Tag: reading challenge

As the nights are getting longer and more lonesome, I’ve decided to compile a list of books to match the mood of the season. Here’s a selection of some of my favorite reads, everything from short stories to novels, to read this autumn.

I wouldn’t say that all of these are exclusively ‘autumn books’ or ‘Halloween reading’, but these are some of the novels and short stories that can set the right mood for when the nights are getting longer and darker.

It’s the season when you want to slow down and cozy up on the sofa with a hot cup of tea and read for hours until the dead of the night.

Autumn 2026 reading list

1. We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
2. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving
3. Dracula by Bram Stoker
4. No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai
5. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
6. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
7. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
8. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
9. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
10. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
11. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind
12. The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe
13. The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
14. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
15. The Yellow Wall-Paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
16. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
17. The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
18. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
19. The Secret History by Donna Tartt
20. Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
21. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

These are the kinf od books that will keep your mind roaming and wandering off into the eerie world of the unknown and supernatural.

And then there are the disturbing stories of human life and relationships that almost certainly happened to someone at some point in history. Yet, here you are left guessing how much of it was real and what does that mean to you on a personal level.

I hope that you will find on this list something to read and re-read for years to come.

I remember first signing up for this challenge a good decade ago in an attempt to get familiar with more classic literature books. My Classics TBR followed me around from one blog to another, and now it’s time to re-post it here with a few exciting additions and a new deadline to look forward to.

There are many different reading challenges for avid readers to discover and enjoy. Quite a few of them focus on rediscovering the good old classic literature. The one I’d like to commit to again is The Classics Club, which encourages you to set an ambitious long-term goal. The last time I participated in the challenge, I was aiming at reading 150 classics in the span of 5 years.

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