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Sep. 7th, 2019 10:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. Dental appointment tomorrow -- yes, on Sunday, odd I know. I'm hoping it goes well. My insurance is weird. If it's under $300 -- then they send in the insurance form after my appointment, if it's over $300, they send it in after.
Oh well, it's only three blocks away. Will take me less then ten minutes to get there.
2. 100 Favorite Horror Novels (courtesy of NPR National Readers/Listener's Poll of 2018)
As with our other reader polls, this isn't meant to be a ranked or comprehensive list — there are a few books you won't see on it despite their popularity — some didn't stand the test of time, some just didn't catch our readers' interest, and in some cases our judges would prefer you see the movie instead. (So no Jaws, sorry.) And there are a few titles that aren't strictly horror, but at least have a toe in the dark water, or are commenting about horrific things, so our judges felt they deserved a place on the list.
One thing you won't see on the list is any work from this year's judges, Stephen Graham Jones, Ruthanna Emrys, Tananarive Due and Grady Hendrix. Readers did nominate them, but the judges felt uncomfortable debating the inclusion of their own work — so it's up to me to tell you to find and read their excellent books! I personally, as a gigantic horror wuss, owe a debt of gratitude to this year's judges, particularly Hendrix, for their help writing summaries for all the list entries. I'd be hiding under the bed shuddering without their help.
And a word about Stephen King: Out of almost 7000 nominations you sent in, 1023 of them were for the modern master of horror. That's a lot of Stephen King! In past years, we've resisted giving authors more than one slot on the list (though we made an exception for Nora Roberts during the 2015 romance poll — and she's basically the Stephen King of romance.) In the end, we decided that since so much classic horror is in short story format, we would allow authors one novel and one short story if necessary.
They grouped it by category. So bold what you've read, italicize what you tried and couldn't complete or own and couldn't get into.
[A lot of really interesting books on this list that I've never heard of and want to try.]
1. Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (Me and 19th Century writers are unmixy things, which begs the question -- how did I survive being an English Lit Major? I went to a cool undergrad that had a lot of profs who didn't like 19th Century English Lit that much either -- so only had to take one class and most of it was short stories.)
2. Dracula by Bram Stoker -- skimmed a good portion of it. It's told in epistolary style and I found it ponderous and annoying.
3. Young Goodman Brown and Other Tales -'Young Goodman Brown' by Nathaniel Hawthorne (If you like Henry James, you probably like Hawthorn, if you don't, you don't...both are flowery in their prose and both take a long ass time to get to the point. But their short stories are rather good. If you have to read either - read the short stories.)
4. The Tell-Tale Heart And Other Tales 'The Tell-Tale Heart' by Edgar Allan Poe (Poe is also flowery with Prose -- those 19th Century writers. But he also did great short stories.)
5. Carmilla, by Sheridan Le Fanu
6 The Turn of the Screw and Other Short Novels 'The Turn Of The Screw' by Henry James - not an easy read, James writes in an odd style that is more focused on long descriptive moody passages than dialogue.
7. 'The Great God Pan' by Arthur Machen
8 The Monkey's Paw and Other Tales of Mystery and the Macabre 'The Monkey's Paw'
by W. W. Jacobs (I loved this collection, particularly the Monkey's Paw, which is frightening. And was heavily borrowed from by Joss Whedon for the Buffy S5 episode "Forever")
9. The Willows by Algernon Blackwood -- ah, here's the story about the trees that eat people that I was hunting for and I vaguely remember. (I used to read horror stories while a library aid during my lunch hour in high school and junior high. I despised lunch, so would find ways to avoid it. Also did it during study hall. I spent a lot of time reading horror short stories and novels in the library and book stores.
10. The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
11. Collected Ghost Stories "Oh, Whistle, And I'll Come To You, My Lad' by M. R. James and Darryl Jones - My father had an illustrated version of this in hard back, with engravings.
