October is here, and as I thought about some book round-ups I could do, I was surprised to discover I’ve never posted any kind of list of spooky books. Last October, I wrote about ministry life and pastors,1 which I don’t regret at all, but I was still a little upset that I had missed the opportunity to share some of my favorite books that I think are perfect reads for this time of year.
Behind the Scenes
Whenever I do a book round-up like this, I go through my book database and start narrowing things down. For this list, I started with fiction and then chose multiple genres to look through: fantasy, post-apocalyptic, science fiction, mystery, and horror. From there I made a tag for “spooky October books” and marked every single one that jumped out as somewhat spooky. Then I filtered the database to show me only the ones I tagged. I did another run-through and removed books that upon further reflection weren’t all that spooky. Then I did the most painful part of the process: I only allowed one spooky book per author. Both Stephen King and Josh Malerman had multiple books on my initial list, and I had to essentially pick a favorite child. Then I decided how many books I wanted to include and settled on 10. I could have done many more, but the more books I share the longer it takes me to write and I wanted to get this post done while it was still October.
I am not going to include any specific trigger warnings for these books, because the reason they are spooky is that they have disturbing elements. If that’s not your cup of tea, check out one of my other book roundups.
In the Woods: A Novel by Tana French
I’m starting the list off with a book that is spooky but more mystery and less horror. The writing is excellent and in addition to being a whodunnit, it’s also an incredible character study of the two detectives. What makes this book spooky is that you really don’t know who in the book you can trust. You’re just along for the ride.
See other books I read in June 2025 along with this one.
After Oz by Gregory McAlpine
Maybe because it includes witches, the story of the Wizard of Oz has always given off spooky Halloween vibes. This book takes Dorothy’s experience in Oz in a very interesting direction: We meet her after she has returned from Oz, but everyone in Kansas thinks she is crazy, and most of the book is a chronicle of her conversations with a psychiatrist.
I wrote about this and other favorite fiction reads from 2024 in one of my first posts.
Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor
This book came out of a podcast of the same title that started back in 2012 and is still creating new episodes. It contains stories from a fictional desert town where everything is a little off and nothing is as it really seems. This book is not only spooky but hilarious. I haven’t listened to the podcast in more than a decade but when it first came out, I really enjoyed it.
I Am Legend and Other Stories by Richard Matheson
If you’ve been here for a long time, you know that some of my favorite books at any time of year are about population-decimating diseases and/or zombies. This book includes both, and it centers on one man who is trying to survive and find a cure for his fellow humans. Some versions of the book also include other short stories by the author.
The Bad Seed by William March
Consider this one of the spookiest books ever written. It is a true horror story about a little girl who is in every possible way a bad seed. She appears to most people to be the picture of perfection, a beautiful, well-behaved child who everyone loves. But over the course of the book a few people, including her mother, find out that is very much not the case.
See other books I read along with this one in October 2025.
Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler
This book probably falls into the science fiction genre, but because it is about vampires, it belongs on any list of spooky reads. Shori looks like a child but is actually a decades-old vampire, and she wakes up after a terrible attack that has left most of her family dead (this happens early on and is not a spoiler). She doesn’t remember who she is, she just knows that she needs blood. The rest of the book involves her rediscovering her identity and trying to stay alive while the group that killed her family is still hunting her.
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks
Finally, zombies! The movie of the same title is one of the best zombie movies out there,2 and the book is an entirely different experience but just as good. There are many different narrators and points of view of what is happening from all over the world. The viewpoints slowly unfold the horror of what is happening as it sinks in for everyone.
Goblin: A Novel in Six Novellas by Josh Malerman
In this book, Goblin is the name of a town and the town is essentially the main character of the book in much the same way that Derry, Maine, functions as its own thing in the Stephen King universe. The book is made up of six long stories that are mostly independent of each other with only a few interconnected threads. What they have in common is that they all take place in Goblin, where terrible things seem to keep happening.
Malerman and Stephen King are two of my most-read fiction writers.
The Living Dead by George A. Romero
This is my favorite zombie book, and I wish they would make it into a movie. It is incredibly long and I never wanted it to end. The plot spans decades and includes viewpoints from a cast of characters as well as the perspective of the zombies themselves. If you enjoy zombie fiction as much as I do, this is a must-read.
Pet Sematary by Stephen King
Many King books could have made it onto this list, but I ultimately chose this one because I hadn’t mentioned it before and because I do think it is one of his most frightening books. Some of King’s books are disturbing because of the overall content, but this one book manages to include what feel like jump scares—kind of amazing in a non-visual medium. I hope I don’t need to overemphasize that this is a disturbing book in which many living things are killed and/or die. The premise: A family moves into a new home and discoveres a pet graveyard in the woods that seems to have some kind of supernatural secret. When tragedy happens, the father decides to try to use the powers of the pet cemetery to fix everything. Spoiler alert: Everything goes horribly wrong.
Do you have any favorite spooky books for this time of year? Do you prefer pandemics, zombies, or vampires? I’d love to hear from you!
Other lists that include books with spooky vibes
Here’s the last post in the series, which links to the previous posts.
And believe me—I have watched many of them. Some other favorites: Train to Busan, Shaun of the Dead, The Girl with All the Gifts, Zombieland, and I Am Legend. I have of course also seen The Walking Dead, although I gave up after the Governor plot arc. I contend that the first season of that show is one of the best seasons of any show on television.