If you’ve been following along on our October journey this month you know we’ve been making daily All Hallow’s Read book suggestions for everyone in your life, so you can be prepared to terrify all your loved (or loathed!) ones during the week of Halloween. (And if you need a specific suggestion, please feel free to ask away! Some of our staff are practically human scary-book encyclopedias.)
We’re dying to know what you horror-fiction folks have planned for our favorite new holiday tradition! Let us know in the comments what you’re doing or what books you’re gifting for All Hallow’s Read this year!
In the spirit of giving great literary scares and horror fare, we here at the DT offices want to extend our holiday book-giving to include our readers. We’ve been excited to pick out books for our own family and friends, but it wouldn’t be complete if we didn’t get to celebrate All Hallow’s Read with the folks who make this website such a fun venture! We’ll select people at random from the comments on this post to receive some fantastic fiction, as our All Hallow’s Read gift to you.
One of our favorite authors around here is Bryan Smith. His work has always been a treat to those of us who like our horror bloody, fast paced, and well written. So we’re giving away two copies of his new e-book, Kayla and the Devil an urban fantasy novel we know you’ll enjoy.
If you’ve been paying close attention to our Facebook and Twitter feeds, you’ll know the amount of love and respect we have for Ronald Malfi. And as we’ve always intended to bring you only the best in horror, we’re going to give away two e-book copies of his new novella, Borealis – a haunting and beautiful read that shook us to the core.
When it comes to Paranormal Romance and Erotic Horror, Melissa Ecker’s Giving Up The Ghost delivers in spades. Her prose is tight, her characters are immediately memorable, and her love scenes mind-numbingly intense. Apart from her prowess in writing erotic fare, she’s also more than capable of scaring the pants off of her readers. We’re going to give this e-book to two of you, along with the chance to get scared stiff. (I had to say it…)
Earlier this year, Colum reviewed 3 fantastic new novellas from Thunderstorm books’ Elemental series. We’ve got 2 signed bundles of those little books to give away: Kelli Owen’s The Neightborhood, Bob Ford’s Samson and Denial, and Mary SanGiovanni’s For Emmy. You’ll love them as much as we did!
Dreadful Tales is also going to give away a bundle consisting of 4 hardcover copies of Locke and Key by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez. Yep. You heard that right. One lucky person is going to receive a complete set of Volumes 1 – 4 (Welcome to Lovecraft, Headgames, Crown Of Shadows, and Keys to the Kingdom.) Why? Because we love our readers!
So let us know your plans in the comments! Or even just drop in to say hi. We can’t wait to share so many awesome books with you folks! The lucky giftees will be chosen at random from the commenters and announced next Saturday to kick off Halloween weekend…stay tuned!
All Hallow’s Read is a book-giving tradition thought up by author Neil Gaiman. We’re making book suggestions all month long in case you need ideas!
Dreadful Tales 
Very cool, guys. BOREALIS is fantastic! And I’ve heard nothing but good things about Bryan’s new one, too. All Hallows Read rocks. 🙂
I am creating a horror chamber in my high school library with a coffin full of horror, occult, supernatural, etc books. My book club has been making zombie heads all week that we’ll suspend from the ceiling and have move up and down (using a hidden oscillating fan). It won’t be done until tomorrow and I’ll probably post pictures. Also, on Halloween, anyone who checks out a book will get candy.
A video of the chamber: http://youtu.be/_Ud4Pivg-AU
Very cool!
I work in a public library, and I haven’t heard of anyone in the county system putting together even a decent book display, let alone something as creative as this.
Kudos!
Locke and Key is amazing! I think for a con next year I will go as Kinsey.
Currently reading “Teeth”, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, and “Coldheart Canyon” by Clive Barker. Trying to make a point of getting a copy of Tobin Elliot’s “Vanishing Hope” and Jonathan Wood’s “No Hero” before the month is out.
Two books I plan on reading (and hopefully finishing by Hallowe’en) are “Zombiality”, an anthology edited by Bill Tucker, and “The Great God Pan” by Arthur Machen.
