Here & Now‘s go-to book expert, Traci Thomas of “The Stacks” podcast, admits she’s a scaredy cat when it comes to horror books. But she still loves a novel that haunts or a true crime book that terrifies. She shares a few favorites with host Scott Tong.
Fiction
- “Kindred” or “Parable of the Sower” by Octavia Butler
- “King of Ashes” by S.A. Cosby
- “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins
- “Black Water” by Joyce Carol Oates
- “New People” by Danzy Senna
- “Beloved” by Toni Morrison
- “Friday Black” by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
- “Leave the World Behind” by Rumaan Alam
- “Macbeth” by William Shakespeare
- “Minor Detail” by Adania Shibli
Nonfiction
- “Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Everest Disaster” by Jon Krakauer
- “Paradise: One Town’s Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire” by Lizzie Johnson
- “Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital” by Sheri Fink
- “Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy” by Heather Anne Thompson
- “Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders” by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry
- “Nuclear War: A Scenario” by Annie Jacobsen
- “The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of September 11, 2001” by Garrett M. Graff
- “Columbine” by Dave Cullen
- “The Devil’s Highway: A True Story” by Luis Alberto Urrea
- “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer” by Michelle McNamara
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
Copyright 2025 WBUR
