How do you scare the guy who’s better than almost everyone at scaring people? Stephen King has an answer for that.
The master of horror has a genre-smashing new novel out now perfect for Halloween reading, “Other Worlds Than These,” which wraps up both his “The Talisman” books with coauthor Peter Straub as well as his epic fantasy series “The Dark Tower.” But he also rounds up a to-read list for USA TODAY that’s ideal for spooky season.
“When you talk about scary books, ‘Lord of the Flies’ comes to mind,” King says. His first pick is William Golding’s 1954 influential classic, which centers on a group of British schoolboys stranded on an island and their attempt to govern themselves that turns tribalistic and violent.
His second choice is William
Peter Blatty’s “The Exorcist.” Adapted into an iconic horror movie, the 1971 novel features a 12-year-old girl possessed by a demon and the Catholic priests trying to save her (including one navigating a crisis of faith).
No. 3 is Thomas Tryon’s 1971 debut novel “The Other.” The 1930s psychological terror follows identical twin teenagers living on a New England farm, one of them kind and gentle while the other is sadistic and monstrous.
King’s fourth slot goes to Thomas Harris’ 1988 book “The Silence of the Lambs.” Another novel famously made into a movie, it’s the literary sequel to “Red Dragon” that had FBI rookie Clarice Starling investigating a serial killer and meeting Hannibal Lecter for the first time.
And King goes for a more recent pick as his last: Sarah Langan’s September release “Trad Wife,” where a journalist digs into the dark truth about a tradwife influencer. (He's even called it "the best horror novel of 2026.") Another book this year, Caro Claire Burke's "Yesteryear," covers similar thematic ground and has "an M. Night Shyamalan twist involved in that one,” King says. “It’s funny and it's sharp, but ‘Trad Wife’ is kind of scary.”
What normally freaks him out? “You can be afraid for your body, and you can be afraid for your mind – the Lovecraftian thing where you see something that’s so horrible, it blows your mind right out like a candle. But the idea that you would be afraid for your soul, that’s a big deal,” King explains.
He recalls being fearful for both Regan’s soul in “Exorcist” and Clarice’s in “Lambs” when reading those, and in “Flies,” “Jack fights to keep from descending into savagery,” King adds. “Those conflicts really scare me, when the characters are good enough that you immerse yourself in the story. That's what I really want for readers is for them to, in a way, forget that they're holding a book.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What scares Stephen King? Horror master shares five books that are absolutely terrifying
