Helter Skelter. I read it when I was 15 and it scared the living daylights out of me. I thought if I was afraid of something, the best thing to do is research and understand it because then you won't be so afraid. When the Edmund Fitzgerald sank, I lost one of my cousins and it scared me. WE lived in a little town on Lake Superior. So I researched and read and even listened to the recordings of the radio transmissions to and from the Fitzgerald.
My theory about facing your fear and researching it, is wrong. After testing it out twice I realized It just made my nightmares more vivid. Oh well, at least I know what I am afraid of.
It. Close second is Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice. I read both while taking public transit to and from work. I had to put them down once in a while to stop my hairs raising up.
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. That scene when they are in a garden outside of the house and are stalked by something invisible (not seen in the film). MUCH better than the new version of this story, brought to television.
LOL @ Tex- I felt the same way reading The Stand. I for sure had the disease.
But if you want some great psychological thrillers pick up a Robert McCammon novel. Swan Song was great, but Blue World is a total mindfuck. Don't read while stoned or it might just do you in.
But I'd say that the scariest thing I've ever read isn't a book, it's a little thought experiment called Roko's Basilisk. Y'all can Google that shit but don't say I didn't warn you.
@angel, it's a mindfuck for sure. A friend read it and is now very polite to anything with a computer chip. She even praises the toaster, just in case...
Definitely Amityville Horror, before it was debunked. The thought that these awful demonic things could be lurking in any cut-rate house, waiting for an ordinary family to buy it, just terrified me as a child. Also, as a child, I hadn't yet developed the critical thinking skills to notice some of the more questionable parts of the story, so I was just immersed in the scary drama.
sorry Moose, just saw your question. Seuss made a bet with someone he could write a book using less words than the other guy did, so he wrote green eggs with about 50 words to win the bet by about 175 words.
Shakey - yeah, Queen of the Damned Anne Rice, with that thing rising out of it's coffin. Also Beloved, Toni Morrison. Just heartbreaking and hair-raising.
The new Atlanta zoo has only one animal. A dog!
ReplyDeleteIt’s a shitzu
Green Eggs and Ham
ReplyDeleteDaphne Du Maurier's "Rebecca". Best piece of Gothic lit ever written.
ReplyDeleteSandybrook - do you know the backstory behind "Green Eggs and Ham"?
"Pretty Girls"
ReplyDeleteSalem's Lot.
ReplyDeleteVALIS by Philip K. Dick. It will creep you out because it feels like a dive into the mind of a schizophrenic.
ReplyDeleteAnything by H P Lovecraft rocks.
ReplyDeleteLord of the Flies
ReplyDeleteI would have to say The Amityville Horror. I was a kid when I read it and had no idea it was a hoax at that time.
ReplyDeleteMe too!
DeleteThe Shining.
ReplyDeletePapayaSF I love PKD and VALIS is one of my favorite novels of all time!
ReplyDeleteCurrently re-reading A Scanner Darkly, which I was tempted to list as a very scary book until I remembered how scared Amityville made me as a kid.
The koran. Page after page, verse after verse exhorting followers to murder infidels and show them no mercy.
ReplyDeleteIn Cold Blood by Truman Capote.
ReplyDeleteHelter Skelter. I read it when I was 15 and it scared the living daylights out of me. I thought if I was afraid of something, the best thing to do is research and understand it because then you won't be so afraid. When the Edmund Fitzgerald sank, I lost one of my cousins and it scared me. WE lived in a little town on Lake Superior. So I researched and read and even listened to the recordings of the radio transmissions to and from the Fitzgerald.
ReplyDeleteMy theory about facing your fear and researching it, is wrong. After testing it out twice I realized It just made my nightmares more vivid. Oh well, at least I know what I am afraid of.
Silence of the Lambs
ReplyDeleteBefore the mivie came out
The Camp of the Saints
ReplyDeleteThe Stand.... Had a cold the entire time I read it.
ReplyDelete+1 longtimereader. Edgar Allen Poe never scared me but once I found Lovecraft I would get chilled reading them as a kid!
ReplyDeleteStranger Beside me(Ted Bundy)
ReplyDelete1983
In a cabin in the Wisconsin woods
By a lake
Ya know one of those breezy summer reads
It. Close second is Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice. I read both while taking public transit to and from work. I had to put them down once in a while to stop my hairs raising up.
ReplyDeleteThe Exorcist
ReplyDeleteThe Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. That scene when they are in a garden outside of the house and are stalked by something invisible (not seen in the film). MUCH better than the new version of this story, brought to television.
