Submitted by AutoModerator t3_yeoxuh in books
Boo! readers,
Halloween is almost here and that means we're discussing scary books! Please use this thread to discuss your favorite horror books and authors.
If you'd like to read our previous weekly discussions of fiction and nonfiction please visit the suggested reading section of our wiki.
Thank you and enjoy!
We Have Always Lived in the Castle isnt straight horror, per se, but is so unsettling and strange!
Technically, I have learned, Shirley Jackson is terror rather than horror. It’s so hard to find good terror writers!
Well, TIL that there is a difference. Good to know!
It’s my favorite one by her, love it more than Hill House!
I just finished reading this and just couldn't get into it.
It took me a couple tries to get into it. But once I got past the beginning, I was sucked in.
I’m currently reading this! It took me a little bit to get into it, but now I’m enjoying it!
Shout out to the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series for getting me interested in horror when I was a kid! “Harold” and “The Thing” especially scared me half to death!
I am 34 and I read these every year. For nostalgia, and the notes/sources (at the back of each book) are interesting.
I’m impressed you’re brave enough.
As a librarian, I often recommend these to young fans and for parents. I wish they’d been around when I was a young horror fan. I read a lot of the Alfred Hitchcock collections, and I am still a devoted short story reader.
Something Wicked This Comes, by Ray Bradbury - Has the perfect Halloween/autumn atmosphere. Wonderful story and prose as well.
Salem's Lot, by Stephen King - Terrified me. My favorite Stephen King story.
I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson - Another great vampire novel. Has one of my favorite endings ever.
The Color Out of Space, by H.P Lovecraft - I personally think this is Lovecraft's creepiest story. Highly recommend.
Do you need to read Dandelion Wine before you read Something Wicked This Way Comes? I see it’s the second in a series, but I’m not sure if it’s the kind where you really need to read them in the correct order.
Something Wicked was the first one I've read so far from this series. From my understanding they are not connected in terms of story. So I think you can read in any order.
I really tried to get into the Halloween spirit this year with my reading. This month I've read the following:
Something Wicked This Way Comes
From the Dust Returned
Halloween Tree
The Ruins
The Fisherman
The Troop
The Deep
The Canterville Ghost
Herbert West :Reanimater
The Call of Cthulu
Loved The Fisherman! Atmospheric/weird horror is my favorite (Lovecraft)
Nick Cutter’s {{The Deep}} and {{The Troop}} are both fantastic also Justin Cronin’s {{The Passage}} which is a trilogy but the first book is one of my favorites.
The scene with >!the turtle!< from The Troop will haunt me forever.
Lol yep!! Great stuff!!
It’s on my TBR. Just started “Penpal”.
Isn’t this the one that was originally a r/nosleep post, or something like that?
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (The Sundial along with everything else she wrote is great)
Beloved by Toni Morrison (I’m counting it as horror)
The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter
Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado (In The Dream House is also worth the read)
Carrie by Stephen King
Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury (is there’s a book that feels more like autumn)
Omg I loved The Magic Toyshop
Dan Simmons, Carrion Comfort: a louche pleasure but a pleasure
Bram Stoker's Dracula: still wonderful after all these years
People don’t recommend Dracula often enough! It’s SO good! I wish there were more very good literary classic horrors. To add to that list of excellent classic horror that doesn’t get enough recognition, I’d say give {{Rebecca}} by Daphne DuMaurier a read, and perhaps {{She}} by H. Rider Haggard (not so much Halloween vibes, more like The Mummy kind of vibes.)
...yeah, I'm with you both barrels on Dracula... not so much the other two. I loved Haggard when I was 13... went back to him when I was 23 and thought it was awful. Testosterone-laden crap for jerking around kids who don't know any better. Sorry. I prefer to be jerked around in a more adult fashion lol... Rebecca I read when I was a goodeal more mature and afterwards wasn't sure whether it was really worth the time. Not the sensation I look for in a novel.
I was trying to find an example of Lovecraft that I could add and couldn't think of one - but he built strange new worlds, I'm sure you're aware. Wasn't The King in Yellow his? And Chthulu?
Well, and Poe. The Cask of Amontillado was perfect. For modern horror, probably Moby Dick, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Lord of the Flies, Hilberg's book Destruction of the European Jews and Gitta Sereny's Into That Darkness... those last two are not works of fiction, but what they discuss is far enough in the past that we have bigger worries now...
I’ve heard mention of Carrion Comfort several times but haven’t picked it up. I’ve heard people either love it or absolutely hate it. What did you like about it?
...ah, it's really indescribable... sorry. Anything I could say about it would give you the wrong impression, I'm sure. Part of the fun is its decidedly 20th-century (that is, premodern) view of evil - as though if we just defeat the Nazis we'll have nothing further to worry about. Kind of like sinking into an easy chair cause you know we DID defeat the Nazis, so we're fine, right? ...right? lol ...hollow laughter...
I will check it out!
it's depressing, if you like that
dracula. forever my favourite
It's a good life by jerome Bixby
Haven't heard it mentioned by anyone but it's one of my all time favorite horror short stories
Edit: also house of leaves by Mark Z Danielewski
recently I loved We have always lived in the castle by Shirley Jackson, The girl with all the gifts by Carey and You let me in by Bruce
Just about any of the stories in Clive Barker's Books of Blood.
Yes! I found them in a used shop as a teen in the 80s and recently purchased in digital for re-reading. They’ve aged really well.
Laird Barron! The Croning is my favorite, but all his books and short stories are highly recommended. He uses folklore from the Pacific NW (who knew Washington State could be so spooky). Very similar writing style to Lovecraft with more of an outdoors grittiness.
Based on how tattered it is from all the rereads, it has to be The Stand by Stephen King.
Though the absolute scariest thing I've read in my adult life is the short story Kaddish by Whitley Strieber in the horror anthology Dark Delicacies.
1922 Bag of Bones by Stephen King
I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison
The Lottery by Shirley Jackson
Click Clack the Rattlebag Troll Bridge by Neil Gaiman
The Dunwich Horror by Lovecraft
A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury
Most of these are short stories, and not all of them considered as horror, but i love all of those books equally (ok, i’m lying, i love “Click Clack the Rattlebag” the most)
Anything by Darcy Coates
Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes . I wish I could read it for the first time again
I've recently started reading Stephen King, and I've loved what I've read so far. I started with Carrie, then Pet Sematary, then Misery. Pet Sematary is one of my favorite books I've ever read.
One I read every spooky speaks on for the past few years is The Last Days of Jack Sparks by Jason Arnopp. It’s become a favorite!
Pet Sematary
The Haunting of Hill House - Shirley Jackson
The Legend of Hell House - Richard Matheson
Ghosts - Noel Hynd
City of Masks - Daniel Hecht
The first two are well-known but I don't think I've ever seen anyone mention the Noel Hynd book. I picked it up one day in a store when I was needing a book while on a roadtrip and didn't see anything else that caught my attention. It's a story about a haunting set on Nantucket Island.
City of Masks is set in New Orleans and is sort of a psychological thriller as well as a horror story.
don't miss The Other or Harvest Home by Thomas Tryon
Shadows of the Playground -Jacob Grant & Kiana Walter follows a theme similar to Scary Stories to tell in the dark but the stories are WAY darker and more messed up.
Carmilla - Le Fanu, J. Sheridan
I’ll be back.
tinybutvicious t1_itzanee wrote
The Haunting of Hill House, and everything else by Shirley Jackson!