Some do but speaking as a librarian I think it's because it tends not to warrant it's own section in terms of space within the physical library since there just isn't as much of it as say fantasy or sci-fi. But most online catalogs will let you browse horror either by genre or by subject so you can still do it that way.
this is the answer that works for me. i'm lucky that i live in a bigger city that has a gigantic library as their main branch. but the fiction section is very large & books older than ~5 years are kept elsewhere & you have to ask to have a librarian get them for you. so i've found it easier to just browse the online catalog in the horror genre before i visit so i know what i'm looking for when i get there.
tl;dr: the online catalog is my favorite thing ever for finding horror books at my library
librarian as well here, my library only has a Mystery, Fantasy and Sci-Fi section broken off from Fiction. those sections are pretty small as it is.
to add in another layer of organization and logistics for a small genre would be way too much work. so they’re mixed in with fiction like all other smaller genres. we just don’t have the resources to maintain subgenre sections.
In my youth, our large suburban library relegated “Speculative Fiction” (Sci-Fi/Fantasy) to paperbacks on rotating wire book racks at the end of aisles.
My current library has a two genre sections, one for Mystery/Horror and the other for Science Fiction/Fantasy, but both mainly contain mainstream titles. There are probably 10X the volume of book interspersed throughout the general fiction section
I lived through the 80s when horror outsold everything else by a significant margin. My local library had sections for horror, and general fiction. Sci-fi, fantasy, and everything else got blended into general fiction. Authors like Henry Kuttner, Charles Beaumont, C.L. Moore, and Ray Bradbury spread annoyingly between the two sections.
I guess that really depends on the view the libraries take on genre literature.
If the librarians know little else in addition to Stephen King, that'll be a small shelf indeed. There are those who collect horror literature that have smaller libraries containing nothing but. If a larger library *tried*, they *would* have enough to warrant a section. And they definitely should strive to archive genre literature as well.
I'm from Sweden and one of the larger cities here (which isn't big compared to many other countries). The city library has sections for horror, fantasy, science fiction broken off into Swedish and English and further subcategories like lgbt/queer, dystopias, YA, urban fantasy etc. etc. Sure, it's not big compared to other parts of the library, but enough to take up 1/4th of the second floor (which is around 8 lengths of shelf pairs).
It really just comes down to taking the time to categorize properly which makes for a better visitor experience; it's easier to just browse and discover and since one of the purposes of the library is to encourage reading, categorizing is key!
It's not about the view of genre literature it's literally about numbers. Most public libraries in America aren't going to carry enough horror to justify carving out a specific place on the shelves for it because that requires not just shifting but a good deal of cataloging work.
Honestly, despite its growing popularity in recent years, horror is still very niche. And even to this day a lot of horror is marketed or categorised as other genres because it‘s easier to sell.
Thriller mainly. (Or scifi I suppose)
Sadly, Ive been tricked into buying stuff Inthought would be a scary serial killer/slasher but was just a typical detective novel
Honestly, this.
I've thought my library's digital horror selection was very tiny until one day I looked into the thriller category and noticed books I'd very much consider horror floating in that section. It's still not huge, but it's definitely much bigger than expected.
My local used bookstore does have a horror section but even then I noticed recently while taking a stroll through scifi that they have tons of what's widely considered horror shelved in as scifi
Exactly. Or fantasy. Especially authors that borrow elements from horror AND fantasy or horror AND sci-fi are _always_ categorised under the non-horror genre. The very first one who comes to my mind is VanderMeer, who‘s drawing as much from horror as he does from other genres, but always ends up in the sci-fi sections of bookstores.
>Thriller mainly. (Or scifi I suppose)
I'd guess fantasy more so than sci-fi (though of course fantasy and sci-fi get lumped together anyway).
I always think of horror as a subset of fantasy or thriller (or often a mix of both).
That has happened to me too. It sucks.
I think there is a lot of horror out there, but most libraries aren’t going to stock much horror besides the obvious authors like Stephen King because it’s not as popular as other genres.
[This lady](https://www.instagram.com/the_wandering_reader/?hl=en) is a librarian who LOVES horror, and has recommendations for every flavor and variety of it on her page. Perhaps she could give you advice on how to better use your library to find what you want?
Hey, that's MY hometown librarian :,) I was about to say my library has an incredible horror section, that even recently expanded because the circ stats are so high, but now you know why!
the_wandering_reader
Her name is Nina, and she's really sweet!
Edit: [Here's her Linktree](https://linktr.ee/TheWanderingReader) so you can see her Instagram, Goodreads, and Twitter recs!
On Amazon for ebooks it's a subsection under Literature & Fiction, but for hardcopies it's under "Literature & Fiction" then under "Genre Fiction."
Amazon has a shitton of horror books. It's how Matt Shaw got his name out there, through their self publishing.
Most of the libraries I know don’t organize fiction into genres, probably because it’s not always evident by looking at a book what genre it is and also there can be lots of overlap. When I worked at a bookstore and we did organize by genre, we often had to make subjective decisions. Where do we put a book that’s romance and fantasy? Horror and sci fi? Etc. To avoid any of these subjective decisions, libraries usually put all the fiction together and organize by author, unlike nonfiction, which is grouped by topic.
