As the seasons change and the nights draw in, there’s no better time to crack the spine of a new book (or two). And as we head towards Halloween, we’re asking – what’s your favourite scary story? In fact, what’s your favourite scary story from within the Booker Library (the 600+ books that have been longlisted or shortlisted for our prizes over the past 54 years)?
Perhaps you enjoy a classic horror, with plenty of jump scares, or maybe you’re one for a pacy psychological thriller. Perhaps you’re partial to a ghost or two, or maybe you you prefer terrorising yourself with a dystopian or post-apocalyptic vision that explores a darker side of the humanity.
Below, please tell us about the stories from within the Booker archives that have chilled you to the bone, along with a line or two describing why. We’ll feature the best recommendations within an article on the Booker Prizes website, just in time for Halloween.
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters - genuinely chilling. And I know an almost identical house built by the same architect: used to spend time there as a kid.
Hi Sharon, thank you for your recommendation! We'd love to use it in our article. Could you tell us a little more on why you found it 'genuinely chilling'?
While there are many but I would like to mention Penelope Fitzgerald's The Bookshop. Growing up in the world of literature, we all have dreamt about opening a bookshop but what if that dream comes true? As you're finally trying to enjoy that life, the place where you've opened comes to life. This book was able to make me rethink about that dream. A must read!
Hi Chittajit, what a great recommendation - a classic ghost story! Can we ask what you found scary about The Bookshop? We'd love to add it to our article.
The most terrifying place to be was inside the mind of the Butcher Boy, so brilliantly created for us by Patrick McCabe. Such a heartbreaking view of an abused child slipping from reality and being overcome by mental illness. Part of the horror was not being able to reach him and save him and his victim.
Hi Anna, thank you for your recommendation - Cursed Bunny ticks all the Halloween boxes, doesn't it! Were there any of the stories you particularly loved? We'd love to add the detail to our article!
I'd say Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung (shortlist for International Booker Prize 2022) has some spine-chilling short stories, as well as some more absurd ones. I love "The Head", in which an (evil?) head pops out of someone's toilet one day. The short story "Cursed Bunny" is absolutely the scariest of them all.
For me, it would be The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, a book that exposes the brutality of conflict in Sri Lanka, a country close to my own home and explores the fragility of life. The scariest bit was the fact that the protagonist was dead but still not really dead. Ugh, what strife and agony!
I was dismayed to see Joyce Carol Oates hasn't won the Booker. May I nevertheless nominate a short story of hers as the most frightening? "Where are you Going, Where have you Been? " I'm still haunted by Connie's compulsion to go off Arnold Friend who seems not to have human feet.
I would like to recomend any short story from Mariana Enriquez, she was short listed for the 2021 international book award . Her book "The things we lost on the fire" has a short story named Adela´s house. This story is the draft for her major novel "Our share of night", another truly mad spooky story.
The Gate of Angels by Penelope Fitzgerald contains a terrific ghost story, told by a character based on M R James. There’s an unreal, nightmare-like quality to it, with terrible visions described in very matter-of-fact terms. It’s wonderfully unsettling.
Some of The scaring part is That I as a reader know that there are things going on which i do not fully understand and which the story do not explain. The story is Unpredictable, goes into different directions, but returns every time back to the two main stories
The language is little emotional, Even when terrifying things happen, and that creates a tension.
Pat Barker’s historical "Regeneration Trilogy" in its accounts of young men subjected helplessly to the physical and psychological horrors of WWI is pretty darn chilling. Barker takes into account how political practitioners in WWI pulled all the strings, sending hundreds of thousands to certain death or lifelong injury in a war of unfathomable magnitude. In "Regeneration," her first volume, " she describes how shell shock shattered soldiers and, scariest of all, how they were treated and then sent back to the muddy, bloody front as a matter of policy. What a nightmare. Many of these men were sexually complex, highly sensitive individuals — war poets feature prominently — whose masculinity should never have been called into question, but it was, by themselves and others. It’s also worth noting that the covers to the first English editions of "Regeneration" and "The Eye in the Door" are some of the eeriest.
The scariest thing in the Booker Prize history is that that unbelievably awful scribble by Bernadine Everisto even made it to the shortlist, let alone that it actually won!
a veces despierto temblando. ( sometimes ia wake up trembling) by Ximena Santaolalla. a fictional true story of the genocide of the Indians in Guatemala written by a true artist.
I'm not sure if he won the booker prize but The Rats by James Herbert is the scariest book I've read . The thought of them eating you terrifies me . Lord of the flies terrified me as a child .
Surely Lincoln in the Bardo? Some of the more unsettling moments are potentially spoilers, but a book set in a graveyard and purgatory. More ghosts than I can remember! Yes, a beautiful poignant book for many reasons, and you’d struggle to call it a ghost story, but some genuinely chilling, tragic, and redemptive moments also.
Shena Mackay is one of my favourite authors. Her books are short but really pack a lot in them. The Orchard on Fire was the first of hers I read. The protagonist, April is the epitome of childhood innocence and you really feel for her when people who she trusted let her down. I think it's so scary that April's naivety could be pounced on, taken advantage of in a small village with parents not realising what is happening to their own daughter. However, it is a timeless tale and despite its 1950's setting there are echoes of what happens to vulnerable children today.
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters - genuinely chilling. And I know an almost identical house built by the same architect: used to spend time there as a kid.
Hi Sharon, thank you for your recommendation! We'd love to use it in our article. Could you tell us a little more on why you found it 'genuinely chilling'?
