It’s been too long since I’ve read anything, but I do love horror books. My favorite horror book so far is Last Days by Adam Nevill. Almost put it down, it was that scary. In general, any horror books that are a must-read?
Novels
Stephen King is very hit and miss but I loved Salem’s Lot.
Kim Newman’s Anno Dracula series is kind of alternative universe history themed where the premise is that the events of Bram Stokers Dracula actually happened but the main characters failed to kill Dracula so he takes over Victorian Britain. Popcorn stuff but fun if you like hypotheticals like “what if Oscar Wilde was a vampire?”
Short stories
Classics like Borges and Poe have a few existential horror stories like The Aleph by Borges. Borges is more consistent than Poe. Lovecraft is similar to Poe but not quite as good for me.
More modern short stories I’d definitely recommend some Ted Chiang for sci-fi horror (some lean more towards pure sci-fi but many are horror). It’s a shame Neil Gaiman is allegedly such a monster because he had some good horror short story collections.
Manga
Junji Ito manga are well worth reading. Often you can find scanlations of the best stories through web searching but the books are also cheap on kindle; and look good with e-ink since it’s all black and white.
Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle is a fav of mine.
The Keep by F Paul Wilson.
I’ve been reading T. Kingfisher lately and in absolutely in love. I picked up The Hollow Places thinking it would probably be a waste but it’s become my favorite book. I’ve just started What Moves the Dead, and in already hooked, her descriptive ability is immaculate.
I would also recommend The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Sterling, Hide by Kiersten White, and Bunny by Mona Awad.
The Hollow Places was excellent. Listened to the audiobook on a drive to a camping trip deep in the woods and it was the best worst vibe for the occasion.
I couldn’t find any of those books at my library but I did find Thorn Hedge by Kingfisher, and checked it out. It looks like a shorter read, so I also checked out Behold The Void by Philip Fracassi
“Night Shift,” “Skeleton Crew,” “The Dunwich Horror.”
Maybe these are obvious answers, IDK what level of mainstreamness you want. But they are excellent if by some chance you haven’t read them.
Mainstream or not, I’m not picky. Just hoping at least one of these is at my library lol
Sounds good. Used bookstores are often also hooked in with networks that can get you used books from other stores for a handful of dollars.
Also, I mean the collection “The Dunwich Horror.” The story itself, along with “The Mountains of Madness,” are for some reason the famous things by Lovecraft, but to me some of his other and weirder stories are better. “The Music of Erich Zann,” “The Thing on the Doorstep,” “The Watcher in the Dark,” and things like those are very good.
Let’s go play at the Adams’ - I read it a year or so ago, still think about it on the regular.
I like Stephen Graham Jones. “The Only Good Indians” had parts that I thought were disturbing.
- Walking to Aldebaran by Adrian Tchaikovsky is a real gem (a short story)
- Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes
- Southern Reach series by Jeff VanderMeer is excellent
- The Talents Trilogy by J.M. Miro is pretty good horror in Victorian setting
- currently reading Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky, it’s a decent sci fi horror
One of my favourite horror novels of the last decade is John Langan’s The Fisherman. He’s an absolutely fantastic writer.
