horror

Moving Parts

Winner, English PEN Translates Award

Selected by Asymptote for September World Book Club

Surreal and puncturing short stories from the Thai master of the form.

In a pink-walled motel, a teenage prostitute brings a grown man to tears. A love-struck young boy holds the dismembered hand of his crush, only to find himself the object of a complex ménage à trois. A naked body falls from the window of a twenty-story building, while two female office-workers offer each other consolation in the elevator…

In these wry and unsettling stories, Prabda Yoon once again illuminates something of the strangeness of modern cultural life in Bangkok. Disarming the reader with surprising charm, intensity and delicious horror, he explores what it means to have a body, and to interact with those of others.

“Sleek, supple and soaring – in this extraordinary translation, Prabda Yoon’s stories command your attention” — Eley Williams

“[Moving Parts] finds truth at the intersection of the absurd and the morbid” — Asymptote

“Scrappy, playful and morbid…. [Moving Parts] is a brilliant, surreal portrait of the Thai capital…: an alienated city with a cartoon-creepy vibe, shiny and dilapidated.” — White Review

“In Moving Parts, Prabda Yoon has created an essential imaginary of the twenty-first century metropolis; drily funny and deeply felt, vivid and vertiginous.” — David Hayden

“Yoon’s masterful stories unfold the drama of modern life, with all the stylistic resonances of the miraculous.” — Eka Kurniawan

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Never Whistle at Night

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A bold, clever, and sublimely sinister collection that dares to ask the question: “Are you ready to be un-settled?”

Many Indigenous people believe that one should never whistle at night. This belief takes many forms: for instance, Native Hawaiians believe it summons the Hukai’po, the spirits of ancient warriors, and Native Mexicans say it calls Lechuza, a witch that can transform into an owl. But what all these legends hold in common is the certainty that whistling at night can cause evil spirits to appear—and even follow you home.

These wholly original and shiver-inducing tales introduce readers to ghosts, curses, hauntings, monstrous creatures, complex family legacies, desperate deeds, and chilling acts of revenge. Introduced and contextualized by bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones, these stories are a celebration of Indigenous peoples’ survival and imagination, and a glorious reveling in all the things an ill-advised whistle might summon.

Featuring stories by: Norris Black • Amber Blaeser-Wardzala • Phoenix Boudreau • Cherie Dimaline • Carson Faust • Kelli Jo Ford • Kate Hart • Shane Hawk • Brandon Hobson • Darcie Little Badger • Conley Lyons • Nick Medina • Tiffany Morris • Tommy Orange • Mona Susan Power • Marcie R. Rendon • Waubgeshig Rice • Rebecca Roanhorse • Andrea L. Rogers • Morgan Talty • D.H. Trujillo • Theodore C. Van Alst Jr. • Richard Van Camp • David Heska Wanbli Weiden • Royce Young Wolf • Mathilda Zeller

“Never failed to surprise, delight, and shock.” —Nick Cutter, author of The Troop and Little Heaven

(A special thank you to book club member, Amanda Foxman for the suggestion.)

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Ghost Stories of an Antiquary

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Free to buy on Kindle! Make sure to click “buy”, not the Kindle Unlimited link.

In the twentieth-century literature of the supernatural, the single most important book, in the opinion of most scholars and enthusiasts, is Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, by M.R. James.

First printed in 1904, it is the landmark book that established the modern horror story. It has been reprinted more times than any other book in this field, and it contains several of the best ghost stories in the English language.

The antiquary here is M. R. James, Provost of Eton, one of the most formidable scholars that England has ever produced, who has drawn upon an unmatched knowledge of the hidden byways of the past to form a series of inimitable stories.

“These are stories meant to be read aloud at night, preferably by candlelight, when the shadows in the corners of our rooms could be hiding horrors. M. R. James has a well-deserved reputation for terrifying his readers. Most of his ghosts are only sketchily described, often only seen in brief glimpses, out of the corners of our eyes, yet the stories are more terrifying than any ‘slasher’-type horror movies. No one has ever told a better ghost story.” —Classic Mysteries

(A special thank you to book club member, Christine Jensen for the suggestion.)

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Grave Goods

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Renowned writer, philologist, and critic Miguel Garcia Posada says of this book: “It’s not a stretch to consider it one of the most notable revelations of recent Latin American literature.”

This is not a book of gore. Rather, the majority of these stories are creepy with touches of humor and twists at the end that will make you gasp or laugh in surprise and shock. It takes true talent to convey a solid micro-story and these are incredibly rich and well written for all their brevity. The author leaves much to the imagination which somehow adds more to the story and ups the creep factor.

