Folk Horror Book Recommendations

Hello, welcome to my channel Bibbidi Bobbidi Books. My name is Ellie and in this video I list 10 fantastic sounding folk horror books.
Folk horror is sub genre that I am interested to explore more of and I'm excited to work my way through this TBR. If you have any further recommendations, please drop them in the comments section below and add to the list!

Follow me on Instagram: Cinderellie101
Second channel: @BibbidiBobbidiBonus

[happyhauntslibrary]

Yay! This video is so timely. I am just entering my folk horror era after watching Midsommar 😂

[rhysnayna]

Thanks for this! I have recently discovered a love of the folk/mythology horror sub-genres and this list is perfect!

[radiantchristina]

Lost in the Garden has been one of my favorite summer reads. The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley Is my all-time favorite folk horror book

[robertchamberlain]

Thank you for the list. As a Thomas Tryon fan (and because I am old), I read "Harvest Home" when it appeared in 1973; I had not previously thought of "Harvest Home" as folk horror, but, by your definitions, it is. There was also in 1978 a television miniseries version of the novel, "The Dark Secret of Harvest Home, " that I recall being quite faithful to the book. The whole miniseries is apparently available on YouTube. (Thomas Tryon was an interesting person. He had been an actor of some note prior to turning to writing. He had some major roles in large budget films, such as "The Cardinal, " but horror fans likely remember him as the star of "I Married a Monster from Outer Space, " a film better than its title.)

Prior to Adam Nevill's "The Ritual" was David Pinner's "Ritual" (1967), the book that inspired "The Wicker Man" (1973 and, presumably, the American remake in 2008).

About a year ago, I accidentally ran across the movie "Eye of the Devil" (1966), which has a truly amazing cast and which is based on the novel "Day of the Arrow" (1964) by Robin Estridge writing as Philip Loraine. Both novel and film are definitely folk horror. In fact, I would go so far as to say one could make the case that "Day of the Arrow" at least inspired "Ritual."

Finally, Clive Barker's short story/novella "Rawhead Rex" is probably the best compact example of folk horror I have run across. The story appears in Volume Three of Clive Barker's "Books of Blood" (1984 in the United States). There was a British film version, "Rawhead Rex" (1986), that I did not find nearly so good as the story. But the film is available on Blu-Ray (Region B/2, so not in the Americas) and via streaming on Amazon.

[rachelny]

The only folk horror I've read is Slewfoot by Brom. I recommend it!

[barbarafisher]

Both The Watchers and Cunning Folk are fabulous. I love both of them but Cunning Folk is slightly better. . Harvest Home by Thomas Tyron is an oldie but goodie. Published in 1973, I remember all the women in my family--Mom, Gram, aunts and older teen early 20's cousins reading it, and furtively talking about it. But they were careful with the copies they traded around of it, and hid it from me because I was a crazy avid reader, and would pick up their books and read them. For years, I forgot about the book until I started reading folk horror when I had covid. So I got a copy on my kindle and as I read it, I had to laugh---because it's pretty tame. I wasn't quite sure why they were so secretive about it--until my husband said, "They could smell the Witch on you, and knew you'd think that the goings on in the book were just fine." (This made me laugh, of course, because I don't really think the goings on were just fine--clearly they are morally bad, but it was nothing that shocked me.)

"Them Old Ways Never Died" by Joshua Cutchin counts as folk horror in my mind. For transparency's sake I worked as an editor on the book so one could say I'm biased--but I've read it three times because I was an editor, so I think I can fairly say it is engaging and creepy and full of folklore. And is set in rural Ireland, North Carolina and Georgia.

"Starling House" by Alix Harrow is another book set in the rural American South--and it is fantastic. Big creepy house, woods overgrown with kudzu, orphans. It's got lots of the tropes of folk horror but subverts them and delivers a really great story.

"The Revelator" by Daryl Gregory is probably the strangest folk horror book I've ever read. Like the first two books I suggest, iit s set in Appalachia, which is home to the oldest mountains in the world. Older than bones, they say. This involves an orphan sent to live with Grandma in her house on the edge of the woods and a creepy locked church. It's really odd with a creeping sense of menace. Really unusual, a little bit Lovecraftian and a whole lot of "Oh, no....I should put this down, but I can't. I want to know what happens next."

