scary books

[thubby]

basically what it says on the tin, im looking for something scary to read, and i wouldnt even know where to begin looking for anything good.

so, playgrounders, i come to you.

[Serpentine]

Not sure how actually scary you'll find them, but Stephen King's a no-brainer. I suggest his short stories for scare factor, and The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon for quality.

[Bhu]

http://www.amazon.com/Extremis-Extreme-Short-Stories-Shirley/dp/0982663943/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1312138216&sr=1-5

http://www.amazon.com/Really-Weird-Stories/dp/1892389029/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1312138257&sr=1-1

not all of the stories are scary but they are messed up

[thegurullamen]

Check out the High Octane Nightmare Fuel -- Literature trope page. The majority is likely to be well below your standards (partly because it's a subjective trope and partly because of general trope decay), but I've found some genuinely frightening reads because of that page.

Double recommend King--and go for the classics. Also, I enjoyed his anthologies, especially Just After Sunset.

[thubby]

I've read most of king's stuff and been largely unimpressed. at least scare wise.

[Dr.Epic]

Anything and everything by H.P. Lovecraft.

[pita]

I personally think Lovecraft is somewhat dated. A newer, somewhat hysterical Lovecraft is David Wong with John Dies at the End..
And some of Neil Gaiman's stuff is absolutely terrifying, but it's more bits and pieces of his larger work than anything else. The Collectors chapter of Sandman, a few parts of American Gods, and some of the imagery in his short stories (Babycakes, for instance), are all good examples.

[Aka-chan]

I second Serpentine's recommendation of Stephen King's short stories and The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. I also found Needful Things, Salem's Lot, Pet Sematary (the misspelling is intentional there), and Duma Key really enjoyable.

[Liffguard]

I found House of Leaves to be pretty scary. A word of warning though, it is absolutely not a traditional horror story. It's a very experimental book, that has stories within stories within stories and unconventional formatting.

[Traab]

I like some of Dean Koontz. Not all of his work is scary, or good, but there are a few good ones in there worth checking out.

[Ricky S]

Maybe its not the books you should be focussing on but the atmosphere when you read them. Ie staying up late at night, reading my candle light, or reading in the woods or at a graveyard or something.

The books themselves aren't really scary anyway unless you can imagine yourself in that situation.

[Mauve Shirt]

If you like Cracked.com, you might enjoy John Dies At The End.

[NikitaDarkstar]

I personally think Lovecraft is somewhat dated. A newer, somewhat hysterical Lovecraft is David Wong with John Dies at the End..
And some of Neil Gaiman's stuff is absolutely terrifying, but it's more bits and pieces of his larger work than anything else. The Collectors chapter of Sandman, a few parts of American Gods, and some of the imagery in his short stories (Babycakes, for instance), are all good examples.

Quoted for Truth.

But what scares the most with Neil Gaiman are the things he don't say. Also his most scary stuff in my opinion is his short story collection. If the Price or Snow, Glass, Apples don't leave you unsettled and with at least some sleeping issues.... Well I don't know what will.

[Serpentine]

I've read most of king's stuff and been largely unimpressed. at least scare wise.Does this include short stories? I tend to find books not really all that scary, even when they're good, with short stories generally being more effective in that regard. Nightmares and Dreamscapes by King is one of my favourites, and at least creepy. World Zero Minus, a sci-fi anthology, has several stories that are at least somewhat disturbing. So yeah, I guess I basically recommend getting anthologies of short stories.

[Liffguard]

I second the recommendation to try some short stories for scares rather than full-length novels. Also, maybe try some different types of horror. George R. R. Martin wrote some pretty good psychological horror stories such as Meathouse Man and The Second Kind of Loneliness.

[Tragic_Comedian]

The original Dracula holds up in a way that most old scary books don't. I'd recommend it.

[Serpentine]

The original Dracula holds up in a way that most old scary books don't. I'd recommend it.I've never had much luck getting into it. Something about the sort of arms-length style makes it hard for me to relate to any of the characters. Probably about time I tried again...
I enjoyed a lot of Edgar Allen Poe's short stories, but most of them aren't really scary.

I think short stories are good because they tend to be more intense, more psychological, and more ambiguous.

