”On the Track of the Poltergeist” by legendary parapsychologist Scott Rogo. I had become interested in poltergeist phenomena as a result of living in a house which exhibited some, and found his book fascinating, as I could relate it directly to my own experience.
As far as fiction goes, my favourites would be:
“Ghost Story” by Peter Straub. He writes superbly-written stories with awful plots. This story’s plot is pedestrian, but it’s written with such style and panache that you’ll forget all about the fact that the plot could have been written on an index card with a fat sharpie.
“The Haunting of Hill House” by Shirley Jackson. She spent her life writing the same story over and over again, about a fragile blonde woman of questionable mental health with repressed lesbian desires. Shirley Jackson was a fragile blonde woman of questionable meantal health; I leave the rest as an exercise for the reader. This story is probably her best. “No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality. Even larks are supposed by some to dream. Hill House—not sane—stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within. It had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm and doors were sensibly shut. Silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House and whatever walked there, walked alone.”
“The Shining” by Stephen King. As a note of trivia, this is the only book which ever made me fear blind. I was reading the book alone, at night, in the attic I rented in an old house. Just as I got to the scene in the hotel room with the bathtub (those of you who’ve read it know what I’m talking about), the floor creaked right beside me. I went instantly fear blind, a phenomenon which occurs when a sudden spike in blood pressure caused by a massive infusion of terror-induced adrenaline makes the arteries in your eyeballs squeeze shut, most often experienced by soldiers in combat.