ghosts | Musings of the Monster Librarian

Monster Movie Month: Colleen Wanglund Writes About The Vengeful Female Ghost in Asian Horror

Well, this time I just got lucky. Really, we all did.

I had no plans to write about Asian horror cinema, or ghosts, for Monster Movie Month. But one of our reviewers, Colleen Wanglund, is an expert on Asian horror cinema, and in addition to the reviews that she wrote for us for Monster Movie Month, I discovered that she also wrote a fascinating article for the feminist online horror zine Ax Wound, “The Vengeful Feminine: “The Asian Female Ghost is a True Feminist”. Great writing, and worth reading. In addition to her critical analysis, Colleen names a number of Asian horror movies; librarians unfamiliar with Asian horror may want to take note, for the next time a patron asks “Do you have any movies like The Ring“?

Bag of Bones Read-Alikes

Are you having a rush on Stephen King at the library this week? It could be because of the A&E miniseries based on his book Bag of Bones. However, Bag of Bones is unlike much of King’s other work, so if you don’t have enough copies to satisfy your patrons, and they’re looking for read-alikes rather than books by the same author (and King’s works run the gamut- not all of his work is going to appeal to everyone) here are some stories of ghosts and the supernatural that might appeal.

The Night Strangers by Chris Bohjalian
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
Ghost Story by Peter Straub
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
The Secret of Crickley Hall by James Herbert
So Cold the River by Michael Kortya
Those Across the River by Christopher Buehlman
77 Shadow Street by Dean Koontz
The Harrowing by Alexandra Sokoloff