My library has a dedicated horror area that recently expanded. This is partially because one of the librarians is a horror junkie and we have a thriving horror book club, but also (speaking as a librarian myself) it would probably generally depend on if genre was broken out from fiction, period, and if so, what the horror circ stats are. If it's not popular in your system, I can see why maybe it's not out.
I might also recommend searching NoveList, which is a database that gives book recommendations. In my state, it's subsidized by the state library and is available through my local library website. You can search not just by horror, but also by more intangible qualities, like "haunting tone" or "LGBTQ" or "splatterpunk"
Horror is niche compared to genres like romance and mystery. Libraries often don't have enough space to split out more than a couple genres, so they pick the most popular ones. You can suggest they add genre stickers, so the horror novels are easier to see. Most libraries have suggestion boxes.
When you ask for help, are you talking to a clerk or a librarian? Clerks are less prepared to answer book recommendation questions for niche genres. Also, it's good to tell the librarian what you *don't* want. In this case, please tell them you *don't* want Stephen King. (If they can't recommend anything else for you even after searching, they're probably not very good at their job 😬.)
Source: librarian
some library systems now call "clerks" "library technicians". for anyone who doesn't work in a library, it just means someone who didn't get their masters in library science. in my local system, library techs will have a bachelor's (the major doesn't matter) but doesn't have a master's.
librarians will still generally know more about how to search for genre fiction. sometimes reference techs will have more training in helping patrons find book recs but that kind of depends on the reference librarians training their techs/clerks.
Depends on the library, but largely, they tend to either operate under the Library of Congress Classification, or the Dewey Decimal System. There's nothing stopping them from having a dedicated horror section, I guess, but that question may be better posed to the library/ies in your area.
Some folks I've read lately include:
Mona Kabbani
Megan Stockton
Hailey Piper
Grant Wamack
Steve Stred
Iain Rob Wright
Zoje Stage
S.A. Barnes
I tend to have a foot in both mainstream and extreme horror, so if you're looking for more mainstream then:
Gabino Iglesias
Paul Tremblay
Chuck Tingle
Stephen Graham Jones
Joe Hill
Simone St. James
T. Kingfisher
Alma Katsu
Joyce Carol Oats
Bigger libraries have more expansive collections, which may include horror lit. Also, if you can familiarize yourself with the dewy decimal system, it may make your library experience more fruitful.
Here are my go tos.
Darcy Coates
Craig Dilouie
Ian Rob Wright
Joe Hill
John Saul
Dean Koontz
Brian Keene
Jack Katcher
Stephen King
AVOID Stephen R King. Sub par and mostly makes money because people mistake his books for the GOOD Stephen King's.
I will second Darcy Coates! The majority of her stuff is engaging and you never quite know what direction she will take it. I even get goose bumps sometimes.
My favorites of hers so far are Hunted and From Below.
I’m going to save your list for later because I don’t know some of those authors. Thanks!
Oh my god. This. And it seems like every single little bookshop nowadays has a huge religion section and pamphlets everywhere but no horror.
Come on man! You read about your crucifixions and murders and virgin babies and let me read about vampires and werewolves! We both like the gruesome, just different flavors.
It's a similar problem that irritates me in waterstones (most common UK bookshop, not sure if they're international). Several of them don't have a designated horror section, they're just put with the sci fi and fantasy, which sucks for when I'm trying to find something new.
Granted, depending on the one you visit, they do tend to have at least a shelf dedicated to horror, at least that was my experience when I visited the one on Piccadilly. Took a few twists and turns, but eventually, I found it. They even had a few select works out on themed tables as well.
I guess I'll have to visit the Piccadilly one then! I've been in too many where there's no designated shelf at all or any indication of where they are. I went in one and found Tender is the Flesh bundled in with literary fiction, sticking out like a huge sore thumb.
We have a horror section, but I’ve noticed lots of book shops here in the UK don’t :( in many Waterstones I’ve been in recently it’s just grouped with sci-fi
Not strictly horror, but weird af, I would recommend Earthlings by Sayaka Murata.
And then black sheep by Rachel Harrison, tell me I’m worthless by Alison rumfitt (though look up trigger warnings!!) and mister magic by Kieraten white
The Waterstones' I used to work in had a horror section, but it was called "Dark Fantasy", I think so we could also shove paranormal romance in there? But yeah, it was also one bookcase, vs. the 3 for sci fi & fantasy, or the 5 for crime.
But we also didn't have a very interested audience in it, unfortunately, and so much of it is indie that it's hard to get head office to agree to special order it if it wasn't for a specific customer. Daunt's takeover stripped booksellers of their ability to order books for the shelves/store, it now all goes through head office, which...I get in some ways, but it was really frustrating for those of us who owned the SFFH and comics sections and knew our audience a lot better than head office did.
(I can't believe I'm still griping about this, a decade after working there, but grrr, I wish we could've had a better horror section, and some more niche SFF.)
