's premiering, so keep
your eye out for that. I'm trying to
remember if the next book that I want to
talk about has any witches in it I don't
know but I want to talk about it and
that is her body and other parties by
carmen maria machado for a second there
i thought i was called to get
upside-down but I'm not
this is a short story collection it has
one novella in the middle and it's all
about like the violence committed
against women's bodies it has a lot of
supernatural speculative fiction stuff
in here Machado plays around with like
the genre of horror to try and bring
back some of the horror around the
violence that's committed against when a
lot of times that violence is
sensationalized not in this book just
like in media in general in life in
general in the news like all that stuff
it's sensationalized it is made for
consumption and I think a society were
desensitized to it
so what Machado does is in bringing the
hallmarks of horror genre and like body
horror and that kind of stuff into this
book she is trying to get rid of that
desensitization and she does it so very
well it's absolutely gorgeous
I love all the stories in here it's
completely brilliant and you should read
it
next I have a lighter book and that is
Howl's Moving Castle I keep hitting this
stupid hat it's not stupid I love it
this is Howl's Moving Castle by Diana
Wynne Jones this is very nice and light
and wonderful and it makes me so happy
it's not really spooky at all you've got
witches you've got wizards you've got
spells and curses and a bunch of idiots
and I love them all it's such a
delightful read it's very humble I think
I recommended it in my books to read and
autumn autumn book recommendations I
don't know what I called it but I
recommended this for the whole season so
if you don't want something super scary
this one cuz it's delightful next I have
a book with no witches again you should
still read it and that is the Ballad of
black Tom by Victor love all this is a
novella it's very short
it's from Tom who I love so very much
this is a reimagining of the HP
Lovecraft story the horror at Red Hook
I think is the name of the original
story and it is by Miles the most
objectively racist of Lovecraft's
works and Lovecraft included a lot of
racism in his work so Laval takes that
and flips it on its head and so the
protagonist of this is a black man it's
creepy and eerie and just so whip-smart
and the vols writing is gorgeous too
though you should pick it up next I have
a graphic novel and that's through the
woods by Emily Carroll this is a short
story collection kind of graphic novel
it has five
stories that are all creepy as shit and
some of them are not my favorites but
the ones that work work so very well
even the art style on this is so creepy
let me find like oh here's something
kind of terrifying yeah Halloween so if
you're looking for a graphic novel to
read to get in the Halloween mood I'd
recommend this next I have a middle
grade book and that is sea of ghosts by
ve Schwab I believe this is now out yeah
it came out of noggin so I am way off
this is about a girl whose family moves
to Edinburgh and her parents are like
paranormal investigators little do they
know their daughter has the ability to
pull back the veil between our world and
the world of the dead our best friend
Venus is actually a ghost it's just a
solid middle grade read it was fine it
wasn't too scary but definitely a little
spooky so if you want to read some
middle grade check this out next I have
practical magic by Alice Hoffman I
didn't realize that this was a book I
thought it was just a movie
so I picked up the book cuz I figure why
not choose the season and I really
enjoyed it I was surprised by how much I
enjoyed it it is about two sisters who
are kind of opposite ends of the
spectrum they come from this family
whole town thinks they're witches one of
them is wild and like love boys and
wants to like run off and not plan for
anything and have wild adventures and
the other is very very straight-laced
and like stay home and make sure
everything is in order and then some
things happen as they do in most stories
I really like this I like that we're
given these two stereotypes but they're
given such depth I like that even though
there are romantic elements in the story
at its core this is a story about the
relationships between women between
mothers and daughters and sisters and
all that good stuff I will say the book
is quite different than the movie so
think of them as two very separate
entities I really like both I'm probably
gonna watch the movie this weekend I
think like a week or two ago it
celebrated its 20th anniversary which is
pretty cool so that's a book I really
like next I have skin folk by NOLA
Hopkinson this is a short story
collection that has stories that are in
one way or another related to Caribbean
folklore some of them take place in the
Caribbean some of them take place and
like I don't even know where this is
some of them take place in Canada as
well and feature the stories of
immigrants and the children of
immigrants a lot of these stories aren't
really scary they're more in the vein
of fairy tales or folktales as opposed
to like spooky scary stuff but one story
in particular made me think I am going
to include it in this video and that is
greedy choke puppy which is just so good
it's about a tsukuyomi which is a figure
from Caribbean folklore that's basically
a blend kind of of a vampire and which
it was such a good story really really
good I loved all the stories in the
collection and Hopkinson is a pretty
deep backlist
I'm really excited to see some more
books from her so that's it for books
that I think you should read this
Halloween season let me know any spooky
eerie books that you think would be a
good read this Halloween down in the
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