10 Books for Halloween

From the Publisher. First published in 1970 and widely regarded as a prophetic masterpiece, this is a groundbreaking experimental novel by the acclaimed author of Crash and Super-Cannes, who has supplied explanatory notes for this new edition.

The irrational, all-pervading violence of the modern world is the subject of this extraordinary tour de force. The central character’s dreams are haunted by images of John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe, dead astronauts and car-crash victims as he traverses the screaming wastes of nervous breakdown. Seeking his sanity, he casts himself in a number of roles: H-bomber pilot, presidential assassin, crash victim, psychopath. Finally, through the black, perverse magic of violence he transcends his psychic turmoils to find the key to a bizarre new sexuality.

From the Publisher. This masterpiece of modern comics storytelling brings to vivid life a dark world and an even darker man. Together with inker Klaus Janson and colorist Lynn Varley, writer/artist Frank Miller completely reinvents the legend of Batman in his saga of a near-future Gotham City gone to rot, ten years after the Dark Knight’s retirement.

From the Publisher. Black Magic, White Noise presents an unsettling and fascinating collection of visuals focusing on the physical and the psychological as interpreted by contemporary designers from around the globe. From dark images of mystery and horror to works in which the irrational infiltrates broad daylight, the book draws its readers into an ambivalent world of chillingly beautiful illustration, photography, graphic design, collage, painting and installation. Not for the fainthearted, Black Magic, White Noise is a potent cocktail of the drastic themes and motifs that are being used and finding widespread acceptance in present-day design and other creative disciplines.

From the Publisher. Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America’s rush toward the twentieth century. The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair's brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country's most important structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C. The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who, in a malign parody of the White City, built his "World's Fair Hotel" just west of the fairgrounds—a torture palace complete with dissection table, gas chamber, and 3,000-degree crematorium. Burnham overcame tremendous obstacles and tragedies as he organized the talents of Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles McKim, Louis Sullivan, and others to transform swampy Jackson Park into the White City, while Holmes used the attraction of the great fair and his own satanic charms to lure scores of young women to their deaths. What makes the story all the more chilling is that Holmes really lived, walking the grounds of that dream city by the lake. The Devil in the White City draws the reader into a time of magic and majesty, made all the more appealing by a supporting cast of real-life characters, including Buffalo Bill, Theodore Dreiser, Susan B. Anthony, Thomas Edison, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and others.

From the Publisher (Dover):  The world’s most famous monster comes to life in this 1818 novel (written when its author was 19 years old), a compelling narrative that combines Gothic romance and science fiction to tell of an ambitious young doctor's attempts to breathe life into an artificial man. Despite the doctor’s best intentions, the experiment goes horribly wrong.

From Oxford University Press: Shelley’s suspenseful and intellectually rich gothic tale confronts some of the most important and enduring themes in all of literture--the power of human imagination, the potential hubris of science, the gulf between appearance and essence, the effects of human cruelty, the desire for revenge and the need for forgiveness, and much more.

From the Publisher. Freddy, Jason, Frankenstein, and Dracula are just a few of the thrilling movie monsters in this illustrated, collectible reference guide. Monsters from major as well as minor horror films are brought back to life through domestic and international posters, movie stills, and publicity shots. Engaging commentary from leading horror fiction writers, editors, anthologists, and scholars accompany more than 400 movie posters and publicity stills from the early 20th century through to the present day. Not only will you revisit such iconic movies as The Shining, Child’s Play, Halloween, Godzilla, and Jaws, to name just a few, you will also learn about the cultural and technological developments that have played a role in the history of the indelible movie monster. Whether you’re a screenwriter, producer, director, actor, or just a fan, this reference guide is an invaluable resource about one of our greatest movie genres.

From the Publisher. This book looks at the idea of horror and its analogues in architecture. In these, normal compositions become strange: extra limbs appear, holes open where they should not, individual objects are doubled or split or perversely occupied. Horrifying buildings re-imagine the possibilities of architectural language, shifting from “natural” norms to other, more rarified and exciting options. They define an expanded aesthetic field that marries the beautiful to the distorted, the awkward, the manifold, and the indeterminate.

Through an investigation that spans architecture art, and literature, this study attempts to limn horror through its shifting forms and meanings—and to identify a creeping unease that lingers at the very center of the modern project. Horror in Architecture may be read as a history, as an alternative to the classic canon of good and proper architectures, or as a sly manifesto for a new approach to the design of the built environment—one that encourages a playful subversion of conventions.

To capture horror in its many guises, this study is presented in a unique manner. An introductory essay describes the historical fortunes of horror as an aesthetic idea, from Roman antiquity to the pulp films and novels of the present day. Here, the authors put forward a new theory of the sources and effects of horror in modernity and in modern architecture. This is followed by case studies of types, linking classic tropes (clones, doubles, hybrids, psychotics and the undead) to specific buildings and architectural theories.

As a result, this study may be read in a number of different ways. It may be consumed as a total theoretical piece, from start to finish. Or it may provide a series of more casual readings, in the various chapters and brief presentations of the works of individual architects or buildings.

The tragic story of Quasimodo, the hunchback bell tender of Paris’s Notre Dame cathedral, and his struggle to save Esmeralda, a gypsy girl falsely accused of a crime she did not commit.

From the Publisher. New York Times best-selling author Douglas J. Preston teams up with Italian investigative journalist Mario Spezi to present a gripping account of crime and punishment in the lush hills surrounding Florence, Italy. A remarkable and harrowing story involving murder, mutilation, and suicide—and at the center of it, Preston and Spezi are caught in a bizarre prosecutorial vendetta.

From the Publisher (Bloomsbury). An inescapable black pit, an innocent buried alive, and the deranged hallucinations of a murderer all haunt this collection of Edgar Allan Poe's most celebrated stories. The undisputed master of gothic horror, Poe probes every imaginable depth of terror in his claustrophobic nightmares of murder and madness, including the classic “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Pit and the Pendulum,” and “The Tell-Tale Heart.” Just as disturbing are the tales featuring the eccentric and ingenious Auguste Dupin—the first modern detective hero. In these chilling stories, Edgar Allan Poe’s macabre imagination explores the darkest corners of the human mind and the furthest reaches of the paranormal.