21 Ghost Story Books That Will Chill You to the Bone

Halloween is far from the only time of year when you can enjoy a good ghost story. Books featuring spirits — just one of the prompts in our 2019 Reading Challenge — can be enjoyed at any time, because the theme of connecting with the great beyond is one that never fails to resonate. The best ghost stories do more than send a shiver down your spine, they also have something to say about the human condition. The ghosts can represent things from our hero's past that they can't escape, they can manifest as our worst nightmares, or they simply teach us lessons that only those who have moved beyond this world could impart. The sheer array of books featuring ghosts on this list proves that a compelling ghost story doesn't have to follow any one set of rules; in fact, they're at their best when they're breaking every one of the genre's time-honored traditions.