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I read a lot but mostly nonfiction. I like to blame my interest in nonfiction on the fact that I have a need offset all the horror movies I watch with something useful. My usual haunts in any bookstore are the business best sellers, self-help, history, or the business section of the magazine rack. When I read fiction, it's usually because of a movie I have watched. Some examples being The Exorcist novel by William Peter Blatty, the short story "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell, Jr. that served as the basis for The Thing From Another World and its remake The Thing, and John Dies at the End by David Wong which everyone considers to be better than the film. After I watched The Conjuring when it was released in 2013, I got interested in the paranormal investigation career of Ed and Lorraine Warren whose case files have provided material for many books and a growing number of feature films. The first book I picked up about the Warrens was The Demonologist by Gerard Brittle, which attempts to cover the couple's most famous cases as well as providing the true nature of their job. I read through the book very quickly and enjoyed it much more than Blatty's Exorcist and a similar book about real life exorcism, Hostage to the Devil by Fr. Malachi Martin. It's also easily the scariest book I have ever read. What are your pick(s) for the scariest book or books that you have read?
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Jul 26, 2016 03:16
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Pet Sematary, Stephen King
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Jul 26, 2016 03:34
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Khizan posted:Pet Sematary, Stephen King Never read it, gonna have to give it a try. Someone once recommended Song of Kali by Dan Simmons as their scariest book. I disagree because it is nothing special.
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Jul 26, 2016 03:55
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The Very Hungry Caterpillar
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Jul 26, 2016 05:25
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Accounts of the lives of Mass Murderers are good if you really wanna get scared op
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Jul 26, 2016 10:59
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Toxic Sludge is Good for You by Tom Tomorrow
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Jul 26, 2016 18:05
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Ivan Yurkinov posted:Toxic Sludge is Good for You by Tom Tomorrow I pulled this up:  Is this the right book? I read a whole lot of Advertising/PR stuff too.
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Jul 26, 2016 19:49
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Yes it is seriously terrifying. Because it is REAL. I forgot it is no authored by Tom Tomorrow - it just has a bunch of his illustrations.
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Jul 26, 2016 20:25
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On a more serious note I highly recommend anything by Richard Matheson. Also, The Beast Within by Edward Levy.
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Jul 26, 2016 20:28
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Ivan Yurkinov posted:Yes it is seriously terrifying. Because it is REAL. I read this one a while back and liked it:  Looks similar. Ivan Yurkinov posted:On a more serious note I highly recommend anything by Richard Matheson. Also, The Beast Within by Edward Levy. I read Matheson I Am Legend a while back and thought it was only okay, but I want to read Hell House too. I added Beast Within to the top of my reading list, thanks.
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Jul 26, 2016 21:15
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Hell House is better and that's saying something.
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Jul 26, 2016 21:48
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Even though these were written as children's books, I still think that the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark trilogy is creepy as gently caress even after returning to it as an adult: Alvin Schwartz's writing, while excellent, is completely eclipsed by the black and white illustrations done by Stephen Gammell. This is some of the most horrifying artwork I've ever come across, period. It's a shame that new editions of the books swapped out Gammell's original illustrations with the substandard artwork of Brett Helquist. The new drawings don't hold up by comparison:  Right now, I'm working on the Ed & Lorraine Warren Book Series which has six novels so far:       As of this date, I've only read Ghost Hunters: True Stories from the World's Most Famous Demonologists, which is a mixed bag. Has anyone else read any of the above? ObamaPhone fucked around with this message at 02:05 on Jul 27, 2016 |
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Jul 27, 2016 01:33
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I see Penpal by Dathan Auerbach show up a lot on my Amazon page. Has anyone read it? 
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Jul 27, 2016 18:25
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The original Amityville Horror is a terrifying book.
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Jul 28, 2016 09:13
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the screwfly solution is a short story but it's the only fiction that's ever genuinely scared me
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Jul 28, 2016 11:58
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Liquid Communism posted:The original Amityville Horror is a terrifying book. I didn't like the original movie but I imagine the book is way better.
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Jul 28, 2016 14:50
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non-fiction: In the Garden of Beasts by Eric Larsen fiction: hard to say maybe something like The Man Who Watched Trains Go By by Georges Simenon I've never really found fiction that scared me as much as some non-fiction can, especially anything involving ghosts or demons and poo poo that stuff just comes across as silly - the behavior of actual human beings is much more frightening. Although Cujo did scare me pretty good when I was a kid because at that time I was already kind of frightened both of large dogs and of getting rabies, and there are some hosed up scenes in that book Earwicker fucked around with this message at 15:22 on Jul 28, 2016 |
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Jul 28, 2016 15:18
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Earwicker posted:non-fiction: In the Garden of Beasts by Eric Larsen Right on. I'm a big fan of Nazi-era nonfiction myself, specifically those that focus on the Holocaust. Night by Elie Wiesel and Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl are two of my favorite books ever written. I'm always searching for more good books about life inside the concentration camps.