A slim book, Grave Goods contains 98 pieces of flash fiction from one of Peru's best contemporary writers. While Fernando Iwasaki's stories—like all good horror stories—are intended to disconcert his readers, they are also often humorous in nature. Some re-create or re-envision urban legends, some come from dreams, and some are pure inventions of Iwasaki's remarkable mind.

(Group read suggestion from Beth McCrea, book club co-founder.)

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Frankenstein in Baghdad

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Man Booker International Prize finalist

From the rubble-strewn streets of U.S.-occupied Baghdad, Hadi—a scavenger and an oddball fixture at a local café—collects human body parts and stitches them together to create a corpse. His goal, he claims, is for the government to recognize the parts as people and to give them proper burial. But when the corpse goes missing, a wave of eerie murders sweeps the city, and reports stream in of a horrendous-looking criminal who, though shot, cannot be killed. Hadi soon realizes he’s created a monster, one that needs human flesh to survive—first from the guilty, and then from anyone in its path.

A prizewinning novel by “Baghdad’s new literary star” (The New York Times), Frankenstein in Baghdad captures with white-knuckle horror and black humor the surreal reality of contemporary Iraq.

“The book I can’t get out of my head? The haunting, brutal and funny Frankenstein in Baghdad.” —NY Times Book Review

“Powerful . . . Surreal . . . Darkly humorous . . . Cleverly conscripts a macabre character from a venerable literary work in the service of a modern-day cautionary fable . . . An excellent English translation.” —Chicago Tribune

(Group read suggestion from Sue Attalla, book club moderator.)

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Jawbone

Finalist for the 2022 National Book Award in Translated Literature, Longlisted for the PEN Translation Prize & Ms. Magazine “Favorite Books of 2022”

Fernanda and Annelise are so close they are practically sisters: a double image, inseparable. So how does Fernanda end up bound on the floor of a deserted cabin, held hostage by one of her teachers and estranged from Annelise?

When Fernanda, Annelise, and their friends from the Delta Bilingual Academy convene after school, Annelise leads them in thrilling but increasingly dangerous rituals to a rhinestoned, Dior-scented, drag-queen god of her own invention. Even more perilous is the secret Annelise and Fernanda share, rooted in a dare in which violence meets love. Meanwhile, their literature teacher Miss Clara, who is obsessed with imitating her dead mother, struggles to preserve her deteriorating sanity. Each day she edges nearer to a total break with reality.

Interweaving pop culture references and horror concepts drawn from Herman Melville, H. P. Lovecraft, and anonymous “creepypastas,” Jawbone is an ominous, multivocal novel that explores the terror inherent in the pure potentiality of adolescence and the fine line between desire and fear.

“Delectable. . . . There are echoes of Lovecraft and Shirley Jackson at play, but the vision is ultimately Ojeda’s own―delicious in how it seduces and disturbs the reader as the girls rely on horror both as entertainment and as a way of staving off the actual terrors of growing up. This is creepy good fun.” ―Publishers Weekly

“Edgar Allan Poe meets a few of the mean girls. . . . Mother-daughter relationships slide under Ojeda’s microscope, sharing space with the teacher-student dynamic and deities as objects in an exploration of power and sexuality during adolescence. . . . Every good horror story needs a victim; Ojeda’s monsters and victims wear the same faces.” ―Kirkus

“Rife with gothic body horror and the darkness of the jungle and within ourselves. . . . Ojeda is a strikingly singular voice, combining basic teen angst with stark madness and the power of teen girls to push back in a world that tries to make them powerless.” ―The Brooklyn Rail

(A special thank you to book club member, Jordi Valbuena for the suggestion.)

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Apple and Knife

Inspired by horror, myths, and fairy tales, Apple and Knife is an unsettling ride that swerves into the supernatural to explore the dangers and power of occupying a female body in today’s world.

These short works of fiction set in the Indonesian everyday—in corporate boardrooms, in shanty towns, on Javanese dangdut music stages—reveal a soupy otherworld stewing just beneath the surface. Sometimes wacky and always engrossing, this is subversive feminist horror at its best, where men and women alike are arbiters of fear, and where revenge is sometimes sweetest when delivered from the grave.

Mara finds herself brainstorming an ad campaign for Free Maxi Pads, with a little help from the menstruation-eating hag of her childhood. Jamal falls in love with the rich and powerful Bambang, but it is the era of Indonesia's “smiling general” and, if he’s not careful, he may find himself recruited to Bambang’s brutal cause. Solihin would give anything to make dangdut singer Salimah his wife—anything at all.

In the globally connected and fast-developing Indonesia of Apple and Knife, taboos, inversions, sex and death all come together in a heady, intoxicating mix full of pointed critiques and bloody mutilations. Women carve a place for themselves in this world, finding ways to subvert norms or enacting brutalities on themselves and each other.

