October Reading List

It's been a while since I've done a reading list, but I've been busily reading for months!  It just so happens that most of my reading choices have been a little on the macabre side.  I guess it's fortuitous that I've saved them all for October when we're all looking to get a little scared.
Read Alones:
Hell's Princess: The Mystery of Belle Gunness Butcher of Men by Harold Shechter

History is full of gruesome crimes, but the female serial killer is a rarer thing in the world of the morose.  I saw this book on the returns shelf at my library and picked it up out of curiosity.  After only a page or two I was hooked.  I took it home and finished it in less than two weeks.   I needed motive, I needed to know why and then I needed closure to it all.  I didn't really get all the answers I wanted from this book, but I would recommend it for any fellow enthusiasts of the history of the bizarre and disturbing.

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

I'm a longtime fan of Mr. Bradbury's work, particularly the Green Town, Illinois books.  I think I've read nearly everything he's written and this one was the first.  "For those who still dream and remember, for those yet to experience the hypnotic power of its dark poetry, step inside. The show is about to begin. Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show has come to Green Town, Illinois, to destroy every life touched by its strange and sinister mystery. The carnival rolls in sometime after midnight, ushering in Halloween a week early. A calliope’s shrill siren song beckons to all with a seductive promise of dreams and youth regained. Two boys will discover the secret of its smoke, mazes, and mirrors; two friends who will soon know all too well the heavy cost of wishes...and the stuff of nightmares." ~Summary from Barnes&Nobel

Read Alouds:

Doll Bones by Holly Black

This one I checked out for my oldest to read while we were on vacation.  Day one of laying on the beach, I pulled it out of my bag and started at chapter two where my daughter left off.  I couldn't put it down and didn't give it back for two weeks while I finished it.  She did get to read it eventually and we both enjoyed it and enjoyed discussing it.  Zach, Alice, and Poppy have been friends forever and they've always played a make believe game together with the bone china doll as their queen.  Now Zach is older and his father is pressuring him to give up make-believe for more mature things.  But they discover that this doll is haunted by the ghost of the little girl who cannot rest.  Together these three set off on one last adventure to bury the doll in its rightful grave.

Wait Til Helen Comes by Mary Downing Hahn

This one was an audio book that we checked out to listen to on our very long drive to Florida.  I think it needs to be said here that audio books are not cheating.  My youngest daughter really protested at times because she hates scary stories and we listened to it in the evenings.  As the story went on there was a lot of resolution and we were all glad we'd stuck it out to the end of the story.   "Molly and Michael aren't very happy about moving with their mother and her new husband into a converted church—and they particularly dislike their younger stepsister, Heather. If that's not bad enough, Heather starts talking to a ghost named Helen and warning Molly and Michael that Helen is coming for them."  Synopsis from Barnes and Nobel