13 Books to Inspire Your Last-Minute Halloween Party
By Mary Kay McBrayer
Up until I had this baby, I had been throwing a Halloween Party blow-out for five years running. Last year, I just could not. I focused on our costumes, instead (we were characters from Beetlejuice, in case you were wondering. My husband and I were the Maitlands, played by Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin, and our two-month-old was Lydia Deetz because her hair would not lie flat. Here are the photos). That’s not to say our costumes from prior years were not epic, though. We have been Lord and Lady Macbeth, Dani and Christian from Midsommar, Zero and Gustave from The Grand Budapest Hotel, Mufasa and Scar, the Girl with the Green Ribbon and the Hook-Handed Man. You can check them all out here. Hell, come follow me if you want to see what I’m brewing up for this Halloween.
Speaking of this Halloween. I know I’m cutting it close—like, very close—but this year, I might be able to rally a party. If you’re like me, tempted to throw something together last minute, here are some books for inspiration… and follow-through, ha!
I love a good folklore story, and if it’s based in a fun cocktail, so much the better. The hosts of the popular podcast Criminalia put together this compendium of cocktails based on wild and devious criminals that are off the beaten path. They cover everything from body snatchers to poisonous chemists and pirate queens.
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If you want to bypass the stories and go straight for the real potions, this book is for you. Mystic Shawn Engel teams up with award-winning cocktail writer and developer Steven Nichols for drinks spirited by different energies and containing ingredients of ancient magical significance.
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Similarly, if you want to build your party’s menu around Wiccan recipes that may incorporate some magic into the meal. There are also full menus for holidays like Yule, Beltane, and (for our purposes), Mabon, or the Autumnal Equinox.
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If you’re looking for inspiration on Halloween vibes, this collection of photography by Bryan Sansivero documents everything from uninhabited living rooms, bedrooms, even kitchens and exteriors, left as if the owners were only there a moment ago.
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If you’re thinking of throwing a Halloween party for kids or even one themed around wizards, this book collects plenty of ideas on the theme.
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I added this book to the list because sometimes the idea of a party exhausts me. But these pioneer divas, thinkers and drinkers, painted Harlem red in the 1920s. We’re talking everyone from Mina Loy to A’Lelia Walker, Isadora Duncan, Ma Rainey, and Gertrude Stein. The early, feminist rebels. Who wouldn’t want to party with them?
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Don’t worry if you snoozed your way through Comp Lit. Think of this recipe guide as SparkNotes with a liquor license, trading out pop quizzes for popped corks. For all you mixologists and cosmo connoisseurs out there, we’re serving up your favorite recipes with a smart new twist. You’ve gotta have something to talk about behind the bar—why not raise the level of banter by brushing up on your Brontë?
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The Party Book didn’t talk about booze, but this book sure does! Filled with beautiful photographs, the co-owner of the Clover Club and Flatiron Lounge wrote this book to inspire us normal, everyday drinkers without intimidating those of us who are not mixologists. Seasons, occasions, and themes are mixed into recipes for classic cocktails and the lore around them, too.
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To be transparent, this is the book that made me want to throw Halloween parties again. Last year when we didn’t host, we instead went to, like, a thousand Halloween events, and one of them was a lecture at SCAD Fashion Museum in Atlanta about the history of Halloween costumes. (It was incredible, and if you ever get the chance to attend any event there, do it. This year they’re doing vampire history.) Anyway, this book was one of the sources the speaker cited in her talk.
It makes perfect sense that she did—it’s a compendium of Halloween party traditions. It reads, to me, like a carefully curated scrapbook of ephemera collected over a century of Halloweens. From decorations to advertisements to photographs of school children celebrating Halloween, this book is sure to motivate you to throw your last minute Halloween Party.
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Although this visually looks like volume 2 of the title mentioned above, I found this book, while still a huge collection of historical Halloween Party ephemera, organized more clearly around the elements of throwing a party, like how invitations to Halloween dinner parties looked in 1915. It even contains patterns of crepe-paper costumes from major retailers of the early 20th century. If you’re wanting a vintage-tinged party, you’ll definitely want this book for both inspiration and guidance.
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The two books above, both by Robert Pandis, cite this book as source material, and by all accounts The Party Book seems to be the OG when it comes to hosting. It was written in 1922 originally, which means a lot of things have changed since then. For example, it focuses mostly on dinner parties, and there’s 30+ pages about Jack Horner Pies, which I only knew from the nursery rhyme. Not to mention because it released in 1922, the original pub circumvents alcohol all together. Still, there are some really interesting and historical ideas for hosting Halloween parties, like themed Jack Horner Pies: turns out, a Jack Horner Pie a center piece that hides party favors inside of it, so the host ties a string to each one, and at her (or his) call, the guests all pull their string, destroy the “pie,” and get their favor, so it’s a party game, too! And they come in all forms, from witches’ cauldrons to Jack-O-Lantern balloons. It’s definitely worth a read, if you can get past the overtly racist parts (like the themes of St. Patrick’s Day that call for shillelaghs and pigs “unless there’s a guest who might get offended” and Lincoln’s birthday that suggest a miniature scene of enslaved people). If it helps, you don’t have to buy this book to read it; it’s in public domain, so you don’t have to contribute to the racism. At least, that’s how I equivocated, because there is no ethical consumption under capitalism but I digress.
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If you’re not familiar with Christine McConnell, let me be the one to introduce you. She’s amazing. She not only designs and models her own creations, decorates her house in an epic way for holidays not limited to Halloween, but she’s a Patreon crafter, host of From the Mind of Christine McConnell on Netflix, and she wrote this book. It’s about how to turn your recipes into real art, and although the section on Halloween is extensive, it covers many other holidays and seasons as well—plenty to keep you partying.
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Similarly, Nikk Alcaraz of Practical Peculiarities provides many options for a conversation piece, both aesthetically and tastily. All of these visions are spooky because, to quote Nikk himself, “Ghosts are not seasonal.” The recipes look as enticing as the visuals, and while I’m excited to try the figgy pudding, the scariest-looking option is the Scary Cherry Pie. Too, his Pumpkin Caramel Fortune Cake calls back to a tradition referenced in the Hallowe’en Party Books and The Party Book: that of the 1920s era game played by young adults at Halloween parties. The host put charms in the cake before decorating, like rings, buttons, thimbles, keys, or pennies, and whichever one you bit down on told what you could expect in the coming year. I’m excited to resurrect that tradition!
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