Thrills and chills for Halloween reading

REVIEWS BY KATIE LEWIS

Halloween is an annual creepfest when costumed children—and delusional grown-ups—skulk down neighborhood streets and beg for candy. Several surreal and fantastic new books will give over-the-hill adults another reason to stay home on the 31st—besides raiding the candy supplies.

Mary Ann Winkowski, consultant to CBS's "Ghost Whisperer," sees dead people—and willingly talks with them. She helps disruptive spirits move on from their earthbound states. In the intriguing When Ghosts Speak, Winkowski looks into humanity, the afterlife and the relationship between the two. One part spooky, one part inspirational and all-around fascinating, it makes for a spine-tingling read.


Mary Shelley's Frankenstein has been frightening readers for 200 years, and Susan Tyler Hitchcock explores the journey in Frankenstein: A Cultural History. Hitchcock explains the story's lasting relevance by detailing its evolution from book to big screen (and to comics, costumes, TV shows, tea towels, etc.).


Eric Nuzum drank his own blood as part of his research for The Dead Travel Fast: Stalking Vampires from Nosferatu to Count Chocula—that's all you need to know. Nuzum feeds our vampire obsession—pointing out, for example, that there are 605 vampire movies in existence—with his first-hand impressions of Romanian tours, Vegas reviews and the truth of Dracula's origins.


Cherie Priest's supernatural Southern gothic story Not Flesh Nor Feathers picks up where her first two books starring psychic Eden Moore (Wings to the Kingdom and Four and Twenty Blackbirds) left off. This one has all the elements of a good ghost story: family secrets, mysterious disappearances and Tennessee River zombies attacking the town. Well-written, quick paced and detailed, every page is a shivering delight.


In Sarah Langan's second novel, The Missing, Corpus Christi is plagued by a terrifying mystery in the woods. Children are missing, bones and blood are everywhere and townspeople are coming down with a strange illness. Langan has crafted a grisly horror story that will keep you out of the woods for years to come.


Brave souls who are excited by creaking floorboards and intrigued by death will want to be sure to pick up The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 2007, edited by BookPage contributor Gavin J. Grant, along with Kelly Link and Ellen Datlow. The 20th annual collection is composed of 2006's best stories and essays, some by established writers such as Joyce Carol Oates, Charles de Lint and Chuck Palahniuk, and others by promising newcomers. A great starting point for those new to the genre as well as a package of the best out there, this anthology must be read in broad daylight—before the lost souls begin wailing.


Cutting-edge carving designs

Tom Nardone, creator of the website ExtremePumpkins.com, is out to prove there's no such thing as a friendly ghost. His pumpkin-carving designs are disgusting, gruesome and, more often than not, bloody. And we mean very bloody. Extreme Pumpkins: Diabolical Do-It-Yourself Designs to Amuse Your Friends and Scare Your Neighbors is not a Martha Stewart guide to Halloween decorating. Instead, Nardone uses power tools, fake blood and kerosene to jerk Halloween back to the fearful occasion it once was. Adults will recoil in horror while kids will be both grossed-out and delighted by the lengths to which he travels.

Twenty designs are featured in the book—including the cannibal pumpkin and the puking pumpkin—and many more are on Nardone's website. If you're ready to go beyond the usual lopsided jack-o-lantern grin, Extreme Pumpkins will help you shock even the most jaded trick-or-treaters.

    Extreme Pumpkins: Diabolical Do-It-Yourself Designs to Amuse Your Friends and Scare Your Neighbors
    By Tom Nardone
    Home, $13.95
    96 pages
    ISBN 9781557885227

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Katie Lewis' favorite costume—a headless butler—has been retired.

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