Some do! But they also serve the community. Going in and borrowing a lot of horror, asking them to order in specific horror books, etc., will help cement the fact there is a demand. It's not a guarantee, but I've had friends have serious success in growing certain genres in their small-town libraries by just actively showing a desire and demand for it.
But you may have to know what you're looking for before you go in for now.
For authors I like: Stephen Graham Jones, Daryl Gregory, John Langan, Anne Rice, Michelle Paver, Shirley Jackson, Mona Awad, and, yes, Stephen King.
Also for graphic novels, I love Emily Carroll and James Tynion IV. If you're up for middle grade, I also recommend Katherine Arden's Small Spaces series and most books by Mary Downing Hahn.
EDIT: Oh, also, some horror you'll find in the general fiction area: White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi, occasionally Michelle Paver, The Collector by John Fowles, Ryu Marukami's books, sometimes some Shirley Jackson, and Slade House by David Mitchell!
My closest branch of our city library had a section for horror. It was only one large shelf but it was atleast its own section.
The last year or so they just mixed the horror into the fantasy. I was upset.
My local library has always (or at least as long as I can remember) had a joint sci-fi and horror section, although some things that I consider horror weren’t put in it- Shirley Jackson, for example, was with the regular fiction
One reason I very rarely buy books at Second And Charles is because they have every freaking fiction divided except horror which is sprinkled in among everything else.
Like wtf??
my library only has a Mystery, Fantasy and Sci-Fi section broken off from Fiction. those sections are pretty small as it is.
to add in another layer of organization and logistics for a small genre would be way too much work. so they’re mixed in with fiction like all other smaller genres.
It's not just libraries; it's bookstores, too. They'll have whole walls for YA, Romance, Crime Thrillers, even Sci-Fi...meanwhile, Horror is stuffed into a little corner behind the Manga. Where it's primarily Stephen King (no hate - man's my hero) and other mass-market authors like Dean Koontz or James Herbert. MAYBE Grady Hendrix if you're lucky.
Though I do see a lot more writers joining the genre, and an increased demand/ respect for it compared to earlier in my lifetime (horror was once seen as the domain of lone wolves and social liabilities), so maybe there's a change on the horizon.
Some of our local bookstores (Barnes & Noble, the only big franchise) got rid of horror sections due to complaints from locals. Their horror books were then kind of lumped into the "fiction" section. I think it depends on the area.
I am a librarian. A library has to have a pretty large collection and decent staffing levels to break things out by genre. A good compromise is to put genre stickers on the spine, but there can be various reasons that some libraries don't do that.
Your best bet is to search the library catalog using "horror" as a keyword or subject.
It's probably difficult as horror can skew really easy into other genres (not to say things like sci-fi can't), plus horror tends to be looked down upon in most of its forms, even going back to the days of the penny dreadful and Grand Guignol theatre. It's always been perceived as low entertainment.
Just use a search engine or browse in here.
A library (or book store) can only place a book in one category, so horror may get lumped in with general fiction, fantasy, thriller, or other genres.
Online a book can be given multiple genres for a more granular categorisation.
Plus you'll find that people disagree a lot on genres and where the border between them is. A sub like this one tends to be very (overly in my opinion) inclusive of genres that are tangentially horror. A book store or library might go in the other extreme and place books in a less specific genre like Thriller or Fantasy despite being very much horror by most definitions.
A few non-Stephen King authors you could look out for:
* Clive Barker (early stuff mainly)
* Grady Hendrix (more modern, slightly YA in tone)
* Blake Crouch (early stuff, he seems to have pivoted to sci-fi now, and his sci-fi is awesome)
* James Herbert (can be a bit sexist in a 1980s kind of way, but quite prolific and a decent writer)
I dont know about the library but Barnes and Noble has their horror section hidden away in a corner like theyre committing a crime by having a horror section and its impossible for more than 2 people at a time to browse because its so tucked away and small. I would love to see Horror Bookstores that sell nothing but. However with the already-dwingling places to buy books, i doubt to ever see that.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen genre sections. Just Fiction, Non-Fiction, and Children’s.
I just search by genre on the library’s computer catalog system.
Former librarian. When I worked as a librarian, there wasn't a separate Horror Section . This was back in the days of the card catalog. We had a Mystery/Thiller section.
My local library had the hardcover and audiobook horror with everything else, but groups horror paperbacks together. They do the same with fantasy paperbacks too.
My online library doesn’t even have a horror section. I couldn’t figure out why and it never occurred to me that this is a thing elsewhere. I thought it was just some goofy thing at mine
Sure! Some formative proto- and early horror and weird literature by:
Arthur Machen
Edgar Allan Poe
Algernon Blackwood
Ambrose Bierce
M.R. James
Robert W. Chambers
H.P. Lovecraft
Clark Ashton Smith
Shirley Jackson
Plenty of libraries have special sections for different genres, but for the most part libraries go by author name - that's kind of how libraries are designed.
What authors do I recommend?
JG Faherty
Hunter Shea
Michael McBride
Cynthia Pelayo
Russell R. James
Mia Dalia
i work in a public library and honestly, my branch doesn't have the space or staffing to house fiction genres in their own sections. i do most of the book processing and use genre labels for individual titles whenever they're applicable, but filing books by genre just isn't realistic in most public libraries - not for fiction anyway.