[Shadow of the Sun]

China Mieville's works (which I will openly state that I LOVE) seem to have an unsettling effect on some people. I won't say that they scared me, but that's because I don't scare easy, at all. I'd try the Looking For Jake book, which is a compilation of short stories, mainly because Mieville's style can be a bit hard to deal with, style-wise; his prose is very purple, but if you can handle that, it's quite good.

American Psycho is always a good bet. I don't think I've ever met someone who didn't have to just...put the book down and go outside for a while during their time reading it.

That's all I've got, really. Nothing scares me all that much.

[factotum]

I personally think Lovecraft is somewhat dated.

Of course he is, but that doesn't necessarily make him less scary! Have to say I don't actually find Lovecraft scary myself, but there are some Victorian ghost stories (even older than Lovecraft) that are easily far more terrifying than anything he ever wrote...YMMV, of course!

[Bhu]

perchance have you tried transgressive fiction?

[thegurullamen]

Oh, I forgot:

Harlan Ellison's I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream.

[Das Platyvark]

Babycakes. Neil Gaiman.
http://www.myspace.com/shannon1024/blog/192058273
Maybe just disturbing, but it freaked me out.

[Lord Seth]

The original Dracula holds up in a way that most old scary books don't. I'd recommend it.I really enjoyed Dracula (though it does drag a little in some of the early portions), but I'd hardly call it scary.

[Dumbledore lives]

Harlan Ellison's I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream.

This. Also House of Leaves, though it's a different kind of horror, and can actually be quite funny and touching.

[the_druid_droid]

I found some of Ramsey Campbell's short stories to be fairly unsettling, although that may just be because he tends to write the sort of things I find subjectively scary.

It might also help if you could share some of the things that scare you, e.g. graphic violence and general grimdarkness, psychological horror, atmospheric horror (like Lovecraft or Poe), supernatural monsters/demons/ghosts, serial killers, etc. Not every type of horror affects everyone equally, obviously, so maybe the recommendations can be more focused if you think of what already gets under your skin.

[autumn1971]

Maybe its not the books you should be focussing on but the atmosphere when you read them. Ie staying up late at night, reading my candle light, or reading in the woods or at a graveyard or something.

The books themselves aren't really scary anyway unless you can imagine yourself in that situation.

QFT.
I'm a father with a young son.
One weekend, my wife decided to take a little beach vacation for a few days.
I went to the library to find something to read and happened upon The shining.
Now, I've seen the movie, and I knew that the novel was a bit more intense, but being all alone, without my family, isolated and guilty, I terrified myself just by imagining my own flaws being represented.
It also helped that I was reading almost exclusively at night, and with only the sounds of my creaky house whispering to me.

[Fontaine]

Its an online story, "cupcakes" by Sgt. Sprinkles.

I heard it was based on My Little Pony so I read it. It's friggin scary.

[Pokonic]

Realy, you brought up Cupcakes (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0D8easn5cbs&feature=related)? Realy? Ugg, it also has a sequel up if your up for it.

Actualy, Babycakes,mentioned in another post below, is rather distubing, considering I was linked to it once at 4am. I did not sleep well that night.

[GoblinArchmage]

Although I certainly recommend Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Nathaniel Hawthorn, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and Henry James's The Turn of the Screw on the basis that they are, in my opinion, all great writers/novels/novellas, I can't say that I find them that scary. To be honest, I think that the scariest thing that I have ever read was George Orwell's 1984.

[Low-Key]

I found House of Leaves to be pretty scary. A word of warning though, it is absolutely not a traditional horror story. It's a very experimental book, that has stories within stories within stories and unconventional formatting.


I second the recommendation to try some short stories for scares rather than full-length novels. Also, maybe try some different types of horror. George R. R. Martin wrote some pretty good psychological horror stories such as Meathouse Man and The Second Kind of Loneliness.

Throwing in support here for House of Leaves. It's a strange book though. I adore it and still get unsettled when thinking about it.

[Fera Tian]

The original Dracula holds up in a way that most old scary books don't. I'd recommend it.

I guess if you're scared of making the commitment of reading the thing to its entirety.

