Happy Friday, Wildcats! Falvey Library is delivering you another semester of Weekend Recs, a blog dedicated to filling you in on what to read, listen to, and watch over the weekend. Annie, a graduate assistant from the Communication department, scours the internet, peruses the news, and digs through book stacks to find new, relevant, and thought-provoking content that will challenge you and prepare you for the upcoming week. 

We’re 6 days into October, which means we’re well into spooky season (there are “31 Nights of Halloween,” according to Freeform). Last year, I kicked October off with some quintessential spooky season recommendations. As a lifelong Halloween lover, I’d like to keep the tradition going with some updated recs to get you in the mood for all things Halloween.

Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

If you have 5 minutes and 28 seconds…and want to laugh a little, watch this Halloween SNL sketch from last year. (Note: the video is rated about PG.)

If you have 26 minutes and 4 seconds…and want a throwback to your childhood Halloween parties, listen to this Halloween playlist.

If you have 58 minutes and 6 seconds…and love listening to podcasts, listen to Let’s Read’s latest Halloween-themed episode. Let’s Read is always the place to go for creepy narrations, and this episode does not disappoint.

If you have 1 hour and 20 minutes…and think M. Night Shyamalan movies are so bad that they’re good, watch Devil, available in Falvey’s DVD Collection. In this film, five people get trapped in an elevator in Philly, but (gasp) one of them is the literal devil. It’s one of those cheesy films that is somehow still enjoyable (Shyamalan’s specialty).

If you have 1 hour and 33 minutes…and don’t like scary movies, watch Paranorman, available in Falvey’s DVD Collection. This LAIKA film (famous for films like Coraline and Kubo and the Two Strings) is the perfect amount of spooky for those who don’t like horror.

Photo by Skyler Sawyer on Unsplash

If you have 1 hour and 51 minutes…and want to experience a scary movie with a crowd of people, watch The Exorcist: Believer in theaters (premiering tonight). It’s hard to beat the original, as it still really holds up, but this should be a fun in-theater viewing experience.

Bonus: if you want to catch-up with the 1973 original, watch The Exorcist, available in Falvey’s DVD Collection.

If you have 4 hours…and want to get frightened with some friends, go to The Bates Motel & Haunted Hayride. It’s not too far from Villanova, and it has a hayride, corn maze, and haunted house, enough to leave any of your easy-frightened friends jump.

If you have 8 hours…and want to read a classic horror novel, read Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, available at Falvey. This book has everything to get you in the mood for Halloween, including haunted mansions and paranormal investigators.

Bonus: if you want to be frightened and a bit emotionally devastated, watch Mike Flanagan’s The Haunting of Hill House Netflix Original series, a loose adaptation of Jackson’s book. Anything directed by Mike Flanagan is perfect for spooky season, but this show is truly some of his best work (including a beautiful 17-minute long take in the sixth episode).

If you have 10 hours…and prefer novella anthologies, read horror legend Stephen King’s Full Dark, No Stars, available at Falvey. This book contains 4 shorter novellas, including the recognizable “1922,” which also received a Netflix Original adaptation. It’s ominous, unsettling, and the perfect book for spooky season.

Bonus: if you want more Stephen King, Falvey also has some of his other spine-chilling books, including The Shining, Carrie, Misery, Cujo, and Christine, and if you want to look more into King’s terrifying world building over years, check out The Stephen King Universe: A Guide to the Worlds of the King of Horror.

Annie Stockmal is a second-year graduate student in the Communication Department and Graduate Assistant in Falvey Library.

Happy Friday, Wildcats! Falvey Library is delivering you another semester of Weekend Recs, a blog dedicated to filling you in on what to read, listen to, and watch over the weekend. Annie, a graduate assistant from the Communication department, scours the internet, peruses the news, and digs through book stacks to find new, relevant, and thought-provoking content that will challenge you and prepare you for the upcoming week. 

