Welcome back to Book Break!
We have got a super spooky video today for all of you fans of Pet Sematary, Stephen King's
classic horror novel as well as the terrifying new movie which I am far too scared to see.
So while I tell you about my horror book recommendations, I'm going to take you around some of London's
creepiest sites.
But because I'm a wimp, I'm doing this all in broad daylight, because I don't want to
get haunted doing it in the nighttime!
But I still want you to understand quite how spooky it feels in these places.
So, how about if I do this?
OK, I think that's better.
On with the books.
So, appropriately for the subject of this video, I am now sitting outside London's very
own pet cemetery.
I am here in Hyde Park, sitting in front of the old Victorian dog cemetery, which isn't
always open to the public, but you can always get a bit of a look in from the road, and
see some of the bizarre names Victorians used to give to their pets.
There's one there dedicated to someone's beloved dog called Scum!
So my first recommendation of course has to be Pet Sematary itself.
This is Stephen King's brilliant, terrifying novel, about a burial ground, where anything
buried there can come back to life.
And a lot of things were changed for the movie, so even if you've already seen that, there
are a lot of super scary surprises in store for you in this book.
And Stephen King himself actually said he thought this book was too disturbing to be
published.
It's brilliant, so I'm glad he did publish it, but boy, he was not exaggerating about
quite how disturbing this book is.
But there are so many other brilliant horror writers out there beyond Stephen King, including
his good friend James Herbert.
But before I tell you about James Herbert, I'm going to take you to another ghostly location.
So, while we're on the topic of creepy animals, I thought I would bring you here to Highgate
to try and find my favourite London ghost.
This is the ghost chicken of Pond Square.
So apparently this story came about because Sir Francis Bacon was experimenting to see
if keeping meat cold would keep it good for longer.
So, he killed a chicken, poor chicken, and then started experimenting with covering the
chicken in snow to see if the meat would preserve.
But half way through this experiment, Sir Francis Bacon himself caught a chill from
all the snow and promptly died, leaving the poor chicken to forever haunt Pond Square.
Searching for the chicken ghost.
Did you hear that?
So, I haven't had any luck so far finding this chicken ghost, but I will be keeping
an eye out for him.
But in the meantime, I was about to tell you about James Herbert, and some animals that
sound a lot less harmless than the little chicken ghost.
So James Herbert is actually the next bestselling horror author after Stephen King.
And after you've read The Rats, it is not hard to see why.
The Rats is a completely horrifying story, about London becoming overrun with giant toxic
rats.
The Rats is considered a horror classic, and for good reason.
It still stands the test of time today, combining social commentary designed to unsettle you,
and Stephen King actually compared this book to The Sex Pistols' Anarchy in the UK, with
page-turning gory action.
This has got to be next on your list for any big horror fan.
And then still in the creepy animals camp, I've got The Ritual by Adam Nevill.
So in this, four old uni friends meet up for a reunion and go camping.
But their trip soon takes a distinctly terrifying turn.
I'm actually not going to tell you too much about what they come across, because this
is one of those really bizarre and twisty books, where I think it's most fun going into
it with just no idea what to expect, but I will just say you will never look at goats
the same way again.
Intrigued? I thought so!
If you've already seen the Netflix movie that everyone's been talking about, then you'll
already know that Bird Box is about a world that becomes infested with these mysterious
creatures, where anyone who lays eyes on them instantly becomes violent and suicidal.
So the story is this terrifying story of a mother who has to get her two young children
to where she thinks there might be safety.
So she has to lead them down this really dangerous river, all with her eyes blindfolded.
Super action packed, page-turning stuff.
OK, moving on from our friend the chicken ghost, let's go discover somewhere else spooky
to hang out.
So this is definitely a very creepy sight.
What are all these hundreds of gravestones doing embedded into the roots of this tree?
Well, it gets even more bizarre... they were actually put there by Thomas Hardy.
So Thomas Hardy was working here when he was young, when the graveyard was being relocated,
and he had the pretty horrid job of exhuming the remains to be reburied.
But then, didn't know what to do with all the leftover gravestones.
And so here they are.