[Elrik]

I'd Suggest an older copy of the scary stories to tell in the dark series (because the newer editions don't have the creepy illustrations to go with it).

I know, it's a kids book series, but put in perspective that in the fourth grade I saw kids reading these books--and trying to look away from the artwork in some cases.

Also, HP Lovecraft, though I know others have suggested him already.

[Kindablue]

The King in Yellow is great. The whole thing's a head trip, especially the first story. It's not a horror novel, but The Man Who Was Thursday is a pretty scary book.

[GrumpyDwarf]

My aunt once gave me a book of legends from a few states in the U.S.
It's called Haunted Heartland. They're so called real-life accounts from people who have claimed to have had an experience with ghosts and stuff. It'll at least give you goosebumps if nothing else. :smallamused:

[Tusalu]

Talking about Lovecraft, I would say his works are not intensely scary, but definitely has a wonderful spooky atmosphere, and are very well-written.
Also what I know of Poe has many of the same traits.

That's about all I know about horror literature, so I can't help much more.

[Cyrion]

Whitley Streiber and Peter Straub are authors that might be worth looking into. I remember The Wolfen (Streiber), Ghost Story (Straub) and Floating Dragon (Straub) as all being good, scary stories. Staub, in particular, keeps winning Bram Stoker Awards for his horror, though I haven't read anything else of his.

[dehro]

first rule of reading scary books is that you must read them in the right setting.

solitude is a basic requirement..
furthermore, unless you have got the keys to a medieval castle, a creaking country house somewhere remote, a house where somebody has been killed or an old hospital, you will have to do with reading at night, whilst hiding under your blanket..using only the greenish pale light of a globe (again, with you under the blanket).. if there's a rainstorm outside you have a bonus.
I guess you can tell I spent my youth in a house 2 miles from the nearest neighbour, surrounded by books, and woods..sneaking in a few hours of reading every night after "lights out" was called.

as for what to read.. that's trickier..
E.A. Poe has written some creepy tales..but most have been kinda spoilered over the ages..a common problem with the classics..
H.P. Lovecraft suffers from the same problem.. most people who have not read his books still know about Chtulhu and the Necronomicon.
Dean Koontz writes very well.. except I have a problem with his endings
the good guys seem to always turn it around somewhere around the last 2-3 pages and win the day..which rather spoils it
IT by Stephen King was rather scary when I read it first (I was of the same age as the main protagonists were in their "flashback" sequences)
Clive Barker..another great one
Robert E Howard..yes, the one who wrote about Conan.. he contributed to Lovecraft's work and wrote a few good stories of his own.
some pages by Chuck Palahniuk can be rather chilling and creepy
oh..and chilling and rather depressing to read for entirely different reasons: mein kampf, by of course, Adolf Hitler...

[H Birchgrove]

Some short stories by Philip K. ****, Robert Sheckley and Ray Bradbury.

The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney.

War of the Worlds and The Time Machine by H.G. Wells.

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson.

[The Glyphstone]

Dean Koontz writes very well.. except I have a problem with his endings
the good guys seem to always turn it around somewhere around the last 2-3 pages and win the day..which rather spoils it



I think that may be a case of genre confusion - Koontz doesn't write much horror, he's a thriller writer. Similar themes, but thrillers are supposed to end with the heroes winning out at the last minute.

If you like Stephen King, look into Richard Bachman as well. He gets a bit more viscerally gory than King does, but their books are similar.
They're the same person.

[erikun]

I have been enjoying this book (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307741850/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_2?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0307473899&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1G3YN5FY861XMHQPJCEA). It's a collection of short stories from a number of authors, including H.P. Lovecraft and Arthur Conan Doyle.

[Akiosama]

And if you really want to read something good, thriller-y, and ironic, check out King's The Dark Half. It's my favorite King novel, by far.

His collections are pretty good, too, especially Four Past Midnight. Four short stories, and two of them have already been turned into other productions - "The Langoliers" (TV miniseries with Gary Sinise) and "Secret Window, Secret Garden" (turned into Secret Window with Johnny Depp). All four books are good, and really, the other two stories - "The Library Policeman" and "The Sun Dog" - were the creepier of the two. Really enjoyed those, especially "The Sun Dog".

