Chaos Reading discussion

Long overdue. What are our favourite horror-themed books?

I'm nominating:
Pontypool Changes Everything
The Pilo Family Circus
Feed
Hater
It

Oh....so many. I'm going to have to come back to this thread!

Young Goodman Brown and Other Short Stories
The Slab: A Novel of Horror
The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer
From the Dust Returned
The Old Gods Waken
The Mist
The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories
On Stranger Tides
Handling the Undead
Creatures of the Night

I loved Hater, and the sequel, though they take a while to get going.

Ian - So glad you mentioned Handling The Undead. I love that book.

I don't read that much horror, but I think House of Leaves deserves a mention.

im sorry, what does it mean when a book is put on the "bookshelf"

Putting a book on a "bookshelf" in a group seems to be a way of sharing books with one another based on our mutual interests.

I read it when I was 13 and thought it was appalling. I re-read it when I was 24 and loved it. It didn't feel like a horror novel to me either time, but it is a darn good book.

I'm nominating:
Zombie FalloutZombie Fallout 2: A Plague Upon Your Family

This author is amazing.

I read The Pilo Family Circus, a very good read. Alot of good books are coming from Australian writers like Will Elliott, Brett McBean, Steve Gerlach and Trent Jamieson to name a few. What about David Moody's Autumn series ?

the manhattan hunt club by John Saul.

The Ruins

I'm putting it here too!

The Willows and The Man Whom the Trees Loved both by Algernon Blackwood.

Mike wrote: "I read The Pilo Family Circus, a very good read. Alot of good books are coming from Australian writers like Will Elliott, Brett McBean, Steve Gerlach and Trent Jamieson to name a few. What about Da..."

Yeah, I get the impression that it's all turned a bit pear-shaped for Will Elliott, though. After PFC, he released the first book in the Pilgrims fantasy trilogy, then released a biographical novel about having schizophrenia, posted a few worrying tweets, then seems to have fallen off the edge of the earth. I hope he's alright.

I have Moody's Autumn on my shelf, but need to finish the last one in the Hater series first.

Anna wrote: "The Willows and The Man Whom the Trees Loved both by Algernon Blackwood."

CLASSICS!

K. wrote: "I'm nominating:
Zombie FalloutZombie Fallout 2: A Plague Upon Your Family

This author is amazing."

I have wanted to read this! Now I must add it to my list

Oooh Oooh Just thought of a few more:

The Amityville Horror Jay Anson- I've read this so many times and it still scares me.

Domain from James Herbert's "Rats" series. The whole series is great, but I still remember scenes from Domain 20 years later!

The Witching Hour by Anne Rice - I had nightmares the whole time I was reading this series.

Faerie Tale by Raymond E Feist.

Oh, the beginning of The Passage was wonderfully creepy too. I know people seem to either love or hate this one, but I enjoyed it. It just had an odd structure.

My new favorite, Stephen King's son, Joe Hill!Heart-Shaped Box truly creepy! Awesome!
20th Century Ghosts
Horns
An all time classic: The Exorcist

Valerie wrote: "An all time classic: The Exorcist"

Oooh. Good point. I nominate The Omen too.

Ghost Story
The Tommyknockers
Pet Sematary
'Salem's Lot

and

Poe, Edgar Allan

I Am Legend

Intensity

I don't know if Mike's still around, but while putting up the Horror shelf, I noticed his post above about Australian horror writers. Being an Aussie and therefore having a vested interest, I'd be really keen to know if there are particular books by these authors we should be putting up on our shelf.

The authors he mentioned were:
Brett McBean, Steve Gerlach and Trent Jamieson

We've already got one for Will Elliott (one of my all-time faves, The Pilo Family Circus). Such a shame he moved on to fantasy writing.

Anyone want to nominate which Poe book to add?

Okay: Bookshelf is UP!

Feel free to keep nominating though. I will keep updating the shelves from time to time as we go :)

Vampire Junction- S.P.Somtow. I believe Robert Bloch has called this the greatest horror book ever. I don't know about that but word for word it is a heart stopper.

As usual, this group has already nominated books I thought were amazing, or nominated books that look amazing and increased the already insane TBR list.

Some I'd definitely recommend:
The Monkey's Paw and Other Tales of Mystery and Macabre. THE classic horror story!
The Drawing of the Dark. Glad to see other Tim Powers fans here. He is one of the great, under-read writers.
Complete Short Stories of Ambrose Bierce
The Haunting of Hill House

I'm a big fan of the Twilight Zone era short horror story writers and their successors (and predecessors). I've tried to pick a representative collection for the ones below, but it's more their entire oeuvre that makes them great:

Born Of Man And Woman. This was also the title of Matheson's first collection, but GR links to the story only (which is a great story).
The Howling Man
Caviar. I picked this one because it has 'Bright Segment' and 'Microcosmic God'.
The Best of Robert Bloch
The Best of Joe R. Lansdale

So many, many more....

Elizabeth wrote: "I nominate What Hides Within. Great thriller/horror novel by Jason Parent."

That does look very cool.. TBRd.

What horror list is complete without at least one by
Clive Barker

Imajica by Clive Barker

a few more potential must reads:
The Prestige by Christopher Priest
The Dunwich Horror by H.P. Lovecraft
The Stand byStephen King just because there has to be a Stephen King book in the mix.

and finally, Edgar Allen Poe who really only wrote short stories has to have The Cask of Amontillado included. After all, what are friends for? :)

The Shining
Pet Sematary
Suffer the Children