Best Halloween Books to Read in October

Our October reading list: the books that smell of woodsmoke and pumpkins, from Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes and The Halloween Tree to Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Norman Partridge's Dark Harvest, Stephen King's Salem's Lot and Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House.

Halloween reading is its own mood: nostalgic, a little spooky, ready for a night by the fire. Some of these are gentle enough to read aloud to the family, and some are best left until the children are asleep. For a shorter shortlist for the night itself, see Halloween After Dark: 13 Scary Books.