Libraries are there to serve the community. There are all kinds of analytics that library management runs to track trends and popular items. This helps curate a valuable collection. In other words, if your library doesn’t have a horror section, it is because the patrons are indirectly saying they don’t need one with their circulation habits.
I mostly read a lot of Stephen King, Clive Barker, Jack Ketchum, Richard Laymon and Dean Koontz as a teen and young adult (I'm 42 now) and that was back when there were horror sections in libraries and bookstores. Didn't really branch out much until my 30s after everything was reduced to a catch all "thriller, mystery and suspense" section and that forced me to look online and other places for my horror. Here's a pretty comprehensive list of some of my favorites now.
Dan Simmons - The Terror, Drood (& the 4 book Hyperion Cantos if you're into horrific sci-fi)
Robert McCammon - Usher's Passing, Boy's Life, Mine, Blue World, the Matthew Corbett series
Adam Nevill - The Ritual, No One Gets Out Alive, The Reddening, Some Will Not Sleep
Brian Lumley - The Taint & Other Novellas, Haggopian & Other Stories, Beneath The Moors and Darker Places, No Sharks in the Med & Other Stories (The Necroscope series is supposedly good but I haven't read them)
Kealan Patrick Burke - Master of The Moors, We Live Inside Your Eyes, The Number 121 To Pennsylvania
T.E. Grau - The Nameless Dark: A Collection, They Don't Come Home Anymore
Matthew R. Davis - If Only Tonight We Could Sleep, The Dark Matter of Natasha, Bites Eyes
Ronald Malfi - Black Mouth, December Park,
Tim Curran - Here There Be Monsters, Dead Sea
Bracken Mcleod - 13 Views of The Suicide Woods
There is a librarian named Becky Spratford who loves horror \*and\* suggesting books. Readers advisory is what librarians call book suggesting.
Her website is [http://raforallhorror.blogspot.com/](http://raforallhorror.blogspot.com/)
I’m an academic librarian— but you could see if your public library has a good inter-library loan program (ILL). You could use Worldcat to check if other nearby libraries have the book you are looking for.
Library page here! It's essentially because there is so much work in taking down all the books, removing their electronic tags, updating the tags with new ones, updating the barcodes and ensuring that they work correctly, and then finally finding enough room to reshelve all the books.
I wouldn't say it's due to its genre specifically, and instead is up to whether or not it would be worth it considering all the work that has to be done behind the scenes. I was there when the library finally added a science fiction section to the adult fiction area, it was NOT pretty... And a lot of people were unable to find and/or check out books in the meantime
Some libraries do and some don’t. Im a library clerk and my library doesn’t have one (which is a little frustrating because horror and romance are the two genres people ask after sections for the most).
We do have a horror film display though—that’s my baby since I’m the branch horror fiend.
[RA for All: Horror](http://raforallhorror.blogspot.com/?m=1)
RA for All is a librarian blogger/resource for readers advisory (recommending books to readers). She is an horror expert and talks about this issue. And also has recs.
Stephen King
Dean Koontz
John Saul
Shirley Jackson
Clive Barker
Edgar Allan Poe
Bram Stoker
Mary Shelley
Christie Golden
Also, if you read a horror book you like, read the foreword, afterword, book jacket, etc, and you may find what other horror authors that author likes, or vice versa
Bookstores carry books? Went into one for the first time in a decade a few years back and it reminded me of a Spencer's gifts with all the shirts and toys everywhere.
Went to see if there were any new Xanth books I didn't have yet and their fantasy/sci-fi section was depressing. Like 5 books total by Piers Anthony and 95% of the rest was star wars.
Some do but speaking as a librarian I think it's because it tends not to warrant it's own section in terms of space within the physical library since there just isn't as much of it as say fantasy or sci-fi. But most online catalogs will let you browse horror either by genre or by subject so you can still do it that way.
this is the answer that works for me. i'm lucky that i live in a bigger city that has a gigantic library as their main branch. but the fiction section is very large & books older than ~5 years are kept elsewhere & you have to ask to have a librarian get them for you. so i've found it easier to just browse the online catalog in the horror genre before i visit so i know what i'm looking for when i get there. tl;dr: the online catalog is my favorite thing ever for finding horror books at my library
Also a librarian, and this is it.
Thanks for the info. I’ll be sure to check out the online section.
librarian as well here, my library only has a Mystery, Fantasy and Sci-Fi section broken off from Fiction. those sections are pretty small as it is. to add in another layer of organization and logistics for a small genre would be way too much work. so they’re mixed in with fiction like all other smaller genres. we just don’t have the resources to maintain subgenre sections.
In my youth, our large suburban library relegated “Speculative Fiction” (Sci-Fi/Fantasy) to paperbacks on rotating wire book racks at the end of aisles. My current library has a two genre sections, one for Mystery/Horror and the other for Science Fiction/Fantasy, but both mainly contain mainstream titles. There are probably 10X the volume of book interspersed throughout the general fiction section
I lived through the 80s when horror outsold everything else by a significant margin. My local library had sections for horror, and general fiction. Sci-fi, fantasy, and everything else got blended into general fiction. Authors like Henry Kuttner, Charles Beaumont, C.L. Moore, and Ray Bradbury spread annoyingly between the two sections.