This might be an even creepier sight to look at than the pet cemetery.
But anyway, that leads me on to my next book.
So one of the creepiest things about Pet Sematary is the power that the cemetery seems to have
over people, actually controlling them and affecting their decisions.
And that really reminded me of the house in White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi.
So the house in this book is actually a character in the story, and I mean that literally.
The book is narrated by a few different characters and one of them is the house.
And this house is obsessed with keeping the women of its family inside and banishing outsiders,
particularly anyone foreign-born or non-white.
And this book weaves in such a strong subtext about racism and about the UK's attitude to
immigrants.
The fact that the house is positioned practically on the cliffs of Dover is not a coincidence.
Another one of the theme of racism as horror is Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff.
And this is inspired by the horror writings of H.P. Lovecraft, but also inspired by the
fact that, separate from his fiction, Lovecraft wrote some incredibly racist things.
So this story is a supernatural, action adventure, about a black family travelling through New
England, which is Lovecraft Country, and encountering some of the horrors that Lovecraft wrote about,
but also even more terrifyingly, encountering the racism of 1950s America.
And this one is actually being adapted by Jordan Peele into a TV show, so make sure
you've read the book first.
And for a more traditional haunted house story, try The Apartment by S.L. Grey.
So this one is a house swap gone wrong.
A couple from South Africa set off on what seems like a dream holiday to an apartment
in Paris.
But when they get there, the apartment is completely run down and mouldy, and that is
just the surface of their troubles.
It just gets creepier and creepier as the book goes on.
Think sinister neighbours, screaming cats, and in one scene that was particularly unsettling,
a bucket of human hair.
I had to get my dog to come and sit with me while I was reading this one because I was
so terrified.
It's lucky I hadn't read Pet Sematary yet, otherwise I might not have found her quite
so comforting.
OK, that's quite enough of this place. Let's go and find some ghost children.
So behind me now is the Ragged School Museum, which by day is just a really interesting
museum to visit, where you can go and see what it might have been like in Victorian
days going to a ragged school.
So this one was Dr Barnardo's, and was set up for some of London's poorest children to
get a basic education.
But by night, this is apparently one of London's most haunted sites.
And you can even sign up to stay the night here if you're brave enough to hang out with
the childrens' ghosts, which I am not.
Creepy children play an important part in Pet Sematary, so for more of that, I recommend
The Grownup by Gillian Flynn.
So this one is by the author of Gone Girl. She wrote a supernatural novella about a sex
worker turned psychic, who is hired to protect a woman from her seemingly haunted house and
apparently murderous stepson.
And this one's kind of comedy horror, so it's a fun little genre change.
But for a straight up scary story about children, read The Voices by F.R. Tallis.
This one is about a couple, who start hearing ghostly voices coming through their baby monitor.
And just like in Pet Sematary, the father ends up getting a bit too sucked in to the
ghostly world, with deadly consequences.
And this one's got a really creepy twist ending, that will leave you coming up with your own
theories of what actually happened.
OK, and on to our last destination.
So I started with Stephen King and I am finishing with Stephen King's son.
This is NOS4R2 by Joe Hill.
This is another one that's going to be made into a TV show so that is really exciting,
and I thought it would be appropriate to come to the super spooky Greenwich foot tunnel
to tell you about this one, because in NOS4R2, the main character Vic McQueen has this sort
of magic bridge, that can take her to whatever she's looking for.
Sounds pretty jolly, but on the other end of this bridge lies a horrific vampire figure
named Charlie Manx, who kidnaps children and turns them into soulless vampires like him.
Super creepy book and has made me really wary of what's on the other end of this bridge.
Well, I am super glad to be back out in the open air, I think we can bring the daylight
back now, and do give this video a thumbs up if you liked it, and leave us a comment
below!
leave a scream emoji to let us know that you're going to read any of those books, or give
us a recommendation of your own!
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Coming up next week we've got a special guest: Kevin from Irish Reader is going to tell us
his favourite new YA books of the year.
And in the meantime, you can go follow us over on Instagram @bookbreakuk, lots of fun
behind the scenes content including all of our bloopers.
See you next time!