Horror

  • Horror: What We Bring Back From the Woods

    I love the way horror novels are often tied to a specific, vividly rendered place: a scary house, a sinister hospital, a remote stretch of woods. Today I’m drilling down on that last one, with a few horror novels where characters bring something unexpected back from their wilderness adventures. These novels also share a focus… Continue reading

  • Horror movies to stream this Halloween weekend

    Halloween weekend is upon us! If you’re looking to cozy up with a frightful movie marathon, we’ve got you covered with some streaming scaries – all free to access with your library card, no need to even leave home. (Audience note: most of these films are for adult audiences; please use discretion if watching with… Continue reading

  • Horror Comes Home

    Alright, it’s spooky season people! Horror has a long tradition of scary houses and liminal spaces, and this year’s horror novels feature a great slate of haunted properties: from a former plantation in the American South to a condo in Chicago and cabin in Colorado, from an ancestral home in an historic England-like country to… Continue reading

  • A guide to exploring new genres

    Each year, groups of librarians from across the country hole up in a room (this year, a virtual room) to discuss and select the best books from the year before. The Notable Books List features literary fiction, nonfiction, and poetry; the Listen List is all about outstanding audiobooks; and The Reading List, which I want… Continue reading

  • Christmas Horror!

    Ah, Christmas! A magical time filled with colored lights, falling snow, and visits from old St Nick. Yet colored lights can’t hide the fact that each day it gets darker earlier and stays dark longer. Falling snow is awfully good at making footprints look strangely shaped or just covering them up all together. And isn’t… Continue reading

  • Vampires, Possession, and … Elk? It’s Horror Season!

    Darkness encroaches! This year’s horror novels bring us several takes on possession, some very creepy homes, vampires, and even a vengeful elk spirit. So make a hot beverage, grab a blanket, and settle in on the couch as you prepare to feel a frisson of fear from an outstanding recent horror novel. The Only Good… Continue reading

  • Horrorfest on Kanopy

    For those of us finding ourselves spending extra time with housemates or family, horror movie marathons are an excellent way to pass the days. If you’ve exhausted the movie options on your go-to streaming subscription service, Kanopy has an incredible selection of films that are free to access with your library card. Here are a… Continue reading

  • Stay-at-Home Drive-In Movie Madness!!

    After regular movie theaters have suspended operations, many couples and families have rediscovered Drive-In Movie Theaters, where social distancing is a standard feature! My sister is a drive-in movie buff, and so she and her husband love to go to the Blue Fox Drive-In up on Oak Harbor, one of five still running in our… Continue reading

  • It’s Horror Season

    It’s Horror Season

    As the weather turns chill and the darkness creeps earlier and earlier, it’s time to stay inside with a scary read. From a family jumping through alarming hoops to get an inheritance, to two variations on the creepy haunted house, monsters lurking at the window, and much more, there’s something to spook everyone. The Silent… Continue reading

  • Longer nights: Stranger tales

    You can feel it in the air, can’t you: Autumn is just around  the corner, and here at the library that means gathering around to hear some spooky stories. Once again this Fall, we’ll be presenting our ‘Ales from the Crypt spooky story time in bars around town (visit the Booktoberfest page soon for details,… Continue reading

  • The best of genre reading in 2018

    Coordinated by the American Library Association, each year a group of librarians from across the country form The Reading List Council with the goal to identify the year’s best books across eight genres. Here are the 2019 winners (for books published in 2018) in Adrenaline, Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Horror, Mystery, Romance, Science Fiction, and Women’s… Continue reading

  • Friday the 13th: Stream the Screams

    It’s Friday the 13th, which always makes me want to curl up with a good horror flick…or even a bad one. But I’m sure I’m not the only one, and DVD wait lists can sometimes crush those plans…however with our streaming services a horror flick is just a click away with your library card. Want… Continue reading

  • Le Guin, Allende, Bradbury & More, This Spring at Thrilling Tales!

    This Spring Thrilling Tales, the library’s popular story time for grown ups, is branching out with new monthly evening events in addition to our regular lunch hour gatherings. Now in its 15th year, the program celebrates the joy of story with live readings of compelling, intriguing, wondrous and suspenseful stories. Here’s what’s coming up in the… Continue reading

  • Five horror novels to read now

    Five horror novels to read now

    Why wait until everyone else is looking for ghost stories and horror to enjoy the gothic, the ghoulish and the ghastly? We see a big uptick in horror readers in October, but YOU can get ahead of the curve by diving into horror novels right now, mid April, when the days are getting longer (sunset… Continue reading

  • A genre reading list for library insiders

    Chances are some of you haven’t heard of ALA’s Reading List Council, but trust me on this one: Their annual list of top books in several genres is a book lover’s gem. They pick the best in eight genres — including mystery, science fiction, and adrenaline (read: suspense/heart-thumping-page-turner) for adult readers. Librarians love that the Reading List is… Continue reading

  • Lovecraft Revisited

    Confession: I have never read anything by legendary horror/fantasy writer H.P. Lovecraft. And I am unlikely to do so going forward. What I have been doing is reading a bunch of books inspired by Lovecraft. I’m sure that there are references and nuances I’m missing, but I’ve really been enjoying these books on their own… Continue reading

  • Page to Screen: Never mind The Dark Tower – here comes IT!

    Okay, so the new film adaptation of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series wasn’t quite what we’d hoped for. Many fans of the books feel the film entirely missed the mark, while newcomers to King’s elaborate mythos wonder what all the fuss was about. As a film sequel seems unlikely and it may be some time… Continue reading

  • It’s ALIVE! Celebrate Frankenstein’s 200th Birthday with us!

    This coming June 16 is a big deal. Astronomers have confirmed that it was some time between 2 and 3 a.m. on this date two hundred years ago that a girl of eighteen had a dream, under the influence of which she unleashed upon the world a ghastly and prophetic nightmare from which we have yet to awaken. Continue reading