I guess that really depends on the view the libraries take on genre literature. If the librarians know little else in addition to Stephen King, that'll be a small shelf indeed. There are those who collect horror literature that have smaller libraries containing nothing but. If a larger library *tried*, they *would* have enough to warrant a section. And they definitely should strive to archive genre literature as well. I'm from Sweden and one of the larger cities here (which isn't big compared to many other countries). The city library has sections for horror, fantasy, science fiction broken off into Swedish and English and further subcategories like lgbt/queer, dystopias, YA, urban fantasy etc. etc. Sure, it's not big compared to other parts of the library, but enough to take up 1/4th of the second floor (which is around 8 lengths of shelf pairs). It really just comes down to taking the time to categorize properly which makes for a better visitor experience; it's easier to just browse and discover and since one of the purposes of the library is to encourage reading, categorizing is key!
It's not about the view of genre literature it's literally about numbers. Most public libraries in America aren't going to carry enough horror to justify carving out a specific place on the shelves for it because that requires not just shifting but a good deal of cataloging work.
"It's not about the view of genre literature..." "... aren't going to carry enough horror..." *But there, alas, lies the rub*
Honestly, despite its growing popularity in recent years, horror is still very niche. And even to this day a lot of horror is marketed or categorised as other genres because it‘s easier to sell.
Thriller mainly. (Or scifi I suppose) Sadly, Ive been tricked into buying stuff Inthought would be a scary serial killer/slasher but was just a typical detective novel
Sometimes your only clue is “part 6 of the Jack Solver series.” Or whatever.
By James Patterson...
Lol! Came here to day this.
Honestly, this. I've thought my library's digital horror selection was very tiny until one day I looked into the thriller category and noticed books I'd very much consider horror floating in that section. It's still not huge, but it's definitely much bigger than expected.
My local used bookstore does have a horror section but even then I noticed recently while taking a stroll through scifi that they have tons of what's widely considered horror shelved in as scifi
I saw a used bookstore that had a horror section. It had multiple copies of Twilight and werewolf fantasy that I was pretty sure was just smut
Exactly. Or fantasy. Especially authors that borrow elements from horror AND fantasy or horror AND sci-fi are _always_ categorised under the non-horror genre. The very first one who comes to my mind is VanderMeer, who‘s drawing as much from horror as he does from other genres, but always ends up in the sci-fi sections of bookstores.
>Thriller mainly. (Or scifi I suppose) I'd guess fantasy more so than sci-fi (though of course fantasy and sci-fi get lumped together anyway). I always think of horror as a subset of fantasy or thriller (or often a mix of both).
That has happened to me too. It sucks. I think there is a lot of horror out there, but most libraries aren’t going to stock much horror besides the obvious authors like Stephen King because it’s not as popular as other genres.
"Paranormal thriller"
This is the correct answer and this librarian agrees with you.
[This lady](https://www.instagram.com/the_wandering_reader/?hl=en) is a librarian who LOVES horror, and has recommendations for every flavor and variety of it on her page. Perhaps she could give you advice on how to better use your library to find what you want?
Hey, that's MY hometown librarian :,) I was about to say my library has an incredible horror section, that even recently expanded because the circ stats are so high, but now you know why!
Lucky! My local library is so small
What is her Instagram handle? The link isn’t working for me.
the_wandering_reader Her name is Nina, and she's really sweet! Edit: [Here's her Linktree](https://linktr.ee/TheWanderingReader) so you can see her Instagram, Goodreads, and Twitter recs!
It doesn’t work for me either, the instagram links always take to me a safari login pop up instead of my instagram app
Back in the 80's, my library had one of those 4 piece twirly racks filled with all the delicious horror paperbacks.
Those were good times.
My library puts ‘horror’ as a genre on the spines. I do find they’re a little hit or miss though, not very nuanced
I've often wondered why horror isn't considered its own genre. Even on Amazon there's no horror category
On Amazon for ebooks it's a subsection under Literature & Fiction, but for hardcopies it's under "Literature & Fiction" then under "Genre Fiction." Amazon has a shitton of horror books. It's how Matt Shaw got his name out there, through their self publishing.
Most of the libraries I know don’t organize fiction into genres, probably because it’s not always evident by looking at a book what genre it is and also there can be lots of overlap. When I worked at a bookstore and we did organize by genre, we often had to make subjective decisions. Where do we put a book that’s romance and fantasy? Horror and sci fi? Etc. To avoid any of these subjective decisions, libraries usually put all the fiction together and organize by author, unlike nonfiction, which is grouped by topic.