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Jul 28, 2016 17:19
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ObamaPhone posted:I see Penpal by Dathan Auerbach show up a lot on my Amazon page. I just finished it the other day. I liked it quite a bit. It's an extended, published version of what he originally wrote as a Reddit post, I believe, and it does kind of feel like that. It's also Auerbach's first novel, and it shows in the writing. Reminds me of a decently written and fairly compelling version of something you'd read in one of the ghost story threads here. It's not going to blow you away, but I'd say it's good for a quick, spooky read. Several Goblins fucked around with this message at 01:21 on Jul 29, 2016 |
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Jul 29, 2016 01:18
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Jul 29, 2016 01:58
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Oh poo poo! "The only thing with more brass is my balls..." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJm-E38G3-0 ObamaPhone fucked around with this message at 09:37 on Jul 29, 2016 |
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Jul 29, 2016 02:12
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Oh man a thread just for me  Some of the scariest books I have read: The House of Leaves.  Hmmmm.... how to describe this. I really do not want to give too much away because it really needs to be experienced. Note I said experienced and not read.  It's sort of like a cross between The Blair Witch Project and the Lament Configuration (the gold puzzle box from Hellraiser) - the book goes from being a document about a haunted house to actually becoming a doorway into entering the fragmented experience of the haunting.  The Road  I really love The Road. Now its not a scary ghost story but stay with me. Its just so brutal. Most people might choose Blood Meridian instead but most of it just went over my head anyways and I really did not appreciate how it portrayed native americans as blood thirsty savages. When I start thinking about its meaning and the reason Cormac McCarthy wrote it, I get chills because you realize the world of the book is not that different than our world if you are a parent. I forget who said this but the quote I often associate with the book is "What gives anyone the right to rip a soul from nothing - to bring it into this flesh?" (I might have messed up the quote sorry) but as a father of a child this book really opened me up to how a parent's choice for their children truly affects how they see the world and what you must do to be a parent. It makes me question if I can be a parent at all ethically.
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Jul 29, 2016 03:01
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It's been a long time since I tried to but I've failed to finish IT by Stephen King at least three times.
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Jul 30, 2016 01:11
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jagstag posted:Oh man a thread just for me Thanks for recommending The House of Leaves. I added it to my "To Read" pile. The first Cormac McCarthy book I tried to read was The Road. This was some time after I watched the sub-par movie (so I'm told). For whatever reason, I couldn't easily get into McCarthy's writing style. I need to give it a chance though because I know it will be a great read when I do.
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Jul 30, 2016 01:25
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jagstag posted:Most people might choose Blood Meridian instead but most of it just went over my head anyways and I really did not appreciate how it portrayed native americans as blood thirsty savages. Blood Meridian portrayed Native Americans in a number of ways. Many were victims of the protagonists, the Glanton Gang, who were notorious and violent scalp hunters. It's important to remember that the book takes place in Chihuahua state, during the what we know of as the Comanche-Mexican and Apache-Mexican Wars. The American government had been accused of arming the Comanche to attack Mexico, but in the case of the conflict with the Apache, the Mexican government had instigated the conflict. Regardless, the Chihuahua government offered a bounty of 100 pesos per scalp for each "hostile indian" killed and a lesser amount for women and children--yes, woman and children. Many Americans went south to get rich, the Glanton Gang included. Many other Native American nations also took part, including the Delaware (in fact, several Delaware travel with the protagonists of the book) and Shawnee. The Comanche and Apache attacks portrayed in the book had a historical basis and aren't presented in any particularly "blood thirsty" or "savage" way, at least no more than the violence created by the American characters. McCarthy presents violence simply as a fact of life. Besides, the Glanton Gang became particularly well-known because, aside from hunting Apache warriors, they often resorted to massacring rural Mexican citizens and other peaceful Native Americans wherever they found them in order to inflate their scalp counts. The Chihuahua government eventually put a bounty on the Glanton Gang! The Quechan/Yuma that killed off Glanton and most of his people at the end of the book were acting out of reprisal. Glanton and co. first murdered a group of Yuma who owned and operated a river ferry so they could take it over for themselves. Chief Caballo en Pelo led the attack and the Glanton Gang was effectively wiped off the face of the earth, to everyone's benefit, to be honest. EDIT: I thought The Road: The Movie was okay. It was a decent enough adaptation, but it was definitely a hollow imitation of the book. It was far more emotionally manipulative and that made it less enjoyable. Sally fucked around with this message at 01:52 on Jul 30, 2016 |
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Jul 30, 2016 01:46
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The Hot Zone, Richard Preston
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Jul 30, 2016 01:51
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jagstag posted:The Road I really, really hate this book. Had to dissect it for a literature course, and it stops being scary about halfway through because you begin to realize that McCarthy's writing process here was to simply heap terrible things on the characters any time he got bored with the last scene he was describing.
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Jul 30, 2016 02:19
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ObamaPhone posted:I see Penpal by Dathan Auerbach show up a lot on my Amazon page. It's pretty loving scary. But it's also pretty loving not-well-written. Definitely give it a go if you want to be creeped the gently caress out though. I still go cold thinking about the endings to some of the chapters.
