Halloween is on Saturday, the evenings are dark by five, and your brain has probably read enough lecture slides for one week. Koa's suggestion for this Sunday: one short spooky classic, a blanket, and zero guilt. Reading for fun still counts as reading.
All five stories below are old enough to be in the public domain, so you can read them free on Project Gutenberg or borrow them from almost any library. None of them is long. A couple of them fit into a single study break.
1. The Tell-Tale Heart (Edgar Allan Poe, 1843)
The shortest one on the list: a few pages, one narrator who insists he is perfectly calm, and a heartbeat that will not stop. Perfect for a 15-minute break between two focus rounds.
2. The Monkey's Paw (W. W. Jacobs, 1902)
Three wishes, one family, and a very good lesson about reading the small print. It is a classic for a reason and works brilliantly read out loud with friends.
3. The Signal-Man (Charles Dickens, 1866)
A lonely railway signal-man, a warning bell and a figure at the mouth of the tunnel. Dickens at his most compact: quiet, strange and over before your tea gets cold.
4. The Canterville Ghost (Oscar Wilde, 1887)
The cosy pick. An American family moves into a haunted English house and simply refuses to be scared, which upsets the ghost enormously. More funny than frightening, so it is Koa's personal favourite.
5. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (Washington Irving, 1820)
The longest of the five and the most autumnal: harvest parties, a nervous schoolteacher and the Headless Horseman. Save it for a slow Sunday evening.
Make it a reading break, not a reading marathon
Koa's trick: set the free Pinkoa timer for one focus round of studying, then read one story (or one chapter) as the reward. To keep your place, Koa made a set of free spooky reading bookmarks with a reading log on the back. Like all of Koa's pink Halloween printables, they are free until 31 October.
From tomorrow until 1 November, the Halloween code SPOOKOA also gives 25% off in the shop.
Shade of the day: no. 28 French Pink
French Pink, #FD6C9E. A bright, happy pink that pairs well with sage, navy and turquoise. Try it as a highlighter colour for quotes you want to remember.
Pinkoa (Finnish): to run fast, and in student slang, to study hard. On a dark Sunday evening, it can also mean reading one more page.
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