Neil Gaiman’s been talking about starting a new tradition in his blog and Twitter feed: gifting scary books on Halloween. This nifty idea has been dubbed All Hallow’s Read, and since HowStuffWorks.com’s editorial staff is full of readers, it seemed like a great excuse to put together some picks for things that spook, terrify or horrify us … especially if we could get a little off the beaten path of books typically shelved under “horror.”

A few of my favorites for younger readers (which grown-ups might love, too):

• “Coraline” and “The Graveyard Book” by Neil Gaiman: These gave me the heebie-jeebies, but kids reportedly read them as grand adventures.
• “The Black Cauldron,” by Lloyd Alexander: There’s a fair amount of fright throughout Alexander’s magnificent “Chronicles of Prydain” series, but “The Black Cauldron” takes the cake, what with the cauldron that births legions of undead warriors and all.
• “The Complete Fairy Tales of Brothers Grimm”: This is 800 pages of fairy tales that are generally a lot gorier and more sinister than what you’ll find in Little Golden Books.

And my picks for the more grown-up:

• “I Am Not a Serial Killer” and “Mr. Monster” by Dan Wells: Think “Dexter” as a teen.
• “Bend Sinister” by Vladamir Nabokov: I read this in college as part of a class on the gothic novel, and it horrified me completely.
• “Preacher” by Garth Ennis, drawn by Steve Dillon: Fair warning, there are many things in “Preacher” that may offend a reasonable person. I am a reasonable person, and many of the things in “Preacher” offend me. But if we’re never offended, we don’t know where our lines are, and “Preacher” has the unique distinction of featuring the only character in print to have ever given me nightmares.
• “A Clockwork Orange” by Anthony Burgess: See previous note about offense.
• “‘night, Mother” by Marsha Norman: A Pulitzer-winning play about suicide, which is maybe more disturbing than frightening.
• “The Green Ripper” by John D. Macdonald: I love all of Macdonald’s “Travis McGee” series, but this one may be the most frighteningly sinister. Plus, it’s the only book ever to win a National Book Award in the mystery category.
• “Northanger Abbey” by Jane Austen: aka that time Jane Austen wrote a Gothic novel — and it’s perhaps more darkly funny than scary.

Picks from the rest of the staff:

• Candace: “Drood” by Dan Simmons (on my to-read list)
• Travis: “Red Dragon” by Thomas Harris
• Jonathan: “Shadowshow” by Brad Strickland (full disclosure: Jonathan’s dad) and Chuck Palahniuk’s “Haunted”
• Robert: “Throne of Bones” by Brian McNaughton, “Dance of Dwarves” by Geoffrey Household, “Neuropath” by R. Scott Bakker, “Slicer” by Garth Marenghi, “Child of God” by Cormac McCarthy, and “It” and “Pet Sematary” by Stephen King, along with assorted short stories by H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Arthur Machen and Stephen King.
• Richard: “I Am Legend” by Richard Matheson
• Kevin: “Intensity” by Dean Koontz and “The Long Walk” by Stephen King
• Joe: “The Pedersen Kid” by William H. Gass, Dante’s “Inferno” and Mary Shelly’s “Frankenstein”
• Rachel: “The Stand” by Stephen King, “World War Z” by Max Brooks, and “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy
• Ben: “The Exorcist” by William Peter Blatty, another vote for Stephen King’s “It,” and some more recs for kids: the “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” series, Clive Barker’s “The Thief of Always” and Ray Bradbury’s “Something Wicked This Way Comes.”
• Chanel: “Let Me In” by John Ajvide Lindquist, “The Dark Half” and “Salem’s Lot” by Stephen King, “The Alienist” by Caleb Carr, and the short stories “Masque of the Red Death” and “The Pit and the Pendulum” by Edgar Allan Poe.
• And for an entirely different type of horror, Ryan suggests “Bergdorf Blondes” by Plum Sykes, which delves into the world of New York socialites.

Go read things — but don’t come crying to me if you wind up scared or offended — and tell us your favorite scary book picks.

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