My 2 yen,

Akiosama

[hamlet]

Read Stephen King's The Shining.

Read it while you are alone in the house.

In the middle of the night.

In the dead of winter.

During a snow storm if possible.

With only one, small light on, and no television, radio, or other noise in the house to distract you.

And no tasty beverage nearby.

That is how that book should be read, and how it gets terrifying.

Also a good way to read some of HP Lovecraft, though he's "Cosmic Horror" and not visceral horror. There's a real difference. HP Lovecraft is not so much "scary" as terrifying in the realization of what's going on in the stories. Plus, he's slightly dated because the stuff he wrote about (science that, to him, was cutting edge and modern) is now kind of laughable. Most notoriously, his vision of what Antarctica is like.

Poe can be scary, but he's inaccessible to many. Reading the Raven out loud is pretty good litmus test for you if you aren't sure about Poe.

Anything by Matheson is good, actually. Hell House is one I'd recommend in particular, as well as I Am Legend, his two most famous.

The Haunting of Hill House is quite excellent.

Strange as it may sound, read Conrad's Heart of Darkness in as few sittings as possible. It's pretty frightening in its own right.

There are more, but at the moment, they slip my mind.

[Kindablue]

Also a good way to read some of HP Lovecraft, though he's "Cosmic Horror" and not visceral horror. There's a real difference. HP Lovecraft is not so much "scary" as terrifying in the realization of what's going on in the stories. Plus, he's slightly dated because the stuff he wrote about (science that, to him, was cutting edge and modern) is now kind of laughable. Most notoriously, his vision of what Antarctica is like.

To be fair, they knew that Antarctica was one continent at the time; he ignored that so he could put a giant mountain range in the middle. While some of his stories, like At the Mountains of Madness and The Shadow Out of Time, are really epic sci-fi that's masking itself as horror, The Haunter of the Dark, The Picture in the House, The Preposition in the Title, The Rats in the Walls, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, to name a few, are all very scary if you can get past the blatant--though occasionally very cleverly hidden--xenophobia.

[hamlet]

To be fair, they knew that Antarctica was one continent at the time; he ignored that so he could put a giant mountain range in the middle. While some of his stories, like At the Mountains of Madness and The Shadow Out of Time, are really epic sci-fi that's masking itself as horror, The Haunter of the Dark, The Picture in the House, The Preposition in the Title, The Rats in the Walls, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, to name a few, are all very scary if you can get past the blatant--though occasionally very cleverly hidden--xenophobia.

Yup. Lovecraft has issues with modern audiences because of his racism, anti-semitism (though ironically, he married a Jewish woman who was noted as occasionally reminding him pointedly of just who he was sleeping with at night), and other "isms" that populate his work. If you can get past that stuff, it's really some good stuff.

Shadow Over Insmouth is quite excellent, actually, as is The Dunwich Horror, though aforementioned racism applies to the later.

And, for it's ludicrous geographic inaccuracy, At The Mountains of Madness remains one of his best stories, and really a model for it's type of story even today.

[Hida Reju]

Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr, its only 7 pages long but it chilled me to the bone. Sean Austin stared in a decent portrait of of that world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron

[hamlet]

A truly frightening book, though not in the "oh I'm ascared of the dark" mode, is Orwell's Ninteen-Eighty-Four.

Absolutely freakin' terrifying in many ways.

And horribly depressing.

[Gnoman]

To be fair, they knew that Antarctica was one continent at the time; he ignored that so he could put a giant mountain range in the middle.

Not quite. He had already finished the novel when he learned that Antartica was only one continent. (This is why there's a Saving Throw early in the book mentioning the error in theory.)

[Hida Reju]

{Scrubbed}

[Hida Reju]

I was scrubbed for going a bit too far on politics but let me second 1984 it is a very good book.

[Tusalu]

A somewhat overlooked Lovecraft work is The Music of Erich Zann, which I think is the best I've read of him
It's much shorter, and less cosmic in it's scale, but he manages to make it very creepy all the way trough instead of relying on a punchline-like reveal at the end, which I think is a problem with some of his earlier works.