#5OnMyTBR is a bookish meme hosted by E. @ Local Bee Hunter’s Nook and you can learn more about it here. It occurs every Monday when we post about 5 books on our TBR.
It’s the final few days of Blogtober, and I’m a little relieved! I’m actually surprised I’ve managed to keep up with one post a day throughout October, and fingers crossed I can keep it going until the 31st. For today, as this is a Halloween Freebie prompt, I’m focusing on 5 horror non-fiction titles on my TBR.
#5OnMyTBR October 28th: Halloween Freebie
Horror Non-Fiction
Monsters in the Closet: Homosexuality and the Horror Film
Harry M. Benshoff
Genre: Horror – Film
Age: Adult
Format: Paperback
Published: June 19th, 1997
Published By: Manchester University Press
One of the few books to address the horror film from any kind of critical position.. Unique – The first history of the horror film to approach it from a queer perspective.. Written with detail and thoroughness – covers all eras of the horror film and correlates specific types of movie monsters to the historical social conditions which produced them.. Explores how popular culture encodes and demonizes queerness within the generic format of the horror film.
The Dead of Winter: Beware the Krampus and Other Wicked Christmas Creatures
Sarah Clegg
Genre: Horror – Christmas – Mythology – History
Age: Adult
Format: ebook
Expected Publication: November 12th, 2024
Published By: Algonquin Books
Enter the dark side of discover the monsters, witches, and nightmarish traditions behind one of the most celebrated holidays in the world When we imagine the origins of Christmas, we picture halcyon images of mangers, glowing fireplaces, and snow-blanketed winter hills. But the holiday is celebrated during the darkest time of year in the Northern Hemisphere—a season so dark it has given rise to the most outlandish traditions imaginable. In The Dead of Winter, Oxford-trained historian Sarah Clegg delves deep into the folkloric roots of Christmas in Europe, comparing their often-horrific past to the way they continue to haunt and entertain us now in the 21st century. Detailing the hideous masks and curling horns of “Krampus runs” in Austria, the fearsome horseheads of “hoodenings” in Southeast England, and the candle-crowned young witches of Finland’s St. Lucy Festival, the author captures the wild revelry at heart of the winter madness. In Clegg’s fascinating investigation, these strange, wonderful traditions are cast in their illuminating historical context. And the closer we get to the dark magic and bright enchantment described in The Dead of Winter, the more we start to see how fun it might be to let just a bit of the ancient darkness in.
My Life in Horror: Volume 1
Kit Power
Genre: Horror – Essays
Age: Adult
Format: Paperback
Published: June 11th, 2020
Published By: Kit John Kelly Baume Power
Just how much are we shaped by the entertainment that scares us?
Author, blogger, podcaster and lifelong fan of genre Kit Power sets out to answer that question, with a collection of essays that take on the works – and events – that scarred him as a child and young adult. Stephen King’s IT. Hellraiser. The Thing. The Wasp Factory. Jeff Wayne’s War Of The Worlds. Hillsborough. Welding childhood recollection with adult insight and analysis, Power digs deep into his personal reactions and feelings as he attempts to understand his continued fascination with the genre – and the emotion – of Horror.
Collecting the first three years of his work for the 12-time BFS nominated review site Gingernuts Of Horror, with each essay revised and expanded, My Life In Horror: Volume One represents one fan’s journey through genre – an autobiography via the medium of pop culture.
Haunted States: An American Gothic Guidebook
Miranda Corcoran
Genre: Horror – Travel – Cultural Criticism
Age: Adult
Format: ebook
Published: October 8th, 2024
Published By: Repeater
A fusion of travel literature and cultural criticism investigating the dark history of the US and exploring how past horrors – from witch trials to slavery and genocide – continue to haunt the national consciousness.
Haunted States is a unique guidebook that explores the dark, often horrifying, history of the US. Based on the author’s journey across the United States in summer 2022, it explores locations connected to Gothic fiction and film, tracking the relationship between the American landscapes and the various forms of fictional horror the nation has produced over the centuries.
Part cultural history and part travelogue, Haunted States traces how the American Gothic draws inspiration from the natural and built environments, with the astounding geographical variation of the landscape influencing the distinctive forms of horror produced across its many diverse regions. The book also investigates how the horrors of the American Gothic have their roots in the nation’s dark history of colonialism, slavery, violence and oppression – past sins that continue to haunt the national consciousness to this day. Taking horror (in literature, film and the visual arts) as its starting point, Haunted States investigates the landscapes, places and cultures that produced it.
Incorporating first-person travel narrative, historical context and supplementary interviews, Haunted States journeys across the USA to learn about its eclectic, regional forms of horror.
The Folklore of Wales: Ghosts
Delyth Badder, Mark Norman
Genre: Folklore – History
Age: Adult
Format: Hardback
Published: September 28th, 2023
Published By: Calon
Wales is a land with a vast wealth of ghost stories, including fantastical animals, flickering death omens and unseen things that go bump in the night. Whether these tales are based on true events, or are the creations of active imaginations, is known only to those who have experienced them – but what is certain is that their power to delight and scare us remains undimmed to this day.
In The Folklore of Ghosts , renowned folklorists Delyth Badder and Mark Norman present an intriguing and comprehensive selection of ghostly accounts, illuminating key themes running through them, and giving insights into the history and culture of Wales’s varied regions and communities.
With original Welsh texts, many translated into English for the first time, the authors present a wide panorama of stories and first-hand accounts that will be new to even the most seasoned folklore reader. Ranging from the distant past right up to the present day, this collection shines a spotlight on the unique qualities of folkloric ghost beliefs in Wales.
As always if you’ve read any of these or have any horror non-fiction recommendations for me, do let me know! I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Unwrapping Words 