While there are many but I would like to mention Penelope Fitzgerald's The Bookshop. Growing up in the world of literature, we all have dreamt about opening a bookshop but what if that dream comes true? As you're finally trying to enjoy that life, the place where you've opened comes to life. This book was able to make me rethink about that dream. A must read!
Hi Chittajit, what a great recommendation - a classic ghost story! Can we ask what you found scary about The Bookshop? We'd love to add it to our article.
The most terrifying place to be was inside the mind of the Butcher Boy, so brilliantly created for us by Patrick McCabe. Such a heartbreaking view of an abused child slipping from reality and being overcome by mental illness. Part of the horror was not being able to reach him and save him and his victim.
Thanks Christine - and great recommendation! We'd love to use this in our article.
Please do
Cursed Bunny by Chung, because it is a horror so visceral and unexpected. Like a different culture of Horror.
Hi Anna, thank you for your recommendation - Cursed Bunny ticks all the Halloween boxes, doesn't it! Were there any of the stories you particularly loved? We'd love to add the detail to our article!
I'd say Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung (shortlist for International Booker Prize 2022) has some spine-chilling short stories, as well as some more absurd ones. I love "The Head", in which an (evil?) head pops out of someone's toilet one day. The short story "Cursed Bunny" is absolutely the scariest of them all.
For me, it would be The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, a book that exposes the brutality of conflict in Sri Lanka, a country close to my own home and explores the fragility of life. The scariest bit was the fact that the protagonist was dead but still not really dead. Ugh, what strife and agony!
Thanks, Anagha, what a great book. We're so glad you enjoyed it and would love to add it to our article.
I was dismayed to see Joyce Carol Oates hasn't won the Booker. May I nevertheless nominate a short story of hers as the most frightening? "Where are you Going, Where have you Been? " I'm still haunted by Connie's compulsion to go off Arnold Friend who seems not to have human feet.
Love this discussion as I’m always looking for adult scary books and didn’t know where to find them!
I think Margaret Atwood's The Testaments is a contender.
Agreed! If you'd like to tell us what you loved about it - or indeed what scared you - we would love to include in our article!
I would like to recomend any short story from Mariana Enriquez, she was short listed for the 2021 international book award . Her book "The things we lost on the fire" has a short story named Adela´s house. This story is the draft for her major novel "Our share of night", another truly mad spooky story.
The Gate of Angels by Penelope Fitzgerald contains a terrific ghost story, told by a character based on M R James. There’s an unreal, nightmare-like quality to it, with terrible visions described in very matter-of-fact terms. It’s wonderfully unsettling.
What a great recommendation, thank you! We'd love to add this to our article.
Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin shortlisted in 2017. A surreal, weird, halllucinating and perfectly structured ghost story!
Thank you for your recommendation, EST! We'd love to include this - could you tell us what you loved - or what scared you - about Fever Dream?
Some of The scaring part is That I as a reader know that there are things going on which i do not fully understand and which the story do not explain. The story is Unpredictable, goes into different directions, but returns every time back to the two main stories
The language is little emotional, Even when terrifying things happen, and that creates a tension.
My scariest booker read is The Orchard on Fire by Shena Mackay - all is not well in a 1950's rural childhood.
Thank you for this Debra! If you'd like to tell us more about what affected you from the novel, we'd love to include in our article.
Pat Barker’s historical "Regeneration Trilogy" in its accounts of young men subjected helplessly to the physical and psychological horrors of WWI is pretty darn chilling. Barker takes into account how political practitioners in WWI pulled all the strings, sending hundreds of thousands to certain death or lifelong injury in a war of unfathomable magnitude. In "Regeneration," her first volume, " she describes how shell shock shattered soldiers and, scariest of all, how they were treated and then sent back to the muddy, bloody front as a matter of policy. What a nightmare. Many of these men were sexually complex, highly sensitive individuals — war poets feature prominently — whose masculinity should never have been called into question, but it was, by themselves and others. It’s also worth noting that the covers to the first English editions of "Regeneration" and "The Eye in the Door" are some of the eeriest.
Thanks Rebecca, and so brilliant it was, that The Ghost Road won the Booker in 1995! We'd love to include this in our article.
The scariest thing in the Booker Prize history is that that unbelievably awful scribble by Bernadine Everisto even made it to the shortlist, let alone that it actually won!
a veces despierto temblando. ( sometimes ia wake up trembling) by Ximena Santaolalla. a fictional true story of the genocide of the Indians in Guatemala written by a true artist.
I'm not sure if he won the booker prize but The Rats by James Herbert is the scariest book I've read . The thought of them eating you terrifies me . Lord of the flies terrified me as a child .
The Warehouse, an earlier short story by Joyce Carol Oates. The two young girls have never left my memory.
Surely Lincoln in the Bardo? Some of the more unsettling moments are potentially spoilers, but a book set in a graveyard and purgatory. More ghosts than I can remember! Yes, a beautiful poignant book for many reasons, and you’d struggle to call it a ghost story, but some genuinely chilling, tragic, and redemptive moments also.
Shena Mackay is one of my favourite authors. Her books are short but really pack a lot in them. The Orchard on Fire was the first of hers I read. The protagonist, April is the epitome of childhood innocence and you really feel for her when people who she trusted let her down. I think it's so scary that April's naivety could be pounced on, taken advantage of in a small village with parents not realising what is happening to their own daughter. However, it is a timeless tale and despite its 1950's setting there are echoes of what happens to vulnerable children today.