“In Apple and Knife, Intan Paramaditha has turned the fairytale on its head. Instead of helpless maidens, these fables are bursting with fierce and fabulous females, determined to exact justice in an unjust world. As the enigmatic title suggests, the writing is juicy and incisive. Every story is a gem and, as with all good fairytales, there are important lessons to be learned.” —Melanie Cheng,

“Deliciously dark and expertly disturbing, Intan Paramaditha’s compelling Apple and Knife will haunt you. Her weird, original stories reveal the darkness behind old tales and the shadows lurking at the edges of modern life.” —Ryan O’Neill

(Group read suggestion from Julie Jacobs, book club moderator.)

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Obsidian Worlds

Jason Werbeloff’s short stories have been downloaded over 50,000 times. Obsidian Worlds brings together his 11 best-selling sci-fi shorts into a mind-bending philosophical anthology.

In Your Averaged Joe, a man’s headache is large enough to hold the multiverse. Q46F is an obsessive-compulsive android who finds love in a zombie-embroiled apocalypse. The end of the world isn’t all that bad – The Experience Machine will fulfill your every desire (and some you hadn’t considered). A sex bot dares to dream of freedom in Dinner with Flexi. But mind what you eat, because The Photons in the Cheese Are Lost. Don’t fret though: The Cryo Killer guarantees that your death will be painless, or your money back when you’re thawed. Unless, that is, you’re The Man with Two Legs.

Plug into Obsidian Worlds for these and other immersive stories, including the hilarious Time-Traveling Chicken Sexer.

Your brain will never be the same again.

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Flowers of Mold

“If you're looking for a book that will make you gasp out loud, you’ve found it.” —Kirkus Reviews

“This impressive collection reveals Ha’s close attention to the eccentricities of life, and is sure to earn her a legion of new admirers.” —Publishers Weekly

“Joining a growing cohort of notable Korean imports, Ha’s dazzling, vaguely intertwined collection of 10 stories is poised for Western acclaim.” —Booklist

On the surface, Ha Seong-nan’s stories seem pleasant enough, yet there’s something disturbing just below the surface, ready to permanently disrupt the characters’ lives.

A woman meets her next-door neighbor and loans her a spatula, then starts suffering horrific gaps in her memory. A man, feeling jilted by an unrequited love, becomes obsessed with sorting through his neighbors’ garbage in the belief that it will teach him how to better relate to people. A landlord decides to raise the rent, and his tenants hatch a plan to kill him at a team-building retreat.

In ten captivating, unnerving stories, Flowers of Mold presents a range of ordinary individuals—male and female, young and old—who have found themselves left behind by an increasingly urbanized and fragmented world.

The latest in the trend of brilliant female Korean authors to appear in English, Ha cuts like a surgeon, and even the most mundane objects become menacing and unfamiliar under her scalpel.

(Group read suggestion from Ivor Watkins, book club moderator.)

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The Impossible Fairy Tale

“This transfixing experimental novel questions where sleep ends and books begin, a concept borrowed from Maurice Blanchot while the atmosphere of nightmarish dread and penetrating weirdness recalls a David Lynch film.” —Publishers Weekly

One of World Literature Today's 75 Notable Translations of 2017

The Impossible Fairy Tale is the story of two unexceptional grade-school girls. Mia is “lucky”—she is spoiled by her mother and, as she explains, her two fathers. She gloats over her exotic imported colored pencils and won’t be denied a coveted sweater. Then there is the Child who, by contrast, is neither lucky nor unlucky. She makes so little impression that she seems not even to merit a name.

At school, their fellow students, whether lucky or luckless or unlucky, seem consumed by an almost murderous rage. Adults are nearly invisible, and the society the children create on their own is marked by cruelty and soul-crushing hierarchies. Then, one day, the Child sneaks into the classroom after hours and adds ominous sentences to her classmates’ notebooks. This sinister but initially inconsequential act unlocks a series of events that end in horrible violence.

But that is not the end of this eerie, unpredictable novel. A teacher, who is also this book’s author, wakes from an intense dream. When she arrives at her next class, she recognizes a student: the Child, who knows about the events of the novel’s first half, which took place years before. The Impossible Fairy Tale is a fresh and terrifying exploration of the ethics of art making and of the stinging consequences of neglect.

(Group read suggestion from Mia DeGiovine Chaveco, book club co-founder.)

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HEX

“This is totally, brilliantly original.” -Stephen King

“Hidden tensions and human weakness trigger a witch-hunt that boils over into persecution, scapegoating, and a shocking denouement. A powerfully spooky piece of writing.” - Financial Times

“A great read for fans of The Blair Witch Project or The Crucible. “ ―Booklist

“[O]ne of the most original, clever, and terrifying books to be published in the 21st century”. - NY Journal of Books

“A Hugo and World Fantasy award nominated talent to watch

Whoever is born here, is doomed to stay 'til death. Whoever settles, never leaves.