I saved half the year & bought bulk paperback copies of American Gods & The Graveyard Book to hand out at the local library on Halloween. I hope a lot of people show. Also going to be reading Odd & The Frost Giant to kids who want to stay around a bit. I would love to win the Locke & Key books. I’ve heard so much about it & haven’t been able to get it yet because of the saving for Neil Gaimans books to hand out. Am a huge fan of Gabs art & Joe hills writing.
I will be handing out books with my husband. We’ve gathered quite a collection to give away this year everything from the complete children’s version of grimm fairy tales to The Virtigo Book of Ghost Stories to cowboys vs aliens. Really looking forward to it. Happy Halloween.
I will he babysitting for the families around my neighbor hood Which means I get to read all night long to so great kids. I have all age appropriate books Ready to be brought out & every kid gets to pick whatever they want. 🙂 until I’m all out of giveaway books. then it’s group reading if they feel like it. Oh & some great healthy snacks like turkey/lettuce wraps. 🙂
Locke & Key is a great way to get into graphic novels for people who love horror/supernatural novels!!!
I was given a wonderful book called Frankenstein makes a sandwich. And I plan to read it AGAIN with my 3 kids!
As always, a killer selection from you fine folks. I’m giving away a new original poem on my blog, starting October 24th. Of course, my ebook FEAR IN WORDS VOLUME II – THE POEMS is completely free at Smashwords, so anyone interested can just snag a copy there. If that’s not enough, I’m running a contest with a bunch of other fine horror authors called the Coffin Hop. It’s a blog tour, so not only can people win great books by indie and traditionally published authors, there’s all sorts of other prizes. My part of the prize is 13 copies of my first ebook, FEAR IN WORDS VOLUME I – THE STORIES (look for the review on this very site).
As for Halloween, I’ll be running around with kiddo getting her loaded up with candy (and hopefully books), and I hope to bring a few books that I no longer need/want out with me for anyone who’d like one.
Wow. Lots of great stuff up for grabs. Gonna be tearing into my signed copy of The Neightborhood by Kelli Owen next week. Thanks again, by the way.
As for Halloween plans, I think I’ll be ditching the whole handing-out-candy routine, since so few kids bother walking the block I’m on anymore. So I’ll be checking out what my two-year-old niece is doing for her first trick-or-treat session. She’s in full-on princess mode the last couple months, so I’m guessing that’ll be her costume. Us grownups will probably be her royal court as we take her about.
I have no costume this year, so if I’m out to a party, I’m gonna have to Macgyver something this week.
I have a couple of Tim Curran books I’m going to dig into. Finally going to read some Jeff Strand, too.
Currently reading Heart Shaped Box, in the spirit of the Holi-deads.
Me too! This is one of my all-time favorite ghost stories.
rock out with your locke out.
October is a big book month for me. First off I am re-reading House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski which I read every October since it came out.
I am also reading the new Clive Barker book Absolute Midnight. Which is the third in his Abarat series. Speaking of Clive Barker, I recently got my 9 yo nephew into reading for fun by introducing him to the Locke and Key comic. So for Halloween I acquired a First Edition Hardcover of Clive Barkers Thief of Always. It his first “real” novel and he loves it.
Finally, another Halloween staple, on Halloween night my friends and I gather and I read aloud Mark Z. Danielewski’s Fifty Year Sword. Phew…
Anyone not reading Locke and Key should remedy this error immediately.
I’ve been running a series on my blog this week called” Ten Essential October Reads,” so please check that out for some Halloween reading recommendations. I’m following it up next week with” Ten Essential October Comics.” http://theoctobercountry.wordpress.com
Just finished reading Joe Hill’s “Heart-Shaped Box” and fell in love with his writing. Cannot wait to dive into his other stuff.
I don’t have a lot of trick-or-treaters in my apartment complex, so next year I’m thinking about grabbing a bunch of horror comics from Free Comic Book Day, saving them up and giving those out. It’s my plan for a fiscally responsible All Hallow’s Read!
