Which Books Scared You?
Ok, so it's coming around to that time of year again....Halloween! I love reading chilling stories in October so I'd like to hear your recommendations for books that have really spooked you. A book you didn't want to read at home alone. The only relatively scary book I read this year was The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters. While not really a horror novel, it did have some frightening scenes. As a child, I remember Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury scaring me so much that I've never forgotten it. I wonder what I would think of it now.
So which books do you recommend for Halloween?
The picture above is of the actress Bette Davis in the film Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte.
Never Let me Go by Ishiguro (I see they have just made a film of this which I think would be pretty challenging)
ReplyDeleteSenor Vivo and the Cocoa Lord an earlier book by Louis De Bernieres - scary because of the corrupt power of drugs and the desintegration of Columbia as a state but also because of one torture scene that I have never forgotten and frankly I wish I never read.!
xoxo
Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis scared me a lot, but more in a Palahnuik kind of way and less in a Stephen King kind of way. The Shadow of the Wind was also pretty suspenseful. Then there is always The Handmaid's Tale, scary in a dystopian sense.
ReplyDeleteWoman in Black by Susan Hill. Read it late at night in bed BIG MISTAKE. Was so scared that despite the fact I was dying to go to the loo I would not get out of bed and had to suffer till the morning!
ReplyDeleteI stay away from horror but a friend of mine found The Silence of the Lambs terrifying. If that isn't your cup of tea then there is always The Shining I guess. That's a classic isn'it it?? Unfortunately I am more of a put-the-book-in-the-freezer-if-it-scares-you kind of person like Joey from FRIENDS.
ReplyDeleteAs Elaine has already suggested, Women in Black. Alot of ppl recommend that.
ReplyDeleteI though House on Haunted Hill had a couple of chilling moments.
Hi, Mrs. B!
ReplyDeleteHere's my all-time favorite horror novels:
1. The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
2. Salem's Lot by Stephen King
3. The Others by Thomas Tryon
4. Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk
5. Dracula by Bram Stoker
I echo all the suggestions of The Woman in Black - it scared the bejesus out of me!
ReplyDeleteRichard Matheson's I Am Legend and Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. I couldn't read these at night and wanted to stick them in the freezer as Joey in Friends did with The Shining
ReplyDeleteDefinitely The Woman in Black. And anything by Shirley Jackson.
ReplyDeleteDon't Look Now by Daphne Du Maurier is very frightening as well!
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson really creeped me out, but it was also a fantastic book!
ReplyDeleteI don't scare easily, but reading IT by Stephen King was just about the scariest experience I've ever had.
ReplyDeleteOnly one short story achieved the feat to jump from the page and scare the wits out of me.
ReplyDelete"The Whisperer In The Dark" by H.P Lovecraft
"The Shining" by Stephen King also achieved to make me feel a little uncomfortable.
Ghost Story by Peter Straub. I had to stop reading it!
ReplyDeleteI know its not the most "literary" of choices but I've read a lot of the ones the other commenters have said and I still think Ann Rule's The Stranger Beside Me, the true crime novel about Ted Bundy is the scariest book i've ever read to this day. The scariest monsters are the real ones.
ReplyDeleteAfter Dark by Murakami! I slept with the lights on for days after reading that! :)
ReplyDelete