When it comes to horror, what’s your pleasure? Do you prefer gothic tales steeped in atmosphere and supernatural mystery? Or do you relish ghastly visions of twisted, sadistic violence or graphic transformations? Does the visceral body trauma of splatterpunk make you squirm, or are you more thoroughly creeped out by a haunting work of folk horror? Do the unknowable and incomprehensible entities of cosmic horror mock you as they call attention to human insignificance, or do you crave more familiar monsters from classic creature features?
If you hadn’t noticed, 2026 has been a fantastic year for horror movies, with films like “Backrooms,” “Hokum,” “Obsession” and “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” finding box office success and critical acclaim. The year has also seen the publication of many well-reviewed, talked-about books in the genre — and many of these bloodcurdling titles would fit perfectly in your October horror reading list.
A great place to start building your Halloween-reading stack is Jackanapes Press, online at www.jackanapespress.com.
While its origin stretches back to 2017, Jackanapes Press officially got underway with the publication of K.A. Opperman’s “Past the Glad and Sunlit Season: Poems for Halloween,” a Tor Nightfire selection for Top 10 Horror Poetry Collections of 2020. Created by Dan Sauer, Jackanapes is devoted to “the odd, the antiquarian, and the eldritch.” During the last six years, the publisher’s catalogue has continued to grow, showcasing the works of many authors of weird fiction and gothic horror, including John Shirley, Ashley Dioses, John R. Fultz, Adam Bolivar, and Scott J. Couturier.
“I’ve always been drawn to literature at the intersection of horror, dark fantasy, and folklore — timeless stories steeped in old myths, unconstrained by modern sensibilities,” Sauer explained. “‘Eldritch’ is an easy word to overuse — especially with the works of H. P. Lovecraft creeping ever more fully into the public consciousness — but it encapsulates much of what I value in stories and poems: a sense of connection with an older world, simultaneously earthy and ethereal, somewhat inscrutable to the modern mind.”
According to Sauer, Jackanapes Press is looking to publish materials that seem to exist independently from the modern world, whatever their form or genre.
“More specifically, I’m trying to build a body of work invested with what has come to be known as folk horror, as well as quality Gothic writings, and works that touch upon Halloween.”
Four recent Jackanapes releases kick off our October reading list:
• “The Black Wolf,” by M.R. Summerleigh writing as Galad Elflandsson. Originally published by Donald Grant in 1979 with illustrations by Randy Broecker, this new Jackanapes edition includes Broecker’s interior illustrations as well as a reminiscence of the weird fiction scene of the late 1970s.
• “The Leering Surf and Other Tales of Horror,” by David Barker. Known for his Lovecraftian fiction, Barker first emerged in the horror zine scene of the ’80s and ’90s. He continues to amass an impressive array of strange tales, 19 of which are contained within this collection.
• “The Eyes of Azathoth,” by Simon MacCulloch. MacCulloch delivers a mind-shattering sonnet cycle of epic proportions, inspired by Lovecraft’s “Fungi from Yuggoth” and Clark Ashton Smith’s “The Hashish Eater.”
• “The Ghost Train: A Miskatonic University Spiritualism Club Adventure,” by Peter Rawlik and Sal Ciano. The authors return to the darker corners of greater Arkham for a new adventure featuring his occult investigative team of Megan Halsey, Robert Peaslee, and Roman Lydecker.
Rawlik, a resident of South Florida, is the author of “Reanimators,” “The Weird Company: The Secret History of H. P. Lovecraft’s Twentieth Century,” and many short stories. He says there is something unique about writing cosmic horror.
“Most genre fiction — westerns, noir, detective, sci-fi, fantasy, and even supernatural horror, are driven by rules, often built into the genre, but also as outlined by the world-building of the authors themselves,” Rawlik shares. “Cosmic horror, by definition, throws most of those rules away and says that everything you know about the universe can be wrong, and that means you can get away with almost anything. In some ways its liberating, being able to write about the craziest things you can conjure up from the deep recesses of your subconscious and dare to put on paper.”
But Rawlik says it also can be confounding, because people always seem to want to ask “why?” — as if the universe was fair.
“But the universe isn’t fair,” he says. “In my experience the universe isn’t just unfair, its impartial. It doesn’t care if you’re having fun, or being a good person, or flossed every night. The universe is a vicious monster, and it will chew you up and if you’re lucky it might spit you out.”
And that is where Rawlik comes in.
“Telling the tales of all these voices in my head that have lived through some imaginary horror and now are desperate to tell someone about it,” he says. “Honestly, it’s a hell of a lot of hard work, but it’s also a great gig, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
The next book in our curated list of terrifying tales comes from Jeffrey Thomas, creator of the dark science fiction series “Punktown,” as well as his “Hades Trilogy” and other works.
• “The Return of Enoch Coffin,” by Jeffrey Thomas. Available from Weird House Press, online at weirdhousepress.com, this new volume collects all of Thomas’s stories from “Encounters With Enoch Coffin,” his 2011 collaboration with author W.H. Pugmire. In addition to the reprinted stories, “The Return of Enoch Coffin” features a lengthy new novella called “The Lunar Gate” that sees Enoch Coffin emerge from years of personal darkness to help a young woman solve the death of her brother.
“Not surprisingly, Halloween has been vastly important to me since childhood,” Thomas said. “And I think I captured some of that holiday’s eerie, atmospheric vibe in the short story collection ‘The Return of Enoch Coffin,’ which focuses on a mysterious artist who tracks down supernatural phenomena to inspire his work.”
Down in the laboratory beneath the castle, we have assembled more gory, ghostly, grim and ghoulish titles for the spooky season. Check out the following titles for books that will haunt your October nights:
• “Highway of Haunts,” edited by Heather Daughrity. Published by Watertower Hill Publishing, this collection features 23 exits, 23 ghosts, and 23 stories. Traverse the endless miles of hot asphalt, discovering what horrors lurk amidst its abandoned destinations and forgotten people. Contributing authors include Benjamin Adams, Eric Butler, Vince Liaguno, Bridgett Nelson, Candace Nola, Alyanna Poe, Joe Scipione, and Gaby Triana & Murphy Nunez. www.watertowerhill.com
• “In These Gilded, Ghostly Hearts,” by Gwendolyn Kiste. Winner of the Bram Stoker Award in the Best Novel category for 2024’s “The Haunting of Velkwood,” Kiste holds up a dark, queer mirror to “The Great Gatsby” in her new novella. The work is a haunting exploration of the obsession and control at the edges of an American classic. Available through all major booksellers.
• “All Hallow’s Eve,” edited by Ellen Datlow. A chilling horror anthology of 19 original short stories from a world-class lineup of the masters of horror, delving into the histories and traditions of the spookiest season of the year. Presented by Hugo Award winning editor and horror legend Ellen Datlow, the anthology features stories by Josh Malerman, Linda D. Addison, Christopher Golden, Garth Nix as well as many more. Available through all major booksellers.
• “Dance of Necromance: Poetry Book of the Dead,” by Sumiko Saulson. Saulson, a two-time Bram Stoker Award finalist, delivers this Afrosurrealist book of dark speculative poetry embracing themes of death, rebirth, sacrifice, communication with the ancestors, the mysteries that lie beyond, and perseverance in cursed times. mochamemoirspress.com
• “Poems to be Afraid Of,” by Pixie Bruner. The second full-length collection from Bruner, this work began as an experiment in fear. Written in four weeks of spite-driven frenzy, this collection did not draw from poems already written. Instead, imposter syndrome was called upon. authortunitiespress.com/b/poems-to-be-afraid-of