Horrors of a Different Color in Recent Offerings

Witches and ghosts, monsters and haunted houses --these titillatingly terrifying and wonderfully weird aspects of Halloween can be found in some of the latest book offerings.

Although probably none of these books was written with the help of a ghostwriter, they can still enable readers to enjoy the horrors of Halloween any day--ornight--of the year.

Some of the volumes publishers have recently scared up include:

* “Needful Things” by Stephen King (Viking, $24.95 hardcover).

The latest from horror-story master King returns readers to smalltown Castle Rock, Me., where a stranger has opened a shop called Needful Things. There, customers find the one thing they want most in the world, and at a reasonable price--reasonable in terms of money, that is.

* “The Witching Hour” by Anne Rice (Ballantine, $14 paperback).

The author of the enchanting, sexy Vampire novels turns her bewitched sights on a haunted house (actually her own New Orleans home), where several women are haunted by a spirit seeking flesh. This is a full-size paperback version of the best-selling 1990 novel.

* “Great American Ghost Stories,” edited by Frank D. McSherry Jr. et al (Rutledge Hill Press, $21.95 hardcover).

The editors have brewed this collection of 30 ghost stories by American writers including Ambrose Bierce, Mary Higgins Clark, H.P. Lovecraft and Donald Westlake. Eerie titles include “The Boarded Window” (Bierce), “Drawer 14” (Talmage Powell) and “The Phantom Farm House” (Seabury Quinn).

* “A Whisper of Blood,” edited by Ellen Datlow (Morrow, $22 hardcover).

An anthology of 18 vampire tales--mostly new ones--collected by Ellen Datlow, fiction editor of Omni magazine. “Lifeblood,” “The Impaler in Love” and “A Week in the Unlife” are among the biting tales.

* “The Encyclopedia of Monsters” by Daniel Cohen (Avon, $4.99 paperback).

This volume deals with “Earth’s most terrifying creatures--imagined . . . and real.” Text and photos introduce readers to all manner of scary types, from the Abominable Snowman to zombies. Categories include Humanoids, Sea Monsters, Visitors From Strange Places, and Weird Creatures in Folklore.

Readers who want even more chills might look into two of Cohen’s other books (“The Encyclopedia of Ghosts” and “The Encyclopedia of the Strange”) or “More Haunted Houses” by Joan Bingham and Dolores Riccio (Pocket, $9 paperback).

The authors of “Haunted Houses USA” found even more spooky places they want to share with us. The book arranges its haunted habitats by region and includes travel directions. Creepy locales range from Salem, Mass., to downtown Honolulu, and include a golf course, highways, battlefields and, of course, cemeteries. Photos included (gasp!).