Friday Mood Recs: Six classic horror novels you should read
(Even if you don't read horror novels)
Last week I shared a bit about why I think it’s important to consider why we read in addition to considering what we like to read. I also shared some of the reasons I read beyond just finding books I enjoy. One of the main reasons I read is to make connections between books across time and space. I love considering how authors may have influenced each other’s work, as well as how fiction has influenced the way we think about humanity itself.
I don’t read a ton of horror, but I am very interested in literary horror from authors like Samanta Schweblin, Mariana Enriquez, and Victor LaValle. Horror, whether it’s more literary or popular genre fiction, is one of the best genres for exploring the darker side of the human condition. Horror is a way to examine the things that haunt us in physical form. If you want to go deeper into the power of this genre, I recommend listening to this episode of Novel Pairings we recorded with one of my favorite horror novel advocates and this recent episode of
’s 10 Things to Tell You.Today I’m sharing a handful of classic and horror (and horror adjacent) novels that—in my opinion—have significantly impacted literature. You don’t need to be a horror reader to read these books. They’re either older and therefore not too scary anymore or they’re books that use horror conventions but don’t include jump scares. If you’re a reader of literary fiction, these books will contain a lot that you recognize—ideas and styles that have seeped outside of the genre and into more mainstream books.
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