The Haunting of Hill House was my Halloween read this year, even though I didn’t read much of it on the actual day. Something I love about books from this sort of period is the amount of booze consumed in a casual sort of way. Worried the house is evil? Never mind, have a brandy! It seemed there was a time where a drink solved everything. Or maybe it just helps to distract you from the ghosts…

It’s not a very scary book though. The only time I got a bit creeped out was because I was reading on the bus and then had to walk down the road in the dark and fog on quite a cold evening. The haunting manifests itself in cold spots in the book, so clearly it managed to latch on to one bit of my brain.

I did enjoy it though, more as a period piece about an odd group of people staying in an isolated house. There was a point where I did start to wonder if it were all in Eleanor’s mind; which is scarier, ghosts that can’t harm you or being terrified by your own mind?