Traci Thomas Lists 20 Fiction and 9 Nonfiction Titles for Halloween Reading

Traci Thomas, the host and creator of the podcast The Stacks, released a list of 29 book recommendations for readers looking to find a scare this Halloween. The list, published by WOI on October 30, 2026, categorizes the titles into fiction, horror anthologies, and nonfiction. Thomas intended the selections to get readers' blood racing over the long weekend.

The fiction section contains 20 titles. Stephen King appears twice, with Carrie and Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin also on the list. The recommendations span several decades and origins. Toni Morrison's Beloved is included alongside newer works like Victor LaValle's Lone Women. Several international authors are represented, including Han Kang, whose novel The Vegetarian was translated by Deborah Smith. Agustina Bazterrica's Tender Is the Flesh, translated by Sarah Moses, is another entry. Kim Bo-Young's A Plagued Sea, translated by Sophie Bowman, rounds out the translated fiction selections.

Stephen Graham Jones' The Buffalo Hunter Hunter and Chuck Tingle's Camp Damascus are also on the fiction list. Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah's short story collection Friday Black appears next to Carmen Maria Machado's Her Body and Other Parties. Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House is included as a classic entry. Mira Grant's Into the Drowning Deep and Joyce Carol Oates' Zombie complete the fiction lineup. Jen Sookfong Lee's The Hunger We Pass Down and Mariana Enríquez' Our Share of Night, translated by Megan McDowell, add to the global perspective.

Three horror anthologies are recommended. Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr. edited Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology and its sequel, Back for Blood: Never Whistle at Night Part II. Jordan Peele and John Joseph Adams edited Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror. Cynthia Pelayo edited Something Followed Us Home: Tales of Latiné Horror.

The nonfiction section lists nine true crime and historical accounts. Lizzie Johnson's Paradise: One Town's Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire is the first entry. Ben Wickey's More Weight: A Salem Story and Wright Thompson's The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi follow. Philip Gourevitch's We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda is included. Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry's Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders is on the list.

Daniel James Brown's The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party appears next. Heather Ann Thompson's Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy is also recommended. Iris Chang's The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II is included. The list concludes with Richard Lloyd Parry's People Who Eat Darkness: Murder, Grief and a Journey into Japan's Shadows.

The full list was distributed to readers ahead of the October 31 holiday. Thomas provided the titles without additional commentary in the WOI article.