Or if I get off unemployment some time in the future, another option is to buy a lot or selections of “Goosebumps” books from eBay. If you buy the right lot the books are only $1 or so. As someone who grew up with R.L. Stine, I would love to pass on my love of reading.
I am a huge Joe Hill fan – have read both Horns and Heart-Shaped Box and Locke and Key would be a fantastic addition to my bookshelf.
My Halloween reading plans include finishing Valley of the Scarecrow by Gord Rollo and I think I’m also in the mood for some Bryan Smith after that. Been itching on reading the Dark Ones for a while now.
My plan is twofold —
First, add to the list of awesomeness I’ve read so far this month:
How to Rescue a Dead Princess by Jeff Strand
Drain Bamage, a short story also by Jeff Strand
Bloodrush by Bryan Smith
Scavengers by Nate Southard
It Drinks Blood by J F Gonzalez
I’m batting 1.000 on my picks so far!
Second, to go back and comment on the fine recommendations made here this month. I’ve either already got, already read, borrowed from the library or gone and purchased almost all of the fiction titles listed so far.
(Actually, I guess proper suck-up protocol would have been to list that as FIRST!)
Wow … Great book selection! I’ve been trying to read horrors, but haven’t found anything crazy scary yet. 😦
I would so love to win the Locke & Key set! What a great idea!
I am planning on reading The Graveyard Book. Seems like the right time of year for it.
For All Hallow’s Read, I sent my brother a copy of my favorite thriller read this year, The Last Child by John Hart (which won the Edgar Allen Poe award in 2010). I also bought two copies of it at a local bookstore, and have given them away via random “drawing” to those who wanted to enter via Twitter or FB (I draw the second name in the morning!)…I’ll be getting those in the mail this weekend so the two lucky readers should have a thrilling suspense to indulge in when Halloween gets here.
Looking forward to making this an annual tradition!
I do want to remedy the fact that I’ve read no Locke and Key! I plan to re-read The Graveyard Book. Deliciously creepy.
I’ll be helping to create and haunt a ‘haunted house’ in a tobacco barn on Bob Evans Farm (yes, the restaurant chain Bob Evans). I usually do more with that than I am this year but I’m still recovering from a shoulder rebuild.
I may write a horror short for my blog if I have the time and will probably read one of the horror books on my shelves. I still have a Locke & Key to finish and something by Douglas Clegg
Starting with Locke and Key since I haven’t gotten around to reading it. After that, I’m going with what little of Neil Gaiman’s works I haven’t read, I’m excited to read Stardust & American Gods. 😀 And maybe some Lovecraft, haven’t decided yet. All to some delightfully creepy music, of course.
Oh, this will be useful in picking what to give my friends! 😀
I found a copy of Dracula on my bookshelf, so that’s definitely being forced onto a friend.
I’m currently teaching a university-level course on Canadian short fiction, and I have cunningly arranged the syllabus so that we’ll be doing three spooky stories by L. M. Montgomery, Robertson Davies, and Erick McCormack just before Hallowe’en. In my other class (on popular literature), we’ll be discussing Watchmen, which contains elements of horror, on Hallowe’en itself; we’ve already covered Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, W. W. Jacobs, and Stephen King, not to mention the deliciously Gothic-flavoured The Hound of the Baskervilles. Hallowe’en will simply be the culmination of all the creepiness for my pop-lit students. I consider it my solemn duty to get my students reading works that will have them afraid to sleep at night.
I want to read Locke and Key so bad! I have heard such amazing things about it! As for All Hallow’s Read, I am going to give a friend a mine who is interested in short stories a copy of Neil Gaiman’s Fragile Things, because of a very creepy/wonderful story called “October in the Chair”. Love it!
Myself and my fiancée are hosting a Halloween party next weekend.
I’m going to give every person who attends one of my scary/horror themed books.
I have quite the collection as well, so plenty of choice.
And each will be tailored to creep out the receiver, just enough to make them too scared to turn off the light at bedtime ^__^
I read horror sparingly, though a lot of fiction I like certainly has some elements, & I recently read some new (to me) books, shelved as horror, which immediately became favorites: Christopher Moore’s vampire set, starting with Bloodsucking Fiends (A Love Story).