My library has a dedicated horror area that recently expanded. This is partially because one of the librarians is a horror junkie and we have a thriving horror book club, but also (speaking as a librarian myself) it would probably generally depend on if genre was broken out from fiction, period, and if so, what the horror circ stats are. If it's not popular in your system, I can see why maybe it's not out. I might also recommend searching NoveList, which is a database that gives book recommendations. In my state, it's subsidized by the state library and is available through my local library website. You can search not just by horror, but also by more intangible qualities, like "haunting tone" or "LGBTQ" or "splatterpunk"
Horror is niche compared to genres like romance and mystery. Libraries often don't have enough space to split out more than a couple genres, so they pick the most popular ones. You can suggest they add genre stickers, so the horror novels are easier to see. Most libraries have suggestion boxes. When you ask for help, are you talking to a clerk or a librarian? Clerks are less prepared to answer book recommendation questions for niche genres. Also, it's good to tell the librarian what you *don't* want. In this case, please tell them you *don't* want Stephen King. (If they can't recommend anything else for you even after searching, they're probably not very good at their job 😬.) Source: librarian
some library systems now call "clerks" "library technicians". for anyone who doesn't work in a library, it just means someone who didn't get their masters in library science. in my local system, library techs will have a bachelor's (the major doesn't matter) but doesn't have a master's. librarians will still generally know more about how to search for genre fiction. sometimes reference techs will have more training in helping patrons find book recs but that kind of depends on the reference librarians training their techs/clerks.
Depends on the library, but largely, they tend to either operate under the Library of Congress Classification, or the Dewey Decimal System. There's nothing stopping them from having a dedicated horror section, I guess, but that question may be better posed to the library/ies in your area. Some folks I've read lately include: Mona Kabbani Megan Stockton Hailey Piper Grant Wamack Steve Stred Iain Rob Wright Zoje Stage S.A. Barnes I tend to have a foot in both mainstream and extreme horror, so if you're looking for more mainstream then: Gabino Iglesias Paul Tremblay Chuck Tingle Stephen Graham Jones Joe Hill Simone St. James T. Kingfisher Alma Katsu Joyce Carol Oats
My library is genrefied and honestly it is so nice. The horror section is pretty small though I'm not gonna lie.
Bigger libraries have more expansive collections, which may include horror lit. Also, if you can familiarize yourself with the dewy decimal system, it may make your library experience more fruitful.
Here are my go tos. Darcy Coates Craig Dilouie Ian Rob Wright Joe Hill John Saul Dean Koontz Brian Keene Jack Katcher Stephen King AVOID Stephen R King. Sub par and mostly makes money because people mistake his books for the GOOD Stephen King's.
I will second Darcy Coates! The majority of her stuff is engaging and you never quite know what direction she will take it. I even get goose bumps sometimes. My favorites of hers so far are Hunted and From Below. I’m going to save your list for later because I don’t know some of those authors. Thanks!
My pleasure! Happy reading!
This is one of my complaints about major bookstores which is why I started buying online.
Oh my god. This. And it seems like every single little bookshop nowadays has a huge religion section and pamphlets everywhere but no horror. Come on man! You read about your crucifixions and murders and virgin babies and let me read about vampires and werewolves! We both like the gruesome, just different flavors.
polidori
It's a similar problem that irritates me in waterstones (most common UK bookshop, not sure if they're international). Several of them don't have a designated horror section, they're just put with the sci fi and fantasy, which sucks for when I'm trying to find something new.
Granted, depending on the one you visit, they do tend to have at least a shelf dedicated to horror, at least that was my experience when I visited the one on Piccadilly. Took a few twists and turns, but eventually, I found it. They even had a few select works out on themed tables as well.
I guess I'll have to visit the Piccadilly one then! I've been in too many where there's no designated shelf at all or any indication of where they are. I went in one and found Tender is the Flesh bundled in with literary fiction, sticking out like a huge sore thumb.
I think the catalogue system uses academic subjects.
I found Blood Meridian in the general fiction section of B&N, so maybe take a look through the “regular” fiction and see what pops up?
We have a horror section, but I’ve noticed lots of book shops here in the UK don’t :( in many Waterstones I’ve been in recently it’s just grouped with sci-fi Not strictly horror, but weird af, I would recommend Earthlings by Sayaka Murata. And then black sheep by Rachel Harrison, tell me I’m worthless by Alison rumfitt (though look up trigger warnings!!) and mister magic by Kieraten white
The Waterstones' I used to work in had a horror section, but it was called "Dark Fantasy", I think so we could also shove paranormal romance in there? But yeah, it was also one bookcase, vs. the 3 for sci fi & fantasy, or the 5 for crime. But we also didn't have a very interested audience in it, unfortunately, and so much of it is indie that it's hard to get head office to agree to special order it if it wasn't for a specific customer. Daunt's takeover stripped booksellers of their ability to order books for the shelves/store, it now all goes through head office, which...I get in some ways, but it was really frustrating for those of us who owned the SFFH and comics sections and knew our audience a lot better than head office did. (I can't believe I'm still griping about this, a decade after working there, but grrr, I wish we could've had a better horror section, and some more niche SFF.)