It might not be Halloween yet, but as far as I’m concerned (and according to Freeform‘s “31 Nights of Halloween” programming), the first day of October marks the beginning of spooky season. Even if you hate spooky things, the season still brings sweater weather, pumpkin-flavored treats, and Fall Break with it. Plus, I am a firm believer that there is at least one Tim Burton movie out there for everyone. For a whole week without classes, as Fall Break begins tomorrow, here are some recs to help you get in the spirit of the season.

If you have 15 seconds…and want to reminisce on spooky season in the 2000s, watch this TikTok. Halloweentown marathons and spooky Kid Cuisines definitely make me nostalgic.

Photo by Alex Simpson on Unsplash

If you have 28 minutes…and think the characters in horror movies always make the worst decisions, watch this Youtube video about how to survive the recent vampire flick The Invitation, (beware: there are spoilers), and check out the rest of the channel for other videos on how to survive all of your favorite scary movies.

If you have 45 minutes…and are in the mood for a scary podcast that might send shivers down your spine, listen to a Let’s Read episode. This episode is Halloween-themed, but scroll through the channel to find stories with a number of different spooky twists, including ghosts, stalkers, murderers, and cryptids.

If you have 1 hour…and want to try out some Halloween-inspired recipes, try a recipe from this cookbook. They may be a bit silly, but they look delicious and might get you into the Halloween spirit.

Bonus: if you’re looking for a simple dessert you can try out in your dorm kitchen, check out this Halloween cookie-cake recipe from TikTok.

If you have 1 hour and 45 minutes…and want to give yourself a dose of nostalgia, watch Hocus Pocus 2 on Disney+. Hocus Pocus is one of the most iconic Halloween movies of all-time, and I have high hopes for the sequel.

If you have 4 hours…and want to experience an interactive cult classic (or live out your The Perks of Being a Wallflower fantasy), find a screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show near you. Philly is a great Rocky Horror hub in October, and if you’ve never been to a live screening, it’s quite the experience. I know I will be at the Oct. 15 screening at the Colonial Theater in Phoenixville.

Photo by Erin Minuskin on Unsplash

If you have another 4 hours…and want to get your steps for the day in…visit a local corn maze with some friends. If you’re heading out West toward Lancaster, Cherry Crest Adventure Farm has been one of the highest rated mazes in recent years. I have personally gone to Wilcox Farms, located in Boyertown, (and gotten lost in their previous corn mazes).

Bonus: if you want to get some steps in and get scared while doing so, visit a local scary Halloween attraction. Field of Screams is a major attraction that typically garners a crowd, and The Valley of Fear is usually pretty fun, especially if you have some squeamish friends.

If you have 6 hours…and want to learn about some Halloween history, read Nicholas Roger’s Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night. This one is for all my history buffs.

If you have 8 hours…and want to brush-up on the classic thrillers, read Stephen King’s The Shining or virtually any other Stephen King novel. (Misery is also a good, less supernatural option). Hearing his name in the month of October may seem cliche to some, but there is a good reason that he is a horror household name.

Bonus: put DCDE’s Halloween Haunts event on your calendar for Oct. 31. The event will feature some of the most festive items from Distinctive Collections and some delicious (free) Halloween treats.

Annie Stockmal is a graduate student in the Communication Department and graduate assistant in Falvey Library.

We’ve made it to Halloween weekend! For this week’s weekend recs we’re changing it up and bringing to you all things Edith Wharton. If you’re looking to add some spooky stories into your weekend, consider picking up one of Edith Wharton’s short story collections. Learn more about Wharton, her life, and written works below. 

Edith Wharton Biography 

Wharton was an American novelist, short story writer, and designer. Wharton drew upon her insider’s knowledge of the upper-class New York “aristocracy” to realistically portray the lives and morals of the Gilded Age. In 1921, she became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in Literature, for her novel The Age of Innocence. She was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1996. 

Horrified by ghost stories as a young girl, Wharton took that fear and channeled it into creating a series of chilling short stories filled with spirits beyond the grave and other supernatural phenomena.  As an adult, Wharton claimed she did not believe in ghosts, while somewhat paradoxically also confessing that she was afraid of them. Whether you believe in ghosts and the supernatural world or not, Wharton’s tales are enough to send a tingle running down your spine. 

