Devil’s Dream by Madison Smartt Bell
November 2009, Pantheon
Bell’s novel about the Civil War experiences of General Nathan Bedford Forrest brings one of history’s most gifted—and controversial—wartime leaders to life. Look for a Q&A with Madison Smartt Bell on BookPage.com later this month.
At dusk they gathered around a campfire Ginral Jerry had built in the lee of a snowbank, which did something, though not exactly enough, to cut the bitter rising wind. Forrest sat on a tripod camp stool, his long arms wrapped around his knees, reflected firelight flickering from the deep hollow of his eyes. Though he was in his shirtsleeves he didn’t seem to feel the cold. Is he even human? Henri thought.
How did you come to work in the bookselling business?
Chris Baty, a freelance writer from San Francisco, named November 
The publication earlier this month of The Red Book, Carl Jung’s famous, near-mythic journal that has, until now, been seen by only a few dozen people, is a publishing coup, an incredibly valuable revelation for Jung’s followers and a hugely important addition to the history of modern psychology and psychoanalysis. The book itself is remarkable, big (12″ x 15 ¾”), heavy (8.8 lbs!) and printed on thick, ivory coated stock. It’s an exact facsimile of the original that Jung worked on for 16 years, between 1914 and 1930. (The book is also expensive, with a suggested retail price of $195.)
Variety
Mo Hayder’s The Devil of Nanking is more about the horrors that people do to one another rather than anything supernatural—but that just makes it all the more terrifying. The story of a troubled British woman who goes to Japan in pursuit of a rare film clip from the 1937 Nanking massacre finds herself on the wrong side of the Japanese yazuka. In 
If it’s a ghost story you’re looking for, look no further than Australian writer John Harwood’s The Ghost Writer. Unsettling, sleep-with-the-lights-on suspense is combined with a nod to the Victorian ghost story as a young Australian man goes to England to investigate his mother’s mysterious past. I 
It was hard to choose one Stephen King book, but for me, Skeleton Crew is the most nightmare-inducing of his works. Possibly because of the terrifying cannibalism story, possibly because of the creepy monkey on the cover, drawn from one of the collection’s most frightening tales, possibly because I read it first at the tender age of 12 and couldn’t go to sleep while the book was in the room with me…I could go on, but read it yourself and you’ll find plenty of reasons to shiver (it also contains the novella “The Mist”).
Scott Smith’s The Ruins is another spooky Halloween selection. Smith is a master at creating an atmosphere of dread—you just know nothing good is going to happen to the characters, but you can’t stop reading. As he told us in an 
When I sat down to interview Jessica Verday at Davis-Kidd bookstore in Nashville, I hoped to hear juicy details about how she came to write a paranormal teen romance inspired by The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Well, I got that info (