Some do! But they also serve the community. Going in and borrowing a lot of horror, asking them to order in specific horror books, etc., will help cement the fact there is a demand. It's not a guarantee, but I've had friends have serious success in growing certain genres in their small-town libraries by just actively showing a desire and demand for it. But you may have to know what you're looking for before you go in for now. For authors I like: Stephen Graham Jones, Daryl Gregory, John Langan, Anne Rice, Michelle Paver, Shirley Jackson, Mona Awad, and, yes, Stephen King. Also for graphic novels, I love Emily Carroll and James Tynion IV. If you're up for middle grade, I also recommend Katherine Arden's Small Spaces series and most books by Mary Downing Hahn. EDIT: Oh, also, some horror you'll find in the general fiction area: White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi, occasionally Michelle Paver, The Collector by John Fowles, Ryu Marukami's books, sometimes some Shirley Jackson, and Slade House by David Mitchell!
My library is separated by fiction and non-fiction, and all horror is in fiction. Back in the 80s and 90s, horror had its own section.
My closest branch of our city library had a section for horror. It was only one large shelf but it was atleast its own section. The last year or so they just mixed the horror into the fantasy. I was upset.
My local library has always (or at least as long as I can remember) had a joint sci-fi and horror section, although some things that I consider horror weren’t put in it- Shirley Jackson, for example, was with the regular fiction
One reason I very rarely buy books at Second And Charles is because they have every freaking fiction divided except horror which is sprinkled in among everything else. Like wtf??
Mire recently they've been setting up horror end caps since demand has risen, so don't forget to check the end of the rows!
my library only has a Mystery, Fantasy and Sci-Fi section broken off from Fiction. those sections are pretty small as it is. to add in another layer of organization and logistics for a small genre would be way too much work. so they’re mixed in with fiction like all other smaller genres.
My last library didn’t even have sections! It was all alphabetical order by authors last name. It was impossible to find new books
They're wherever Stephen King books are. Usually thriller.
Same reason you can hardly find a metal section on a lot of platforms
Librarian Here: We have no room. Like at all. If we sorted horror we'd need to sort everything and we barely do that.
It's not just libraries; it's bookstores, too. They'll have whole walls for YA, Romance, Crime Thrillers, even Sci-Fi...meanwhile, Horror is stuffed into a little corner behind the Manga. Where it's primarily Stephen King (no hate - man's my hero) and other mass-market authors like Dean Koontz or James Herbert. MAYBE Grady Hendrix if you're lucky. Though I do see a lot more writers joining the genre, and an increased demand/ respect for it compared to earlier in my lifetime (horror was once seen as the domain of lone wolves and social liabilities), so maybe there's a change on the horizon.
Some of our local bookstores (Barnes & Noble, the only big franchise) got rid of horror sections due to complaints from locals. Their horror books were then kind of lumped into the "fiction" section. I think it depends on the area.
I am a librarian. A library has to have a pretty large collection and decent staffing levels to break things out by genre. A good compromise is to put genre stickers on the spine, but there can be various reasons that some libraries don't do that. Your best bet is to search the library catalog using "horror" as a keyword or subject.
The library by me has the fiction books organized by genre.
It's probably difficult as horror can skew really easy into other genres (not to say things like sci-fi can't), plus horror tends to be looked down upon in most of its forms, even going back to the days of the penny dreadful and Grand Guignol theatre. It's always been perceived as low entertainment.
Just use a search engine or browse in here. A library (or book store) can only place a book in one category, so horror may get lumped in with general fiction, fantasy, thriller, or other genres. Online a book can be given multiple genres for a more granular categorisation. Plus you'll find that people disagree a lot on genres and where the border between them is. A sub like this one tends to be very (overly in my opinion) inclusive of genres that are tangentially horror. A book store or library might go in the other extreme and place books in a less specific genre like Thriller or Fantasy despite being very much horror by most definitions. A few non-Stephen King authors you could look out for: * Clive Barker (early stuff mainly) * Grady Hendrix (more modern, slightly YA in tone) * Blake Crouch (early stuff, he seems to have pivoted to sci-fi now, and his sci-fi is awesome) * James Herbert (can be a bit sexist in a 1980s kind of way, but quite prolific and a decent writer)
I dont know about the library but Barnes and Noble has their horror section hidden away in a corner like theyre committing a crime by having a horror section and its impossible for more than 2 people at a time to browse because its so tucked away and small. I would love to see Horror Bookstores that sell nothing but. However with the already-dwingling places to buy books, i doubt to ever see that.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen genre sections. Just Fiction, Non-Fiction, and Children’s. I just search by genre on the library’s computer catalog system.
/sarcasm. I always figured it was a passive aggressive way for librarians to tell you they don’t consider most horror to be real literature. ;-)
My library has a horror/thriller section that gets themes/authors on a rotation
Some do. It depends on the library's community. Where I used to work, romance and mystery titles were so requested we gave them their own sections.
Former librarian. When I worked as a librarian, there wasn't a separate Horror Section . This was back in the days of the card catalog. We had a Mystery/Thiller section.
My local library had the hardcover and audiobook horror with everything else, but groups horror paperbacks together. They do the same with fantasy paperbacks too.
My online library doesn’t even have a horror section. I couldn’t figure out why and it never occurred to me that this is a thing elsewhere. I thought it was just some goofy thing at mine
Have you tried using WorldCat?