I also just got caught up on The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. Enjoy those so much – he just keeps getting better!
I’m going to stay in reading H.P Lovecraft until I fall asleep like I always do for Halloween but this year were putting up a graveyard for the neighborhood kiddies to play in! Might see if I can convince my sister to let me dye the cat black for the evening :p Maybe dress him as Cthulu so when he sits in the window and his eyes reflect the outside lights and glow eerily it’ll be twice as scary.
exciting!
My All Hallow’s plans involve reading through Guillermo del Toro’s The Strain trilogy once more, then attending a zombie-apocalypse LARP called Dystopia Rising instead of the usual Halloween parties and such. Killing zombies out in the wilderness along with some of my best friends seems like the best option.
I’ve featured some Halloweeny books on my youth book blog.
http://dianasamazingbookadventures.blogspot.com/
Children’s books, YA -even some book and recipes combinations. Bone soup anyone?
The Graveyard Book, I Am Not A Serial Killer, Marsipity.
A really cool Halloween info book for kids (well, anybody really) is “Witches, Pumpkins, & Grinning Ghosts” by Edna Barth. It tells the history and various cultural practices throughout Halloween’s evolution. Even some activity ideas. It’s pretty cool.
Excellent !!!!!
I was browsing the horror section of the bookstore, lamenting the lack of variety in horror titles. Spread out before me was a wide selection of vampire and zombie fiction and little else. A stood there, arms crossed and doing my best to exude and air of arrogant pissed-offed-ness. I KNEW this horror section was crap and I wanted everyone around me to know that I wasn’t impressed.
No one was paying attention.
I gave up putting on airs, and took a closer look. Crammed between the vampires and the zompocalypse books I found a slim-ish volume with Tobe Hooper’s name on it. Midnight Movie. I have yet to read Guillermo Del Toro’s novel, or really any book written by a filmmaker I like. But I took Midnight Movie home with me, and promptly forgot all about it.
It was just a few days ago I finished reading The Monster of Florence, a true crime book co-written by one of my favourite authors. I gave it a day to sink in, an unbelievable tale of murder and conspiracy that got Douglas Preston kicked out of Italy. I was browsing my roommate’s bookshelf for something new, thought I might take another stab at Foucault’s Pendulum, when I remembered Midnight Movie.
I’ve only just started it, but it’s perfect for the season. A book about a horror movie that infects people with some kind of crazy disease, co-authored by the man who gave us The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Yes! Thank you. I had read about that one a few days ago, but forgot to put it on my wish list. Now I see the library has a couple of copies and it’s on request!
Scary books…Dean Koontz, Stephen King……just about any of these will give nightmares.
I’ve started miss peregrine’s home for peculiar children, and I must say the first three chapters have been a pleasantly unpleasant read. Thanks for the recommendation. Happy hallowreading. Cheers!
House of Leaves by Mark Daneilewski. The last time I read this book I woke up in the middle of the night in pitch blackness thinking my house was a never-ending void of darkness and ran full-tilt smack into my bedroom wall trying to escape. That is one SCARY book.
I feel very lucky to have found this. Many excellent reading selections to sink my teeth into.
For me it’s an oldie but goodie … “Salem’s Lot.” I still all these years later remember the description of the calluses on his feet, how that was just pictured in my mind so very clearly, what a huge impact that was for me. What better way to “kill” time between trick-r-treaters than to re-read Salem’s Lot!
Wow, so many great books! Looks like I’m going to have to pick up Melissa Ecker’s Giving Up The Ghost.
Had I not just read it, I’d go with “Dead Beat,” book 7 in the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. Zombies, vampires, crazy faeries… not the scariest book I’ve read, but thoroughly epic and in the spirit of the season.
I’m sending a good friend copies of Stephen King’s Cell and Caitlin R. Kiernan’s Silk for All Hallow’s Read. She sent me Dark Harvest by Norman Partridge, which I can’t wait to read!
