Books like Stolen Tongues — picked by fans

I adored the simple set-up for this one.

Go clean out a relative’s house: simple, basic even. But that is the perfect trap to lull you into a sense of knowing what will come. The atmosphere here really nails the vibe of modern-day folk horror.

Mouse’s narration and humor hit perfectly for me, helping set off the building dread and making it all that much more effective when things got really spooky. And we can’t forget Bongo—I am a sucker for well-written animal sidekicks, and Bongo is top-notch!

I’ll admit, I watched the movie first. Gasp.

But slightly disappointed as I was, I ran off to find the book—the book is ALWAYS better. And it was. The creep factor of the set-up was so much better in the book, learning the rules but not fully understanding the situation—building that feeling of dread settling in because you know it’s going to get worse before it gets better. That was this book for me.

I love to be asking questions, and turning pages looking for answers. I loved how the creatures remained so mysterious. I wish I had read the book before seeing the movie.

Let’s start off with: if my old friends called me up for a hike into the Scandinavian wilderness, I’d tell them to have fun and send pictures. Thankfully, I am not a horror story protagonist.

In horror, I love a creepy forest setting. What could be watching you? How dangerous is it? I felt like I was in the forest, lost, alone with friends I may no longer trust. And then, when things got weird, we had to escape a monster too.

Was it a bit of a departure? Yes. Was I here for it? Also yes. It felt like the telling of an old campfire story that eased you in quietly, then bashed you over the head.

I love a short story; they were my first foray into adult horror, and I’ve come to truly appreciate how hard short horror is, so when I find one that grabs me and doesn't let go until the last page, I don’t stop talking about it. 

This is that story. I grabbed it in audio to listen to at the gym. Usually I quit the treadmill after half an hour... I kept walking until this story ended, hoping I somehow would help the characters walk out of the woods.

No spoilers, but both I and the characters really need to walk faster! Clip-clop demon hooves were chasing me all the way home.

One of the things I love about this young adult novel is Billingsley’s courage in giving us a girl protagonist who is crafty, vengeful, and hungry for power. Not exactly your standard heart-of-gold fairytale princess!

And this book was published in 1999—twenty-six years ago, when girl characters in young readers’ fantasy novels were usually—though not always—quite a bit more biddable. But Corinna’s honesty is bracing. She refuses to knuckle under to those with power over her, or to the fierce, dark-dwelling cave Folk in her charge. She won me over!

Still, there’s more to Corinna than meets the eye. Her hair grows two inches a night, her skin is translucent, and she can draw off the anger of the Folk “as a lightning rod draws off lightning." I don’t want to give too much away, but in the end, we find ourselves in a tale of the sea, of hard-won… show more.

I loved this book because Henry Martyn is a cunning and dreaded pirate. I think pirates are cool, but space pirates who have suffered at the hands of tyrannical and brutal overlords are positively exquisite in their vengeance. I also enjoyed this book because of its huge scope and the way it highlights the weaknesses of an overextended central government that is unable to provide justice for its citizens.

While the story of Henry Martyn can be dark at times, the process of his transformation from country folk to the terror of the Monopolity is very gratifying. By the time I got to the end, I couldn’t help but cheer when Henry crushed his enemies underfoot.

People often ask me why folk horror has returned with such a vengeance in the 21st century.

I tried to address this resurgence in my book, but one of the strongest foundations for making such conjectures appears in Howard David Ingham’s extensive, wide ranging survey of the folk horror film genre We Don’t Go Back: A Watcher's Guide to Folk Horror and Pagan Film. 

Both informative and critically engaging, this book is my favorite book on the subject in a field that has vastly expanded over the last five years. Ingham’s vision encompasses not only the canonical British folk horror entries but casts a wide net, pulling in fascinating examples from across the world.

I love books that educate me, but I especially appreciate books that give me new works to hunt down. We Don’t Go Back had me writing lists and jumping on the internet searching for new… show more.

This has to be one of the funniest books about music. I bought it maybe ten years ago or so from the children's bookshop Kinderboekwinkel in Amsterdam. It made me laugh out loud, even though I can’t read or speak Dutch. The illustrations speak for themselves.

Valentijn is a terrible violin player, and after ruining a party for the Queen’s birthday, the townsfolk banish him. He can’t understand why as he thinks he’s great. He performs heroic deeds elsewhere using his playing to help folk, even though it’s terrible. He carries on blissfully unaware and ends up helping a knight in peril and eventually saves the town from invaders and finally performs for the King and Queen, even though everyone has their ears covered.

The illustrations are so lively and energetic, and you can hear how bad the violin must sound from all the reactions of the people and animals… show more.

The Scarred for Life series (Volumes 1-3) is the most in-depth and expansive overviews of hauntological culture yet to be printed.

Covering Britain's popular (and unpopular) culture from 1970-1989, Scarred for Life leaves no stone unturned in its quest to discuss all the strangest TV, film, music, fiction, and other cultural ephemera that made these years the central influences on the “haunted generation.”

My favorite is Volume One, which covers the 1970s, when it seemed that the mission of the British media was to scare children into total passive submission. Although not exactly my childhood experience, I still loved every terrifying description and the authors’ “traumatic” memories.

Hopefully, some brave soul will write the American equivalent.

This incredible read was especially so because I remembered every single plot point and detail from the 1970s TV series—which was truly faithful to the novel—despite being young when I watched the show.

Upon finishing the novel, it made perfect sense why it had stuck in my memory grooves like cement. Because this story… this story… is really, really something. The fictional village in the story is called Cornwall Coombe because the villagers are all descendants of Cornish people who settled the area.

It delves into folk traditions from the ages brought over and carried out. These traditions are the basis of a gothic, folk horror nightmare that unravels for a family who move into the town and leads to a truly chilling outcome.