Hoi.
Today I've got a Lex
I like your shirt a lot.
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Spaced out.
Spaced out
We're going to talk about some Halloween books.
Some spooky books, some scary books.
Lex brought a pile of books with her as well
So whenever I film book videos with someone else at a different location
it's like "yeah can you just bring them all?"
Do you like scary books?
I don't like scary things generally
but I feel like at this time of year I want to get into the spirit of things
So I'll intentionally terrify myself
and I don't understand people who enjoy being scared
I get really easily freak out by things
and like then just wont be able to sleep ever again.
It's weird that people inflict that on themselves
So if you never want to sleep again go read these books.
My first one is a book that I love
and I read either the beginning of this year or last year
I literally cannot remember
Death or Icecream by Gareth P. Jones.
This is publish by Hot Key the publisher I used to work for.
I read the the manuscript and I was like "This is so great."
So the set up of this is that it is all set in the same town called Larkin Mills.
They're all short stories
But it's in the kind of way where like slowly character from the previous stories appear in the other stories.
It's all really dark. I think it's middle-grade age.
There's like a story of an artist who got pushed into one of her sculptures
when it was cement and it was still drying
Oh my God that's horrible!
That is just a vague mention in one of the stories
and then one of the other stories a girls is playing a cursed accordian
that she has to play for the rest of her life.
and she's standing next to a statue and she can hear someone inside.
That's like house of wax.
If you want truely creepy small town
but like creepy in the way your like "oh that's weird".
This one very good.
My first book is Shirley Jackson's "We Have Always Lived in a Castle".
It's Short and it's really creepy.
and it's about sister - umm no what?
It's about two sister that live in a very creepy house with their uncle
and clearly and some terrible things have happened.
it's just a weird vibe and it kind of get revealed over the course of the book what happened
Is it like ghostly as well or is it just creepy?
No it's just really unsettling
Like it's just one of those books. It doesn't have ghosts in it.
Ok so the next one is also short stories.
It is the new Roald Dahl collections.
This is by Penguin where I work.
This is a part of a series of four
which covers a range of human emotions mostly bad ones.
and so this is around deception
These are just a bunch of short stories
that have been published over the years in different magazines
and that cover is so freaky
There is like a little elephant masked boy.
'Cause Roald Dahl is so creepy anyway.
His books for kids are genuinely terrifying
so the idea that he's written
-like ones for adults
Yeah
I don't think a lot of people have read these.
No I haven't read them but I really want to though.
My next book is actually like for kids
and as you can probably tell from my copy which is like yellow and old.
I've had this for about ten years.
but it's always really stuck with me
just cause some of the really intense descriptions
It is about a family who go on holiday in Ireland
and it's meant to be all nice and wholesome
but it just has these creepy things keep happening.
All the kind of thing that'd make you feel really unnerved
but you wouldn't be able to put your finger on what was wrong.
As a kid reading this it really stuck with me
and I just thinks it's amazing that you get this very specific vibe from it.
So there's like a weird smell in the house
and that's kind of weird
and then food starts going off a bit.
At one point one of them is ill
and looks out the window
and sees a skeletal woman crawling across the field eating dirt.
That's not for kids
I know. Why?!
It's actually about the Irish potato famine
I feel like their kind of seeing flashes of the potato famine happening
For some reason it's leaking through time.
I don't know. It's really good in a really weird way.
It's a really short read.
Did I even say what it's called?
It's called Black Harvest by Anne Pilling.
My next one is, I'm going to say, my ultimate Halloween read.
I love this and I keep giving it to people and I'm like "read read read"
I want it!
I've talked about it before but I'm just going to bring it back cause I have to.
The poster of it is now up on my wardrobe as well.
Through the Woods by Emily Carroll.
Again we got some short stories.
Oh my God.
Short stories are good for Halloween.
And Christmas it's like festive times.
It's so pretty
It's very beautiful
They feel like they're based on Norwegian folk tales.
Hello! - Oh my God.
What's that?!
It's so good this is like a very ghostly one.
And they're all very very scary
and I read this by myself in the dark and it wasn't the best idea.
but it's gorgeous
I would have all of these as print on my wall
My next book I feel like you probably talked about this a lot on your channel.
Yes I have.
Yeah it's the 5th Wave
I don't read that much sci-fi. I read a lot of fantasy
This is very much like sci-fi on planet earth
Yeah. And I really really enjoyed it.
And I think a lot of the questions are more about how you trust people and morality.
One of the scariest things about this book is
what the hell would you do if you were in this character's situation?
I always find those apocalyptic situations terrifying
because I know I would die very quickly
Very quickly.
Very quickly indeed.
The next one is one that literally just popped into my mind
and I can't believe I forgot about it
as I've ran to the livingroom to get it.
and Lex has also read it
I wanted to bring it for this video.
Monsters by Emerald Fennel
This is like in the same realm as Death or Icecream
It is so terrifying.
So there's a boy and a girl and they meet in this hotel
and they're in this small town and they sort of wonder around together loads
The girls is super manipulative in a really creepy way.
And also they get obsessed with these murders.
So young women keep washing up on the shore dead
with pebbles in their mouth
These kids get really obsessed with it.
And again it's a town where you feel like something is off
and you don't quite know what.
You also feel like the kids are really wrong as well like the whole way through
Good. Good. Creepy.
My last book is Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
Which has recently come out in the cinema
I really like this book
There are a lot of parts of it that in retrospect I'm not 100% sure worked.
Like the plot confuses me sometimes
but I just really enjoyed it
So it has all these creepy old pictures in it
and the idea that Ransom found these, the author,
and then wrote the story around it I think
Yeah, it's really cool. I love it.
I like the idea that it takes all the things that I am really terrified of
like generally I find little kids ghosts or monster really scary
so I kind of like the fact that it humanises them
and just makes them into like
it's just a little, just a normal little creepy girl monster
It's fine
Those were our Halloween recommendations
Let us know what your spookiest, scariest, spoopiest book is.
I also have a Halloween playlist that I love
which I'll put in the description
in case you are looking for some music to listen to.
while you're reading your spoopy books
Don't forget to subscribe to Lex's channel
We'll see you guys later.
Three, two, one.
I've forgotten! What so we say?
Doei
Both: Doei