Best Horror Anthologies to Read Before Bed

Not every fear deserves a novel.

Some horrors are best delivered short — a single story, a single image, a single sentence that lives in the back of your skull for years. The horror anthology is the form that understands this. It asks for twenty minutes, and gives you something you will never fully shake.

Here are the anthologies we return to most.

The Best of the Best

Skeleton Crew by Stephen King — Before you roll your eyes at the obvious pick: this is the collection that contains The Mist and The Raft. Both of those stories will ruin certain memories for you forever. That is what good horror does.

Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado — Machado writes at the intersection of the body, desire, and dread. Every story here is technically literary fiction in the way that a knife is technically a utensil.

Things We Lost in the Fire by Mariana Enriquez — Argentine horror, translated from Spanish. These stories are about poverty, disappearance, and the violence that outlasts governments. They are uncomfortable in ways that purely supernatural horror can never be.

The October Country by Ray Bradbury — Bradbury is not usually filed under horror, but he should be. These are stories about death told by someone who clearly found it beautiful, and that tension makes them genuinely strange.

For the Committed Reader

If you finish those and want more: seek out Books of Blood by Clive Barker, The Dark Descent edited by David Hartwell, and anything from the Year's Best Horror annual series. These are not light reading. Plan accordingly.

A Note on Reading Before Bed

We are often asked whether it is actually a good idea to read horror before sleep. Our honest answer: yes, but only if you understand what you are agreeing to. The goal is not to traumatize yourself. The goal is to sit with discomfort long enough that it stops being frightening and becomes interesting.

That is the entire project, actually.