Halloween’s not much of a thing in Australia, so I’ll probably just end up sitting around reading Thomas Ligotti or Lovecraft stories. I’m a student, so I really don’t have the money to buy heaps of books, like some admirable commenters. I’ll just buy a couple, for friends and my girlfriend. I’m thinking some Neil Gaiman for my girlfriend, she hasn’t really read much of his stuff. Other than that, maybe some Shirley Jackson, or possibly Joe Hill, if his novels are anywhere near as good as Locke and Key (I don’t wanna get the beginning of a series, and I sure as hell can’t afford four TPBs.
I’m from Austria where Halloween itself is not that big a thing (yet). But I plan on telling my nephews and nieces some scary stories to make up for that. 😉
Living in France makes it hard to celebrate Halloween since the French don’t really celebrate it. But as usual, I have 3 blus to watch, this year:
– something classic: Halloween II
– something in my childhood: Monster Squad
– something new: Stake Land
I am in love with this all hallows read idea!
Wow, i wanted to read the Locke and Key for quite a while. What you’re doing here is brilliant!
I’m going on a friend’s All Hallows birthday party in a steam-punk costume.
halloween is always reserved for some lovecraft
I think I’ll be settled in with Heart Beast by Tanith Lee, and An American Werewolf in London on the television. Or Lair of the White Worm, if I can find it.
I’m FINALLY launching my horror review site (bloodybookish.com)! No better time of year for it, right? I’m also taking part in the Coffin Hop (coffinhop.blogspot.com)
Yes, please! I’d love to read most of the featured books here!
No firm plans for me yet, but it definitely involves Joe Hill!
Though not all horror, I really enjoyed the stories in 20th Century Ghost.
I got “I’ll be watching you” by CHarles de LInt. EH so far so I hope I get something more exciting for you guys. 🙂
I’m still building up my horror novel collection, meaning I want to get some good reads in before launching my All Hallow’s Read. That being said–someone is getting Heart-Shaped Box FOR SURE!
I’m reading “Horns” by Joe Hill and then “Revenge Flick” and “Animosity” by James Newman when that’s done.
I’ll be going to a fright night at a farm surrounded by woods! Lots of spooks and scares 🙂
Plan to read a lot of Lovecraft this month too!
Last weekend did a All Hallows Read book exchange with some friends. I gave away Blatty’s The Exorcist, Graphic Novel adaptations for Richard Mathesons Hell House and Kings American Vampire. I received Apocalypse of the Dead by Joe McKinney and The Art of Zombie Warfare by Scott Kenemore. Also plan on giving away some Locke and Key TPB to the Nephews on Halloween.
There are some titles there that I still lust after. You have some wonderful friends!
I just found out about All Hallow’s Read. If anyone is interested Ken Nesbitt (award winning children’s poet/author) has been has been posting 31 Days of funny spooky/monster poems on his facebook page.
I’ll be giving out small printed copies of Oscar Wilde’s “The Canterville Ghost” with my candy on Halloween, and I’ve introduced my fiancé to the super-creepy audiobook of Neil Gaiman’s “Coraline.” It takes a lot of ink to print up 30 or so copies of the Wilde story, but it’s worth it to introduce the text to new readers. Next year I plan to find even more scary stories that are in the public domain and have a variety to offer.
We’d like to send a HUGE thanks go out to everyone who commented about their awesome ALL HALLOW’S READ plans!
We’re slowly sifting through all of the comments (again) and throwing everyone’s names in a hat or hat-like name-holding receptacle… OF DOOM!
We’ll let you know who the lucky recipients of these awesome gifts are on Friday evening, possibly Saturday morning (so keep an eye out!)
Again, THANK YOU to all of those who chose to share with us! Keep on coming back to DT, and have a safe and happy Halloween!!
I am in the process of reading “The Passage” by Justin Cronin and “What the Night Knows” by Dean Koontz.
I’ll be attending a Hallow’s Eve book swap, each of us bringing book(s) to trade and a deadly spirit or castle concoction…costumes optional. My treasures will include several Peter Straub novels, Secret Samhain Sangria and Butterscotched Druid Drops. Cheers!
That sounds amazing! I assume my invitation got lost in the mail……