These BIPOC Books Are Among the Most Popular Horror Books on Libby

Our friends over at Libby often share statistics with us that look at their most checked-out books. We usually look at the most popular books of the last month, books that help celebrate a heritage month, and the most popular books of a certain genre. Since spooky season just passed, they shared with us around 50 of the most popular horror books that were checked out on the app. Of the nearly 50 books, only six were by nonwhite authors, which I unfortunately don’t find surprising. One thing I’ve noticed about the most popular books on Libby is that they usually mirror bestsellers, which are notoriously non-diverse because of marketing, etc. With that said, the BIPOC horror books on Libby are strewn throughout the list, rather than being concentrated in one area. The second most popular book of the entire list, even, is by the King of Indigenous Horror himself, Stephen Graham Jones. Something else interesting that I’ve noticed is that many of the horror books by BIPOC authors are also historical. I’ve mentioned a few times how colonialism and empire-building have resulted in some longstanding trauma across lands and peoples, and how the horror genre can be so cathartic in dissecting...