If you are looking for a memorable read for Halloween, you can’t go wrong with Shirley Jackson’s very spooky 1959 novel The Haunting of Hill House. The intriguing opening paragraph is one of the best in modern literature and will entice even the most reticent reader.

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against the hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.