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Jul 30, 2016 05:17
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Avshalom posted:the screwfly solution is a short story but it's the only fiction that's ever genuinely scared me Well, that sure was horrifying. Although "aliens did it" kinda steals from the dread, a religiously induced, socially transmitted impulse that clicks in the heads of adult men would be even more unsettling. But it would drop out the clever parallel from the story which is effective in its own way. Although, if you accept that it isn't part of the epidemic, then the feckless institutional responses to the femicide epidemic (like the chilling missive from the Vatican) still have that weight - maybe this could have been averted with stronger, more egalitarian institutions. Sulphagnist fucked around with this message at 11:04 on Jul 30, 2016 |
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Jul 30, 2016 11:01
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Hedrigall posted:It's pretty loving scary. But it's also pretty loving not-well-written. I have a pet peeve of mine when it comes to reading fiction: the adverb. For instance, instead of "I was happy when I opened the door," poo poo authors write "I opened the door happily." Stephen King covers this in his non-fiction memoir On Writing, that is both writer's guide as well as his own experiences as a writer. The best example I can think of that is just riddled with adverbs in every other sentence is Blatty's The Exorcist. This is one of the rare scenarios where the movie is actually better than the book.
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Jul 30, 2016 22:04
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Antti posted:Well, that sure was horrifying. Although "aliens did it" kinda steals from the dread, a religiously induced, socially transmitted impulse that clicks in the heads of adult men would be even more unsettling. But it would drop out the clever parallel from the story which is effective in its own way. Although, if you accept that it isn't part of the epidemic, then the feckless institutional responses to the femicide epidemic (like the chilling missive from the Vatican) still have that weight - maybe this could have been averted with stronger, more egalitarian institutions. Agreed. I suppose you could see it as the wife going mad with fear or hunger and having hallucinations based on things she'd already heard about to try and justify the hosed-up-ed-ness of her situation. I'm not sure that's the intent, though. Aliens seems what the author is more likely leaning towards. Still, up to that point, that was a horrifying read.
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Jul 30, 2016 23:43
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Avshalom posted:the screwfly solution is a short story but it's the only fiction that's ever genuinely scared me Just read it. Pro-read.
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Jul 31, 2016 03:41
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House of Leaves
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Jul 31, 2016 05:14
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Ramsey Campbell's The Face That Must Die is one of the most disturbing fiction novels I've ever read.
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Jul 31, 2016 05:45
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Earwicker posted:non-fiction: In the Garden of Beasts by Eric Larsen i don't understand this point of view because even something as close to hackdom as stephen king still uses its supernatural elements as a means to express human psychology symbolically
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Jul 31, 2016 05:56
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Brainiac Five posted:i don't understand this point of view because even something as close to hackdom as stephen king still uses its supernatural elements as a means to express human psychology symbolically maybe so but I find human behavior more frightening when it is presented as it occurs in reality, rather than when it is presented symbolically with ghosts and werewolves. also it's not so much of a deliberate "point of view" as you seem to think. fear is an emotion. I've read history books that made me feel fear. I've read articles about actual crimes that made me feel fear, or articles about diseases or sometimes natural disasters. but I've never read a book/story about supernatural horror stuff that made me feel that way. maybe I just haven't read the right ones. I dont really seek that stuff out. but I did read a whole bunch of Stephen King books when I was a kid, and the one that scared me much more than the others was the one about a rabid dog; when I was a kid the idea of a big dog with rabies running around a neighborhood was a lot more frightening than anything supenatural, because it seemed like it could actually happen (and I was already afraid of big dogs). whereas (for example) the idea of a bunch of animals rising from their graves or a car coming to life, not so much. Earwicker fucked around with this message at 15:19 on Jul 31, 2016 |
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Jul 31, 2016 15:10
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Often in Stephen King the horror/terror/fear isn't even very "symbolic." That is, the supernatural element is not the thing you fear, so much as it is a plot device because he's Stephen King and those elements just find their way into his stories. You're not afraid of, like, resurrected zombie cats; you're afraid of your kid being plowed over by a transport truck, and the Contrast that to, for example, a haunted house, where the supernatural element is itself the thing that symbolizes the thing you fear: the loss of safety even at the one place you call "home" or whatever. In that case, you're still not literally afraid that your house will eat you, but you are in a general away afraid of there being bad places in the world where bad things happen, and it's hosed up if you live in one of those places. It's a different use of the supernatural element. DirtyRobot fucked around with this message at 16:31 on Jul 31, 2016 |
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Jul 31, 2016 16:29
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The Road, by Cormac McCarthy What humans are capable of when society collapses is real terror. For those that have read it the part where they see the man and the pregnant woman down the road and the outcome know what real terror I'm talking about. poo poo like that.
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Aug 1, 2016 19:38
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Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons was great. One of my favorite books. Really scary stuff. It won a lot of awards. Song of Kali, also by Dan Simmons was creepy.. maybe a little slow, but I remember reaching an OH poo poo point that absolutely freaked me out. Not everybody agrees on this. 
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Aug 1, 2016 22:48
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Juanito posted:Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons was great. One of my favorite books. Really scary stuff. It won a lot of awards. Is Carrion Comfort better than Song of Kali?
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Aug 1, 2016 22:55
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