Fun Fact: Edith Wharton was honored on a U.S. postage stamp issued on Sept. 5, 1980. 

Re-released Short Story Collection 

In total, Wharton has published upwards of 85 short stories that have been published in many different formats over the years. This October, her collection Ghosts will be revived by NYRB Classics, with the same preface with which it was initially published in 1937, shortly after Wharton’s death. Spanning the length of Wharton’s career—the earliest story, “The Lady’s Maid’s Bell,” is from 1902—the tales appear in their original, somewhat perplexing order. The collection contains 11 short stories in total. 

Kate Moss of The Guardian says of the collection, “A blend of Poe, Hawthorne and Henry James, [Wharton] has a lightness of touch that belies the often very grisly tale.” 

Read more about the collection in this New Yorker article. 

About the Edith Wharton Review 

If you want to learn more about Edith Wharton, consider viewing the Edith Wharton Review. The Edith Wharton Review is a peer-reviewed, MLA-indexed, scholarly journal publishing scholarship on Edith Wharton, Wharton in the context of other authors, and Wharton in relation to other writers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The journal is published by the Pennsylvania State University and can be accessed through Falvey’s database. 

AVAILABLE AT FALVEY – Short Stories Collections by Edith Wharton: 

• Tales of Men and Ghosts  
• The Ghost Feeler: Stories of Terror and the Supernatural 
• The Demanding Dead: More Stories of Terror and the Supernatural  

Jenna Renaud is a graduate student in the Communication Department and graduate assistant in Falvey Memorial Library.

Falvey Library’s Distinctive Collections and Villanova Astronomy Faculty collaborated in order to show that H.P. Lovecraft, famed horror writer, viewed Halley’s Comet in his recently acquired one-of-a-kind astronomical journal, now available to the public online.

“This manuscript—hitherto held privately—has long been a ‘Holy Grail’ to scholars of Lovecraft eager explore connections between Lovecraft’s literary output and his ventures into amateur science and journalism. Villanova University brings a commitment to open scholarship for a global community of inquiry by sharing rare resources,  such as this manuscript, through making high resolution digital surrogates freely available,” says Michael Foight, Director of Distinctive Collections and Digital Engagement.

One class of Villanova undergraduate students received a chance to view them in person, as Foight brought Lovecraft’s astronomical journal as well as other rare documents for a special presentation. It was a unique opportunity to look over primary works by prominent figures in the field, including Galileo, and another way Falvey staff reach out to the community to enrich the academic experience.

But the students were also on hand to see history, literature, and astronomy lead to discovery.

Edward Guinan, PhD, Professor of Astronomy & Astrophysics, and Frank Maloney, PhD, Associate Professor, Astronomy & Astrophysics, used software to recreate the sky the night that Lovecraft indicated he made a rare observation of Halley’s Comet.

A page from the digitized astronomical journal of H.P. Lovecraft showing Halley’s Comet.

It turns out that, exactly as the author indicated, Halley’s comet was visible on May 26, 1910, 9 p.m., in the exact direction indicated.

Lovecraft’s work, which is heavily influenced by astronomy and mythology, may have roots in this unearthed journal, which was used by Lovecraft from age 18 to 25.

Currently, S.T. Joshi, a leading Lovecraft biographer, is reviewing the recently digitized journal. There are also scholars around the world poring over the work for new revelations about Lovecraft’s work.

Falvey Library is helping write a new chapter in Lovecraft’s legacy*, one which still holds the imagination of authors today, from Stephen King to Brian Lumley to Jordan Peele.

* Note: In recent years, Lovecraft has been criticized for his personal views, including strong racism, which resulted in his appearance being removed from the statute given for lifetime achievement in the World Fantasy Awards.

Shawn Proctor is Communication and Marketing Manager at Falvey Library. His favorite Lovecraft story is “The Shadow Over Innsmouth.”