A bibliographical itinerary inspired by Halloween, not only to celebrate the great masters of terror and horror such as Edgar Allan Poe, Howard Phillips Lovecraft and Bram Stoker, or to discover the impulses smouldering under the icy patina of famous Scandinavian noir authors such as Jo Nesbø, but also to investigate more oblique feelings such as bewilderment, disorientation and the uncanny. There is also room for the unease of contemporary living, the confusion between reality and fantasy, the search for oneself between a sense of the sacred and religious sects as in Murakami’s controversial “1Q84” (also to recall Halloween’s pagan, Celtic and mystical origins) going after ghosts and phantoms that are much more concrete and painful than those of the Gothic tradition, ghosts linked to the past and to Nazi madness in Safran Foer’s debut novel “Everything is Illuminated“.

The sense of magic, folklore, superstition, fear of the different, the feeling of death in a splendid tale of formation and friendship in Davide Reviati’s great comic book novel “Sputa Tre Volte” translated all over the world and winner of numerous awards. And then the comic and illustrated versions of some of Lovecraft’s and Ray Bradbury’s stories, including the classic “The Halloween Tree“, a fantastic and horrific tale written by the author of The Martian Chronicles specifically for children. For children there is also Manlio Castagna’s survey “I venti del Male” (The Winds of Evil) on the archetypal figure of the villain (from Dracula to Mr Hyde) to better understand them, and perhaps even ourselves. An overview of imaginary evil to save us from real evil. All this couldn’t come without a parody of Dracula through the atmospheres and characters of Walt Disney.