Books for Chills, Thrills, & the Fall Season

Books for chills, thrills, & the fall season. Recommended by Durham Tech Librarians.

Happy Fall Break, everyone! We’re celebrating the season of pumpkin spice and spooky tales with a list of books you can enjoy, preferably with a mug of hot cocoa and a nice blanket.

We know spookiness isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, so we’ve included some lighter fare for those who enjoy the cozier side of autumn. Continue reading for seasonal recommendations of graphic novels, audiobooks, and print books.

Psssst…don’t forget, we’ll be painting pumpkins for Crafternoon later this month! Join us on October 25th on the Orange County Campus and the 26th on Main Campus. We provide the pumpkins, and you provide the creativity!

Clicking on the cover image of a book will bring you to our physical catalog where you can locate the call number to find it in the library, or to our digital catalog known as Dogwood Digital Library.

Graphic Novels
Horror and suspense are fairly common in the graphic novel format and Durham Tech Libraries offers some of the best of the form. Our recommendations here range from the horrifying circles of Uzumaki from Japanese legend Junji Ito to the impressively detailed and imaginative Night Bus from Chinese cartoonist Zuo Ma.

Night Bus by Zuo Ma
Night Bus
Uzumaki: Spiral Into Horror by Junji Ito
Uzumaki: Spiral into Horror
(The library also offers Junji Ito books online, via Dogwood Digital Library)
Through The Woods by Emily Carroll
Through The Woods

Online Audiobooks to Enjoy While Leaf-Peeping!
There’s nothing quite like a brisk walk as the leaves begin to turn, but it’s even better when you’ve got a nice audiobook on. Look at the rest of our eBook / Audiobook collection over at Dogwood Digital, just log in with your Durham Tech information! You can enjoy these on your mobile device, tablet, or computer.

We’ve picked a few seasonal-but-not-too-spooky choices for you: The Devil in the White City offers a riveting and unusual tale of true crime and Chicago history, And Then There Were None is a classic Agatha Christie mystery, and Payback’s a Witch offers romance readers a magical and flirty book about witches.

Autumn by Karl Ove Knausgaard
The Devil In The White City: Murder, Magic, And Madness At The Fair That Changed America
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
And Then There Were None
Payback's a Witch by Lana Harper
Payback’s a Witch

Classic Thrillers & Spookiness
We hope the names Shirley Jackson, Stephen King, and Anne Rice need no introduction, but if you are new to the genre of horror and supernatural terror then these titles are a great starting place. These are also authors that are frequently (and recently, in the case of Interview With The Vampire!) adapted to television and movie franchises, so they can be fun to compare and contrast with the original texts.

The Haunting Of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
The Haunting Of Hill House
Available as an audiobook on Dogwood Digital

Night Shift by Stephen King
Night Shift
Portions of Night Shift are available in the audiobook Graveyard Shift on Dogwood Digital
Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
Interview with the Vampire

Happy Reading!