Stephen Graham Jones' 6 scary books with deeper meanings

When you make a purchase using links on our site, The Week may earn a commission. All reviews are written independently by our editorial team.

Stephen Graham Jones' new novel, "The Angel of Indian Lake," completes his trilogy about a horror superfan's encounter with an Idaho slasher. Below, the best-selling author of "The Only Good Indians" names six books he can't live without.

'Love Medicine' by Louise Erdrich (1984)

The way this book moves in stories, but then manages to bring it all home at the end with a single magical image — I'll never stop reading this novel. It's the standard I always try to write...not "to," I'm not that presumptuous. But "toward," anyway, the best I can. Buy it here.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

'Solaris' by Stanisław Lem (1961)

This is truly an encounter with an intelligence not human. And it's thrilling and terrifying and wondrous and restorative. You can come back to Solaris again and again, and, just like the book's titular vast ocean planet, it's going to have something different for you. Buy it here. 

'It' by Stephen King (1986)

This novel's nostalgia for a world that existed before I was born somehow makes me miss the '80s I grew up in. It isn't about a place, or a clown in the sewers. It's about childhood, and friendship, and growing up. Buy it here. 

'Watchmen' by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (1987)

What if superheroes were real? This comic book is a model for how to truly engage with a premise, and then go beyond that premise. At its core, it's a murder mystery, but that's just the dramatic mechanism Watchmen uses to suggest and expose truths about the world, and us. Buy it here.

Darwin's Radio by Greg Bear (1999)

I'm not sure my heart's ever beaten as hard from reading fiction as it did while I read Darwin's Radio. This is science fiction set pretty much in the world of today, but... it's a world undergoing a profound change, one that's maybe even necessary. That doesn't mean it's not scary. Buy it here. 

'Come Closer' by Sara Gran (2003)

Come Closer is a possession story that, each time I read it, completely possesses me all over again. Gran has done something magical and terrifying, here, in such a short space, and in such a spare style. Read this one at night if you can, and then: Good luck catching some sleep. Buy it here. 

This article was first published in the latest issue of The Week magazine. If you want to read more like it, you can try six risk-free issues of the magazine here.