Welcome to Black Spring, the seemingly picturesque Hudson Valley town haunted by the Black Rock Witch, a seventeenth century woman whose eyes and mouth are sewn shut. Muzzled, she walks the streets and enters homes at will. She stands next to children's bed for nights on end. Everybody knows that her eyes may never be opened or the consequences will be too terrible to bear.

The elders of Black Spring have virtually quarantined the town by using high-tech surveillance to prevent their curse from spreading. Frustrated with being kept in lockdown, the town's teenagers decide to break their strict regulations and go viral with the haunting. But, in so doing, they send the town spiraling into dark, medieval practices of the distant past.

This chilling novel heralds the arrival of an exciting new voice in mainstream horror and dark fantasy.”

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Seven Gothic Tales

Here are seven exquisite tales combining the keen psychological insight characteristic of the modern short story with the haunting mystery of the 19th-century Gothic tale, in the tradition of writers such as Goethe, Hoffmann, and Poe.

Seven Gothic Tales was instantly popular when it was first published, revolving around mysterious, bizarre or supernatural events that explore questions of philosophy and identity. Although writing of death and failed loved affairs, Dinesen’s lush, ornate prose also has moments of humour.

“These Danish tales are a modern refinement of German romanticism. They are peopled, or haunted, by ghosts of a past age, voluptuaries dreaming of the singers and ballerinas of the operas of Mozart and Gluck, young men who are too melancholy to enjoy love or too perverse to profit by it, maidens dedicated to chastity and others hopeful of a gentlemanly seduction; their generally fantastic adventures are exquisitely played.” —The NY Times

”A book in that special realm in which artistry is more real than reality.” — Time

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Let the Right One In (aka Let Me In)

he international bestselling book which was named Best Novel in Translation

It is autumn 1981 when inconceivable horror comes to Blackeberg, a suburb in Sweden. The body of a teenager is found, emptied of blood, the murder rumored to be part of a ritual killing. Twelve-year-old Oskar is personally hoping that revenge has come at long last—revenge for the bullying he endures at school, day after day. But the murder is not the most important thing on his mind.

A new girl has moved in next door—a girl who has never seen a Rubik's Cube before, but who can solve it at once. There is something wrong with her, though, something odd. And she only comes out at night.

Sweeping top honors at film festivals all over the globe, the film version of Let the Right One In has received the same kind of spectacular raves that have been lavished on the book.”

“It's easy to compare Lindqvist to Clive Barker and Neil Gaiman.” —Dagens Næringsliv

“Absolutely chilling. This page-turner grabs you from the onset and just won't let go.” —L. A. Banks,

“A brilliant take on the vampire myth, and a roaring good story.” —Kelley Armstrong

(Group read suggestion from Ivor Watkins, book club moderator.)

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Kappa Quartet

Shortlisted for the Singapore Book Awards (Best Book Cover Design)

Epigram Books Fiction Prize Longlist

”Kevin is a young man without a soul, holidaying in Tokyo; Mr. Five, the enigmatic kappa, is the man he so happens to meet. Little does Kevin know that kappas—the river demons of Japanese folklore—desire nothing more than the souls of other humans.

Set between Singapore and Japan, Kappa Quartet is split into eight discrete sections, tracing the rippling effects of this chance encounter across a host of other characters, connected and bound to one another in ways both strange and serendipitous. Together they ask one another: what does it mean to be in possession of something nobody has seen before?”

After reading this novel, some reviewers have cited a comparison to the author Murakami while others have noted some flashes of suppressed terror more Kafkaesque. Each section narrated by a different character loosely intertwined together is certainly reminiscent of David Mitchell's better work with that same thrill you find in connecting the characters & discovering different facets of the story.

(Group read suggestion from Mia DeGiovine Chaveco, book club co-founder.)

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Beauty of the Beast (aka Beauty of Beast)

Though not a gruesome book, this is a dark, gritty novel written by the award-winning "Croatian Queen of Horror" and beloved by many. Different from the other vampire books out there, this novel centers on the Balkan conflicts of the early 1990s with gothic, war vampires drawn by the slaughter on battlefields.

"Viktoria, a young and not particularly talented painter, comes across war vampires in the middle of war-torn Croatia in 1992. She becomes obsessed with them, but socializing with vampires is dangerous. One of them attacks and infects her with what she believes is AIDS. To save herself, she leaves with the oldest of the vampires on an adventure that will prolong her life forever...or end it."

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