CRP's Blog

Most Halloween book lists, like this excellent list from The Savvy Reader, round up the scariest horror stories, but this week we asked our staff to pick the scariest book they’ve read that’s not a horror story. The responses ranged from pregnancy guides to dystopian novels. If you have a great addition, let us know in the comments below or tweet to us at @chireviewpress. #CRPreads

The Veldt, a short story by Ray Bradbury, is far from your typical Halloween scary story but still produces the ultimate eerie chill. I get the creeps just thinking about it! –Caitlin Eck, publicity manager

When I read it in middle school, the very ending of H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine completely freaked me out. After the narrator escapes the Morlocks and hurtles himself forward thousands of years into the future beyond that and lands on the beach filled with those weird table-sized crab creatures, I felt my brain bending in an attempt to conceive of the vastness of future time. For some reason, though I found the allegorical tale of the Morlocks and Eloi kinda boring, the description of this desolate landscape somehow felt like it was actual documentary evidence of the fate of our world in the distant future. The contemplation of the relentless, inevitable march of time, and the effects it would ultimately have on the physical world around me and the creatures inhabiting it, was a bit much to wrap my head around when I was otherwise just trying to finish my homework! –Allison Felus, production manager

Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian is technically a western, but its subject matter and imagery will haunt your dreams. The book is based on the true story of the Glanton Gang, an outfit that operated along the Mexican-American border in the late 1840s, commissioned by Mexican authorities to go after the area’s Apache tribes and collect their scalps. Eventually, though, the group just began slaughtering whatever folk it came across and bringing their scalps back for more money. Pretty much everything and everyone in the book—in particular Glanton’s intelligent, hairless, demonic second-in-command, Judge Holden—is described in the most nightmarish ways possible. By way of an example, here’s a description of an advancing Comanche tribe as seen by a ragtag group of U.S. military personnel. –Geoff George, publicist

Iain Bank’s The Wasp Factory is definitely one of the creepiest, and most disturbing, books I’ve ever read. Creepy, gross, violent, and disturbing things happen in the book, like in The Road, but there is no end of the world, no plague, and no mind-altering drugs in this book. Just the damaged, violent life of an unreliable narrator and an ending that made me shudder. Definitely a one and done for me. (And while it is a collection of horror stories, and therefore not eligible for this post…I have to mention the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series for both the *original* art and the stories. I remember the story “Oh Susannah” and the accompanying illustration [left] being particularly creepifying.) –Mary Kravenas, marketing manager

The concept of The Handmaid’s Tale was disturbing enough, but Margaret Atwood’s writing managed to make the Republic of Gilead seem so real that the terror of the story stayed with me long after I finished reading it. –Emily Lewis, marketing and editorial assistant

The most frightening nonhorror book I’ve read is called The Burning, by Tim Madigan, about the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot. I knew that it would be disturbing going in, but one particular passage stayed with me. During the carnage and looting of the African American Greenwood community, Madigan describes how a family’s upright piano had been dragged out of a house into the middle of the street, and as homes were set ablaze around her, a woman sang and pounded on the keys, pretending to play as others gathered to laugh and cheer. Every time I recall that image, it still horrifies me. –Jerome Pohlen, senior editor

I have a vivid memory of sitting on a bench at the Morse L stop, immersed in American Psycho. I looked up, certain I’d share a knowing glance with at least one other person on the train platform who had read it and was also simultaneously terrified by and obsessed with the detached, measured language detailing grisly events. (I also just read this NYT article about initial reactions to the book.) –Meaghan Miller, senior publicist and social media coordinator

Ahem. What to Expect When You’re Expecting. I’m sure the authors are trying to be helpful and reassuring but, oh heavens, this book is just a series of terrifying topics. –Michelle Williams, managing editor

Fun fact: At this year’s company Halloween party we saw lots of literary costumes, including characters from Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Alice in Wonderland, and even Little Bo Peep. Check them all out on Instagram.