I need some books that deal with TERRORS, HORRORS, and FRIGHTS

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All I want is to be SHOOK by a scary BOOK.

I hear Blood Meridian is good.

― INSANE CLOWN FOSSE (Adrian Langston), Tuesday, 6 June 2006 22:15 (twenty years ago)

huh.

― tom west (thomp), Tuesday, 6 June 2006 22:44 (twenty years ago)

The last really scary book I read was Misery by Stephen King, which put me off intentionally scary books (for good apparently, since it came out nearly 20 years ago...)

― Jaq (Jaq), Tuesday, 6 June 2006 23:21 (twenty years ago)

i've been quite unsettled by a number of ray bradbury's short stories.

― derrick (derrick), Wednesday, 7 June 2006 06:15 (twenty years ago)

Brothers Grimm. Honest to God, some of those stories....

― Nathalie (stevie nixed), Wednesday, 7 June 2006 06:23 (twenty years ago)

House of Leaves is satisfyingly unsettling, if too long.

― Ray (Ray), Wednesday, 7 June 2006 06:27 (twenty years ago)

(that was a joke btw.)

― Nathalie (stevie nixed), Wednesday, 7 June 2006 07:21 (twenty years ago)

Rumpelstilskin is a scary character though ... Silence of the Lambs is very icky and as for the dinner party scene in Hannibal.

― sandy mc (sandy mc), Wednesday, 7 June 2006 08:15 (twenty years ago)

MR James is the king of the ghost [short] story. Unnerving, disturbing, creepy, scary, perfect little vignettes of fear.

― ledge (ledge), Wednesday, 7 June 2006 08:32 (twenty years ago)

The Yellow Wallpaper. I know it's mostly talked about as a feminist piece these days, but I found it genuinely unnerving when I read it a year or two back.
Borges' Lovecraft tribute/parody/pastiche did it too, which is odd, in that I love Lovecraft, but rarely feel creeped out by his work. Don't remember the name of that one though.

― Øystein (Øystein), Wednesday, 7 June 2006 10:01 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, "The Yellow Wallpaper" is pretty great. You can get it as part of this:

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/1840224258.02._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

Which has a lot of great stuff, some creepy as hell, some just plain silly. The excerpt from "Melmoth" is one of the grossest things I've ever read.

The scariest Lovecraft story is here

― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Wednesday, 7 June 2006 12:32 (twenty years ago)

I re-read Misery about a year ago and I had forgotten so much; pretty scary. Other Stephen King stuff that made my palms sweat: the short stories in Night Shift and especially "The Mist" in Skeleton Crew.

A friend told me that Japanese horror is absolutely terrifying, but I have to say that I'm kind of afraid to try it!

― Sara Robinson-Coolidge (Sara R-C), Wednesday, 7 June 2006 20:01 (twenty years ago)

I would recommend Edward Gorey's selection of old-time ghost stories, The Haunted Looking Glass, published in a typically nice edition by NYRB.

― Jeff LeVine (Jeff LeVine), Friday, 9 June 2006 19:56 (nineteen years ago)

You want your terror? You want your frights? Check out British author Ramsey Campbell. With book titles like The Face That Must Die and The Doll Who Ate His Mother, you know he's got something going on. My first encounter with him was the short story collection DARK COMPANIONS. I read the first story and wasn't affected. I read the second story and was wondering what the point was. Half way through the third story the unsettling images of the first two stories caught up to me and I experienced the cumulative effect all at once. Creepy stuff. Campbell is one of those horror writers that lets the reader do most of the work. He doesn't actually describe the horror because nothing he could write would be half as scary as what he has sparked in the reader's imagination.
Spooky stuff.

― Joe McLeod (joedobaggins), Wednesday, 14 June 2006 20:42 (nineteen years ago)

one month passes...

I recommend Dreams in the Witch House for a good short story. It's very, very dated but I found it really unsettling.

John Dies at the End. One long, surreal nightmare with alot of stuff about Shadow People. The author does well creating a constant feeling of dread mixed in with fucked-up gallows humor. You can read for free at the site and/or buy a print copy, apperantly there are some differences between the two.

Then there's Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. It was obviously written for kids and the stories aren't scary at all, but the illustrations are the most insane I've ever seen. Great collection of creepy art.

I also found this website interesting: The Nightmare Project. People send in their nightmares for interpretation, but they're really enjoyable and creepy just at face value. I like this one especially. Hope I've made myself useful.

― Lexa Todd (your hair is good to eat), Saturday, 22 July 2006 04:42 (nineteen years ago)

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