So, it’s October 1st and you know what that means!

It’s time to put together a Halloween reading list!

(Actually, to be honest, you’re running behind.  You should have started selecting the books for your October reading list way back in July.  Really, what have you been doing all this time?  Well, anyway….)

When it comes to putting together a Halloween reading list, there’s no better place to start than with Grady Hendrix’s Paperbacks From Hell!

First published in 2017, Paperbacks From Hell is a compulsively readable and fun overview of the horror-themed paperbacks that scared readers in the 70s and the 80s.  Every genre of paperback horror is covered, from the demonic possession novels that came out after the success of The Exorcist and The Omen to the “based on a true haunting” ghost novels to the extremely gory and rather unpleasant serial killer stories of the late 80s.  Along with discussing the best sellers of that era, Paperbacks From Hell also includes hundreds of wonderfully sordid and often rather bizarre paperback covers.  Have you ever wandered what a bunch a Nazi dwarves would look like?  Well, just check out the cover of The Little People:

I mean, seriously — AGCK!

Paperbacks From Hell isn’t just a book about scary paperbacks, however.  It’s also a social history.  So many of these books were designed to appeal to whatever was scaring suburbanites at the moment and, as a result, the history of horror paperbacks is also a history of moral panics.  From Satanic cults to dirty music to environmental catastrophe and evil children, there’s a paperback for every one of them and, in all probability, the cover of that papeprback can be found in Paperbacks From Hell.

Paperbacks From Hell is a definite must-have for anyone who loves history and horror.  After I read it, I decided that I would read every single paperback that was mentioned in Paperbacks From Hell.  That turned out to be a bit more difficult than I thought it would be because, sadly, a lot of those classic old paperbacks are out-of-print and being sold for hundreds of dollars on Amazon.  I mean, I would love to read Satan Sublets by Jack Younger but I don’t know if I want to spend four hundred dollars to do so.  That said, even if some of the books that scared our parents and grandparents are no longer readily available, at least we have Paperbacks From Hell.

If you don’t already have a copy of Paperbacks From Hell, order it.  It’s addictive reading at its best.