ReplyDeleteI feel like when you're young it's the horror novels, when you're older it's the nonfiction books.
ReplyDeleteThe Exorcist. The convos with the devil are worth the read.
ReplyDelete+1 on Helter Skelter.
ReplyDeleteThe Exorcist and Helter Skelter. I was too young to be reading them
ReplyDelete+1 The Shining
ReplyDeleteLOL @ Tex- I felt the same way reading The Stand. I for sure had the disease.
ReplyDeleteBut if you want some great psychological thrillers pick up a Robert McCammon novel. Swan Song was great, but Blue World is a total mindfuck. Don't read while stoned or it might just do you in.
Reading Lovecraft before bed is a horrible idea, yet I keep doing it...
ReplyDeleteBut I'd say that the scariest thing I've ever read isn't a book, it's a little thought experiment called Roko's Basilisk. Y'all can Google that shit but don't say I didn't warn you.
ReplyDeletetoo late @LowKey...
ReplyDeleteThe Chemistry of Death by Simon Beckett.
ReplyDeleteThe king in yellow
ReplyDeleteall of h.p. lovecraft stories, even "The cats of ulthar" was a little spooky.
@lowkey can you give us a hint? Total mindfuck or what?
ReplyDelete@angel, it's a mindfuck for sure. A friend read it and is now very polite to anything with a computer chip. She even praises the toaster, just in case...
DeleteI loved The Stand, didn’t want it to end.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely Amityville Horror, before it was debunked. The thought that these awful demonic things could be lurking in any cut-rate house, waiting for an ordinary family to buy it, just terrified me as a child. Also, as a child, I hadn't yet developed the critical thinking skills to notice some of the more questionable parts of the story, so I was just immersed in the scary drama.
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking of ending things by Iain Reid
ReplyDeleteI had the most overwhelming feeling of dread/foreboding through the whole thing.
My Chemistry text book in High School.
ReplyDeleteEvery day it was, "Huh? What the hell was that?!"
=)
Lunar Park, Bret Easton Ellis. Really f'ed me up, more than even his other dark and creepy AF books.
ReplyDeletethe shoemaker
ReplyDelete"The Shining."
ReplyDelete@Ice Angel it's a thought experiment involving AI, but it's one of those things where just knowing the "thought" puts you at risk.
ReplyDeleteIt. It's a thousand pages long and I read it in one sitting because I couldn't sleep until I reached the end.
ReplyDelete@LowKey Seriously? You look around at the world we're currently living in and think that concept is anywhere near as scary?
ReplyDelete@mooshki, that wasn't the question tho.
DeleteIntensity by dean Koontz. Again, the movie also was the scariest to me. Could happen.
ReplyDeleteI'm a Stephen King fan. When I was reading Christine, I couldn't force myself to open the book after dark.
ReplyDeleteBut the scariest of all is The Stand, because that Captain Tripps stuff could really happen.
sorry Moose, just saw your question. Seuss made a bet with someone he could write a book using less words than the other guy did, so he wrote green eggs with about 50 words to win the bet by about 175 words.
ReplyDeleteCommunion by Whitley Strieber
ReplyDeleteJumping in with everybody on The Stand. I also got a cold as I was reading it, Tex!
ReplyDeleteThe Stand, Stephen King.
ReplyDeleteSo damn amazing. "It" was a great one too. Those descriptions of the child murders ... Yikes!
Prey by Michael Crichton. I am much more afraid of things that can really happen than I am of ghosts or monsters.
ReplyDeletePet Semetery.
ReplyDeleteShakey - yeah, Queen of the Damned Anne Rice, with that thing rising out of it's coffin. Also Beloved, Toni Morrison. Just heartbreaking and hair-raising.
ReplyDeleteThe Demonologists
ReplyDeleteWitnessed by Budd Hopkins
ReplyDeleteCujo.
ReplyDelete@pegd I read Pretty Girls this summer and I could not put it down. Karin Slaughter is an incredible writer
ReplyDeleteCarrion Comfort by Dan Simmons. The idea of mind vampires forcing me to fuck & kill haunted my dreams & weirdly excited me at 13 years of age.
ReplyDeleteLater I read his Summer of Night & nearly died. It's a better 'IT'.
I loved The Stand, but didn't find it particularly scary.
ReplyDeleteSalems Lot scared the crap out of me though.
Swan Song
ReplyDeleteHouse of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski.
ReplyDeleteAnother vote for Helter Skelter. I had to read it during the day, it terrified me. It's excellent.
ReplyDelete