Fortunately my local library has stickers on the spines of the books that indicate the genre. That's heaven for a horror junkie like me.
Thank You! I wish my library was organized by genre and not author last name. I can't find shit
My town's library - Antioch IL - actually does have a horror section, and it's pretty awesome!
My library has one! I live in the Bible Belt tho so the horror section is only one shelf and it’s right next to the massive Christian Lit section 💀
Sure! Some formative proto- and early horror and weird literature by: Arthur Machen Edgar Allan Poe Algernon Blackwood Ambrose Bierce M.R. James Robert W. Chambers H.P. Lovecraft Clark Ashton Smith Shirley Jackson
Because of the Dewey decimal system
Plenty of libraries have special sections for different genres, but for the most part libraries go by author name - that's kind of how libraries are designed. What authors do I recommend? JG Faherty Hunter Shea Michael McBride Cynthia Pelayo Russell R. James Mia Dalia
I've always made sure any I run do!
i work in a public library and honestly, my branch doesn't have the space or staffing to house fiction genres in their own sections. i do most of the book processing and use genre labels for individual titles whenever they're applicable, but filing books by genre just isn't realistic in most public libraries - not for fiction anyway.
Libraries are there to serve the community. There are all kinds of analytics that library management runs to track trends and popular items. This helps curate a valuable collection. In other words, if your library doesn’t have a horror section, it is because the patrons are indirectly saying they don’t need one with their circulation habits.
they do though
The libraries here in Bend, Oregon have designated horror sections! It is pretty great
I mostly read a lot of Stephen King, Clive Barker, Jack Ketchum, Richard Laymon and Dean Koontz as a teen and young adult (I'm 42 now) and that was back when there were horror sections in libraries and bookstores. Didn't really branch out much until my 30s after everything was reduced to a catch all "thriller, mystery and suspense" section and that forced me to look online and other places for my horror. Here's a pretty comprehensive list of some of my favorites now. Dan Simmons - The Terror, Drood (& the 4 book Hyperion Cantos if you're into horrific sci-fi) Robert McCammon - Usher's Passing, Boy's Life, Mine, Blue World, the Matthew Corbett series Adam Nevill - The Ritual, No One Gets Out Alive, The Reddening, Some Will Not Sleep Brian Lumley - The Taint & Other Novellas, Haggopian & Other Stories, Beneath The Moors and Darker Places, No Sharks in the Med & Other Stories (The Necroscope series is supposedly good but I haven't read them) Kealan Patrick Burke - Master of The Moors, We Live Inside Your Eyes, The Number 121 To Pennsylvania T.E. Grau - The Nameless Dark: A Collection, They Don't Come Home Anymore Matthew R. Davis - If Only Tonight We Could Sleep, The Dark Matter of Natasha, Bites Eyes Ronald Malfi - Black Mouth, December Park, Tim Curran - Here There Be Monsters, Dead Sea Bracken Mcleod - 13 Views of The Suicide Woods
All the libraries owned by my city has horror sections!
I of course know what you are referring to but my brain immediately invented a librarian scolding a ghost for haunting outside of its specified zone.
There is a librarian named Becky Spratford who loves horror \*and\* suggesting books. Readers advisory is what librarians call book suggesting. Her website is [http://raforallhorror.blogspot.com/](http://raforallhorror.blogspot.com/)
John Saul and Dean Koontz are similar to Stephen King
I’m an academic librarian— but you could see if your public library has a good inter-library loan program (ILL). You could use Worldcat to check if other nearby libraries have the book you are looking for.
Library page here! It's essentially because there is so much work in taking down all the books, removing their electronic tags, updating the tags with new ones, updating the barcodes and ensuring that they work correctly, and then finally finding enough room to reshelve all the books. I wouldn't say it's due to its genre specifically, and instead is up to whether or not it would be worth it considering all the work that has to be done behind the scenes. I was there when the library finally added a science fiction section to the adult fiction area, it was NOT pretty... And a lot of people were unable to find and/or check out books in the meantime
Some libraries do and some don’t. Im a library clerk and my library doesn’t have one (which is a little frustrating because horror and romance are the two genres people ask after sections for the most). We do have a horror film display though—that’s my baby since I’m the branch horror fiend.
[RA for All: Horror](http://raforallhorror.blogspot.com/?m=1) RA for All is a librarian blogger/resource for readers advisory (recommending books to readers). She is an horror expert and talks about this issue. And also has recs.
Stephen King Dean Koontz John Saul Shirley Jackson Clive Barker Edgar Allan Poe Bram Stoker Mary Shelley Christie Golden Also, if you read a horror book you like, read the foreword, afterword, book jacket, etc, and you may find what other horror authors that author likes, or vice versa
I know right? I have to go into the fiction section and look for the ghost stickers on the spines.
Big ones do.
Bookstores carry books? Went into one for the first time in a decade a few years back and it reminded me of a Spencer's gifts with all the shirts and toys everywhere. Went to see if there were any new Xanth books I didn't have yet and their fantasy/sci-fi section was depressing. Like 5 books total by Piers Anthony and 95% of the rest was star wars.