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Here in Australia, we don’t really have massive shindigs for every single holiday like our American friends do. Give us a beer or a glass of wine and a grassy area and we celebrate in what is usually a much more laidback manner. Living in the opposite season to our Northern counterparts…I’m STILL dreaming of a white Christmas, and the one time in the early ’90s the neighbourhood kids and I actually got it together and planned a Halloween Trick or Treating adventure, the 40 degree weather was not conducive to wearing a black witch costume and we gave up mid-afternoon and jumped in the pool.

But things are changing. Slowly. I’ve even noticed that Woolworth’s has been advertising pumpkins for Halloween, which happens this weekend. So if you’re stuck for something to do on Sunday 31 October, and you’re up for celebrating the creatures of the night, there are some classic and not-yet-classic creepalicious stories that you can curl up on the couch with. Here’s my top three picks for this Halloween:

The Phantom of the Opera, by Gaston Leroux.

The opera in gay Paris…what could be more romantic? But this isn’t Valentines Day, my friends. There’s nothing like a doomed love story involving a disfigured, tormented dude and a beautiful opera singer to get you shivering. The violence and suspense of this novel makes for drama, drama, drama…and you’ll never dismiss the importance of stagehands again.

The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield

I first read this book as a book club pick, and when the time came to discuss we had the most crazy-intense conversation, with differing and adamant viewpoints about what had happened in the story. The Thirteenth Tale takes its style of prose and sense of mystery from the greats of Victorian Literature, and it’ll leave you thinking about the plot points long after you’ve turned the final page.

The Strain, by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan

The genius behind that spooky fairytale movie Pan’s Labyrinth turns his hand at some surprising vampiric fiction. A homage to Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the book is a modern take, and opens with an airplane stopping dead on the tarmac, full of pale corpses. Oooh.

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These suggestions are really just a starting point. There are tons of Halloween-perfect books out there, so make sure to pick something that will give your imagination more thrills than chills and you’ll have a spooky ol’ time. Just one final piece of advice: try not to pay attention to the little hairs rising on the back of your neck…and whatever you do, don’t answer the phone!

It’ll just be telemarketers, anyway.

Tags: diane setterfield, guillermo del toro, halloween, the phantom of the opera, the strain, the thirteenth tale

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 28th, 2010 at 9:41 pm and is filed under Aimee Burton. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.