Posts Tagged ‘E.T.A Hoffmann’
- In: Festive Occasions
- Comments Off on Halloween Reading: Quelle horreur!
Happy Halloween world! My treat to you: some recommendations on scary short stories. Read on…
Everyone needs a good (little) scare now and then – just to get the blood pumping. A nice safe scare is to be had for all ages in a ghoulish tale.
I’ll declare right now, I’m not super keen on horror, although dark fantasy I can cope with. I’ve read some Steven King, no Dean Koontz. But as a fourth or fifth grader I became hooked on what seemed at the time to be some very scary stories.
Do you like to read spooky stuff?
Neil Gaiman recently floated the idea of giving a book on Halloween. He’s calling it ‘All Hallow’s Read’: http://www.allhallowsread.com/
It made me recall those books that so captured my young imagination momentarily. I’m talking R.L. Stine and Richie Tankersley Cusick.
Here are two I remember vividly (the covers not the story lines):
Images courtesy of http://richietankersleycusick.com/
While I don’t seek out terrifying tales anymore, they do creep into my reading. If you are in the mood to be utterly freaked out, try these:
The Sandman by E.T.A Hoffmann
The Story of the Demoniac Pacheco by Jan Potocki
Note: both can be found in Fantastic Tales edited by Italo Calvino
Read well. Read often.
V.
(C) Copyright of the author. 2010.