[kirstyfairly]

Great list. I've read both the Adam Nevill books that you mentioned (Cunning Folk & The Ritual), both great books. Adam Nevill's becoming one of my favourite horror writers. I'd highly recommend his novel No One Gets Out Alive, as it's one of the scariest books I've ever read.

[lupilotty]

These all sound brilliant. I've had The Ritual on my tbr for 2 years. Im excited to pick it up now. I would like to recommend The Magic Cottage by James Herbert. I loved the creepy cult vibes in that one.

[Maude_T]

Video: Lost in the Garden 🌲🌱🌳😟❔🌻🌷🌹🌲
Chapters names: Lust in the Garden 🌲⛓💥😈❤‍🔥💋💢🌲

[adriennelee]

Folk horror is one of my favorite subgenres, and Starve Acre is excellent. I would also recommend Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand

[cady]

I'm so glad to have had this recommended to me!! I'm also on a journey to find more within in this genre. I love T Kingfisher, but the Twisted Ones is probably my least favorite by that author (the bar is high) and I would absolutely recommend everything else in their backlist! Nettle & Bone, What Moves the Dead, and The Hollow Ones are all so fantastic. I'd also say Juniper & Thorn by Ava Reid and The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins could be added to the list. Thank you for the recommendations, lots of new things here for me to try :)

[reedmorebooks]

I'm not sure if this counts as folk horror, as I don't know if the folk lore in it is based on real world folk lore or purely fictional, but, I recently read The Butcher of the Forest and quite enjoyed it. It's a short read, but the author really capitalized on the pages. Very atmospheric, isolated and surreal.

[CliffsDarkGems]

Great list! Cunning Folk is on my tbr and sounds very spooky. Harvest Home is a book I really want to read. I own The Ritual and am looking forward to read it this year. I highly recommend The Haar by David Sodergren, a terrifying folk horror tale. I have heard that Maggie's Grave by the same author is also excellent.

[TripleRoux]

Thank you for the list! Lost in the Garden was brilliant, just finished it today and can recommend it.
I have "The Haunting of Alejandra" by V. Castro and "Woodworm" by Layla Martínez on my shelves and they both sound perfect for the list.

[bibby]

Winterset Hollow is a great book! It’s a different take on folk horror. It’s stuck with me unlike anything else I’ve read in a long time.

[DisquietandDragons]

Hey Ellie, what a great video, I love folk horror.

Some more you might like to add to your tbr

In the Night Wood - Dale Bailey
The Coffin Path - Katherine Clements
The Man in the Field - James Cooper
Little Eve - Catriona Ward
The Great God Pan - Arthur Machen
The Hidden People - Alison Littlewood
The Loney - Andrew Michael Hurley
The Only Good Indians - Stephen Graham Jones
Hex - Thomas Olde Heuvelt
Mist Over Pendle - Robert Neill
The Tangle - Justin Robertson
The Fiends in the Furrows - Anthology
Slewfoot - Brom
Old Country - Matt & Harrison Query
The Blood on Satan's Claw or, The Devil's Skin - Robert Wynne Simmons

This might be controversial but I always considered Pet Semetary by Stephen King to be folk horror.

The Burning Girls by CJ Tudor has some folk horror elements but has some other genres mixed in.

[Insectus]

I’d also recommend Wilder Girls and Burn Our Bodies Down, both by Rory Power. They’re more folk horror in setting rather than being based off of actual folklore, but they’re what got me into the genre. Wilder Girls is about a group of girls in a boarding school who are quarantined on an island because of an unknown disease that they’ve been infected with, it’s more gorey than most stuff in the genre but if you’re okay with that it’s amazing. Burn Our Bodies Down is about a girl who goes to visit estranged family in a small town and starts to investigate a fire on the family farm; it’s definitely weaker than Wilder Girls but I still had a good time reading it. I’d also recommend these if you’re looking for sapphic representation, both books have sapphic protagonists, though neither of them really focus romance.

[hisshissboom]

You should read "The Beauty" by Aliya Whiteley and "The Trees" by Ali Shaw if you like your folk horror to have a little more of a nature-taking-over-and killing-people vibe.

"Damnable Tales - A Folk Horror Anthology" is wonderful if you enjoy short stories - there are some very creepy and strange stories in there.

[grrlxgerms]

"bibbidi bobbidi books" is such a great name omg

[schimmelreiterin]

Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones!
It's set in a reservation and is as folk-horrory as it gets, I highly recommend it