Boo! The Spotify Editors’ Guide to Horror Audiobooks

What has thrills, chills, and something for every book lover? It’s the wonderfully wicked world of horror audiobooks.

With spooky season underway, we asked Spotify’s Katie del Rosario, Associate Director, Audiobooks Editorial, and Lena Yang, Senior Editor, Audiobooks, to walk us through some of the scariest stuff on Spotify. Whether you’re new to the genre or a longtime fan looking for something unexpected, our editors have put together a curated collection of some of horror’s most captivating tales.

“The genre is often associated with fear and violence, but at the core of so many great horror stories is some fundamental truth about what it means to be human,” Lena said. “The darkest books can often be strangely comforting as they give shape to our fears and, crucially, also show us someone trying to survive them.”

And there’s something special about listening to these works. “Horror is inherently visceral, and audiobooks give you that immersive sensory experience with their sound designs,” Lena continued. “But the icing on the cake is hearing a narrator completely let loose, because horror gives them permission to perform at an intensity that other genres rarely call for. I’m talking creepy character voices and full-on shrieking—the more unhinged, the better.

Read on—if you dare… 

The horror audiobook starter pack+

Ready to take your first steps into the dark depths of horror? These essential audiobooks offer the perfect entry point into horror to kick off your journey. 

“We wanted to showcase just how much range exists within horror,” said Lena. “Our starter pack picks span generations and feature some of the genre’s most enduring themes while introducing many of the authors and stories that have helped define horror today. We know everyone’s threshold for fear is different, so these books range from creeping unease to all-out terror. Start with whatever feels most familiar and go from there!” 

Bird Box

By Josh Malerman
Narrated by Cassandra Campbell

Bird Box builds its terror entirely around what you can’t see. Creatures appear that drive anyone who looks at them to madness, and to survive in this world means keeping your eyes covered or shut. It’s a book that drives home how the fear of the unknown is more powerful than the thing itself. – Katie 

The Lottery, and Seven Other Stories

By Shirley Jackson
Narrated by Carol Jordan Stewart

While horror often contends with supernatural entities and beastly thrills, Shirley Jackson is interested in something closer to home: the darkness lurking in ordinary people. The Lottery is this collection’s most enduring of Jackson’s short stories, but don’t skip the rest-—they’re just as unnerving. – Lena

Mexican Gothic

By Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Narrated by Frankie Corzo

Mexican Gothic, one of the defining gothic novels of this decade, delivers all the hallmarks of the genre. It’s the perfect place to start if your ideal horror vibe is less grotesque and more creeping, atmospheric dread, with a possibly haunted house on the side. – Lena

Rosemary’s Baby

By Ira Levin
Narrated by Mia Farrow

This slow-burn masterpiece is paranoia horror at its most suffocating. Rosemary’s Baby follows a woman who suspects her neighbors, husband, and own body are betraying her. Mia Farrow, who played Rosemary in the film, narrates this edition, making it something special. – Katie

It

By Stephen King
Narrated by Steven Weber

A horror starter pack wouldn’t be complete without Stephen King’s classic about how childhood fear lives inside you after you’ve grown up, and what it costs to go back and face it. It features one of the genre’s great ensembles, and the dual timeline is King’s writing at his best. – Katie

How to Sell a Haunted House

By Grady Hendrix
Narrated by Jay Aaseng and Mikhaila Aaseng

Camp and horror have always made excellent bedfellows, and few contemporary writers understand that better than Grady Hendrix. Equal parts funny, frightening, and heartfelt, How to Sell a Haunted House is proof that horror doesn’t have to be bleak to get under your skin. – Lena

Next steps into spookiness+

If you’re ready to venture further into the shadows, Katie and Lena have plenty for you.

“Once you’ve read horror’s greatest hits, there’s a particular thrill in finding a book that can still surprise you,” said Lena. “These books take recognizable horror traditions and push them somewhere deeper, using ghosts, haunted houses, cosmic terrors, and the human body itself to explore ideas that can be difficult to put into words.” 

The Fisherman

By John Langan
Narrated by Danny Campbell

The Fisherman is a modern classic in every sense, turning the incomprehensible scale of cosmic horror inward to make grief itself feel enormous and unknowable. Challenging, strange, and filled with chilling imagery, it’s a testament to the emotional depths horror can reach. – Lena

The Lamb

By Lucy Rose
Narrated by Emma Rydal

What do you owe the person who taught you how to be a monster? This dark debut is perhaps most unsettling because the horror is entirely intertwined with themes of motherhood, love, loyalty, and survival—oh, and cannibalism. – Katie

The Eyes Are the Best Part

By Monika Kim
Narrated by Jaine Ye 

Monika Kim wraps female rage, immigrant family dynamics, and body horror together into something that is really uncomfortable but completely impossible to put down. You’ll feel a little unhinged reading it, but in the best way. – Katie

A Haunting on the Hill

By Elizabeth Hand
Narrated by Carol Monda

Elizabeth Hand takes us back to Shirley Jackson’s infamous Hill House in its first-ever authorized sequel. A Haunting on the Hill is set in one of horror’s most enduring locations, complete with spooky sound design that had me turning around mid-dog walk in fright (and promptly feeling embarrassed). – Lena

The Reformatory

By Tananarive Due
Narrated by Joniece Abbott-Pratt

Set in 1950s Jim Crow-era Florida, Tananarive Due layers supernatural horror directly onto historical terror. In this book, the scariest thing isn’t the ghosts, but the humans running the school where the story takes place. It’s scary, devastating, and an essential listen. – Katie

My Heart Is a Chainsaw

By Stephen Graham Jones
Narrated by Cara Gee

To fully appreciate My Heart is a Chainsaw, it helps to speak fluent slasher. We follow Jade Daniels, a horror film aficionado who is both thrilled and terrified to find herself living inside one. Stephen Graham Jones’ blood-soaked love letter to slashers celebrates the genre while gleefully tearing into its conventions. – Lena

Personal favorites+

Sure, they’re resident experts on everything eerie, but Katie and Lena are fans, too. Here are the audiobooks that top their list.

Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng

By Kylie Lee Baker
Narrated by Natalie Naudus

Set amid the eerie emptiness and paranoia of COVID-era Manhattan, Kylie Lee Baker transforms trauma and anti-Asian hate into visceral supernatural horror that’s part ghost story, part serial killer thriller. Bat Eater is incisive social commentary rendered grotesque in the best way. – Lena

Pet Sematary

By Stephen King
Narrated by Michael C. Hall

Pet Sematary is Stephen King at his most emotionally devastating. Michael C. Hall (of Dexter fame) is perfectly cast as the narrator—performing with a quiet menace in his voice that makes the dread build even more slowly than it would on the page. – Katie

Check out the Horror Fiction audiobook hub on Spotify for even more spine-tingling tales, and stay tuned for more genre deep dives coming soon.

The post Boo! The Spotify Editors’ Guide to Horror Audiobooks appeared first on Spotify.