October is the perfect time to read a few spooky stories. Sometimes, though, the scariest stories are the real life stories of ghosts, disasters and human trials. Here are 10 books that will have you thinking the truth is scarier than fiction!
“The situation is normal. The radiation level is rising.”
In 1986, Reactor Four at the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant near the Ukraine exploded. Radiation poured out everywhere – sky, ground, underground. It was a disaster that no one prepared for and no one wanted to deal with. The USSR had a face it needed to present to the public and the world may not have known for a long time what really happened except that radiation traveled into Europe and was detected by sensors and traced back to the USSR. They eventually had to reach out after their attempts to fix the reactor and their own men failed. The story is told in Midnight in Chernobyl.
Read the full review here.
“Radium was a silent stalker, hiding behind that mask, using its disguise to burrow deep into the women’s jaws and teeth.”
What if the whole world told you something was safe and then that thing ended up being deadly and killed you? That is exactly what happened to the radium girls – women in the 1930s and 40s who painted radium on watch and clock face dials. They took a paintbrush, dipped it in water, made a point with their lips and then dipped it in radium paint – and repeated over and over, ingesting radium. They were told it was safe and even healthy for them, but years later, they all started developing deadly symptoms. Read about them in The Radium Girls.
Read the full review here.
“In my multifold years of life, I have learned that most people get along as best they can. They don’t intend to hurt anyone. It is merely a terrible by-product of surviving.”
Before We Were Yours is a fictional story based on true events.
Secrets have a way of coming out. For one family in Tennessee, the family secret runs deep. Avery is back home to help her family take care of her father, who has cancer, and to be seen so she can possibly run for the Senate seat he holds when he’s no longer able to serve. She misses her hectic life as a lawyer and her fiancé. One day at a nursing home political visit with her father, she meets a woman who seems to recognize her and the bracelet she wears – a gift from her grandmother. Avery later discovers the bracelet is gone and when she returns to visit the woman, there’s a photo in her room that looks very much like her grandmother and herself. The woman claims to know Avery’s grandmother, but won’t say how until she can see her herself.
Read the full review here.
“In account after account there runs the same thread, often the same words: There had never been anything like it.”
A blizzard almost like no other hit the U.S. prairie on Jan. 12, 1888, and by the next morning, hundreds perished. David Laskin weaves the true tale through the eyes of those who lived on the prairie and those tasked to forecast the weather. Even the atmospheric conditions had to work in just a certain way to produce a storm that was upon people in mere minutes – they went from enjoy a day where a light jacket would do to not being able to see a few yards away. One of the worst tragedies of the storm was that it hit when many children had just been released from school. Many never made it home. Read about the harrowing experiences in The Children’s Blizzard.
Read the full review here.
“She had forgiven her husband’s and sons’ murderers since the moment she heard the dreadful news.”
Hearts on Fire tells the stories of eight women who faced persecution because of their Christian faith in countries all over the world – Russia, Romania, Bhutan, Indonesia, Pakistan and China. Some women face imprisonment, some are kidnapped, some are tortured – yet, each woman stands firm. Their stories are inspiring, yet haunting. Each story leaves the reader pondering one question: Would I be able to do that?
Read the full review here.
“There was no sectarian, religious, or ethnic division here, just people trying to help each other get through the day.”
Doaa had big dreams growing up in a peaceful town in Syria. However, when she was in her teens, war came to her country – her own government was attacking its citizens for wanting more freedoms. Eventually, the military came to her town and made life dangerous for everyone – but especially, Doaa as she was participating in the protests. Finally, her family decided to leave and go to Egypt as refugees. Their own country was not a safe place anymore. Her story is told in A Hope More Powerful Than The Sea.
Read the full review here.
“What my father wanted to cast from me wasn’t a demon: it was me.”
Tara Westover lives in the mountains of Idaho and grows up in a family where shame and violence rule. Her father has mood swings and is probably bipolar, but sees himself as a messenger from God who keeps his family in line with the strictest Mormon rules. His children are homeschooled, but mainly spend their days helping him in the junkyard or building sheds and barns. A few of her older siblings try to leave for college and while they move away, the ties that bind this family together are very strong – they are the only ones who understand life as a Westover. Tara learns exactly how strong these bonds are as she prepares to leave and study at Brigham Young University. She tells about her upbringing and what she learns when she finally gets away from home in Educated.
Read the full review here.
“And so it went. No bells or sirens. No general alarm. But all over the Titanic, in one way or another, the word was passed.”
The sinking of the Titanic was avoidable, but the loss of life that night is tragic. The details of that fateful night have been passed on by survivors and compiles in the book A Night to Remember. Released in 1955, just 43 years after the sinking in 1912, the book tells the tale chronologically. The sinking changed the way ships communicated and how society worked in so many ways. It is a historical event that needs to be remembered by all generations.
Read the full review here.
“The track lingered on the surface like a long pale scar. In maritime vernacular, this trail of fading disturbance, whether from ship or torpedo, was called a ‘dead wake.’”
In my understanding, the sinking of the Lusitania was a key factor in the United States entering World War I, but history tells a different story. It was two years after the sinking and the deaths of many American citizens that Americans finally fought with their Allies in Europe. The morning the Lusitania left its port in America, a notice from Germany was published in papers warning that “vessels flying the flag of Great Britain, or of any of her allies, are liable to destruction.” The ship sailed anyway. There was even British intelligence that could have been used to warn the captain of the Lusitania that a U-boat was near it, but the information was never passed along. Tragedy resulted from both action and inaction and you can read about it in Dead Wake.
Read the full review here.
“Those who kept silent yesterday will remain silent tomorrow.”
Elie Weisel was taken with his father to a concentration camp when he was 15. His father was a leader in their village and even though they had some warnings in the two years leading up to their capture, they couldn’t believe it would happen to them. At first, they couldn’t leave their village. Then people were sent away on trains. Then they were moved to the ghetto in their village. And, then, they were taken away. Elie Wiesel shares his experiences in Night.
Read the full review here.
What books would you add to this list? They just have to be both scary and based on a true story! Share on the blog!