12. The Werewolf Of Paris by Guy Endore
13. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
14. Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist [ No seeing the movie does not count, the judges tell us to read the book.]
15. Interview With the Vampire The Vampire Chronicles (First Triology)by Anne Rice -- yes I read about four them. The best ones are The Body Theif and the original Interview with the Vampire. Although I have a fondness for Queen of the Damned.
16. Minion (Vampire Huntress Legend Series) by L. A. Banks -- I vaguely remember reading this.
17. The Hunger by Alma Katsu
18. Those Across The River by Christopher Buehlman[The description of this one sounded interesting.]
19. Bird Box by Josh Malerman
20. Feed - Feed (Newsflesh Series) by Mira Grant [This is Seanne McQuire -- the same writer who wrote The Toby Fantasy series -- and I don't like her writing style, so couldn't get into the sample.)
21. World War Z by Max Brooks
22. The Girl With All The Gifts by M. R. Carey
23. The Shadow over Innsmouth, by H.P. Lovecraft [a bit on the xenophobic side of the fence. Lovecraft was notoriously racist, xenophobic, and misogynistic. I find him unreadable -- he is flowery. Similar to Hawthorn, no worse than Hawthorn.]
24. The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor Lavalle [ a recrafting of Lovecraft in a more progressive anti-racist tone.)
25. The Fisherman, by John Langan
26. The Atrocity Archives - Laundry Files (Series) by Charles Stross
27. The Cipher, by Kathe Koja ( A shot fired across the bow of a horror industry that was becoming increasingly misogynistic and conservative, it reminded readers that another early name for horror literature was "the weird." Which may explain why I like horror...although a lot of it is misogynistic, conservative and racist -- so I avoided a lot of stuff.)
28. John Dies at the End by David Wong
29 At the Mountains of Madness, by H.P. Lovecraft [Problematic -- considering he sort of supports slavery in it. Why I don't read Lovecraft.]
30 Forget the Sleepless Shores 'All Our Salt-Bottled Hearts' by Sonya Taaffe {Poll judge Ruthanna Emrys calls this story "my single favorite modern deconstruction of Lovecraft. ... Sonya [Taaffe] is among my favorite emerging voices and not nearly enough people have heard of her." I haven't.]
31. Uzumaki by Junji Ito ["A dental technician turned manga artist, Junji Ito is one of horror's singular visionaries. He employs tight, precise draftsmanship to deliver stories that are hard to read, not because they can become grotesque, but because they take ideas (living over a greasy restaurant, falling in love with a house) and pursue them to their logical, and deeply disturbing, ends." - Alrighty then.]
32. Communion: A True Story by Whitley Strieber [I think I read this in a book store. I don't like Strieber that much. Nor did I buy the story.]
33. The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers - 'The Repairer Of Reputations' by Robert W. Chambers
34. The Haunting Of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
35. The House Next Door by Anne Rivers Siddons
36. Burnt Offerings, by Robert Marasco -- vaguely remember reading it.
37 The Shining by Stephen King
38 House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski -- I found it unreadable but go for it, if you love footnotes, and different colored ink.
39 The Elementals by Michael McDowell [apparently he wrote the screenplays for Beetlejeuice and Nightmare Before Christmas, which explains a lot.]
40. The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
41. Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis
42. The Bone Key by Sarah Monette
43. Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand
44.Infidel by Aaron Campbell, Jose Villarrubia, Pornsak Pichetshote and Jeff Powell
45. The Ruins by Scott Smith -- skimmed bits in a book store once.
46. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
47. Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? 'Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?' by Joyce Carol Oates
48. The Red Tree by Caitlin R. Kiernan
49. Swan Song by Robert McCammon
50. Her Smoke Rose Up Forever 'The Screwfly Solution' by James Tiptree Jr. ["This 1977 short story by Alice Sheldon is still scarily relevant today in its depiction of a world devastated by a disease that causes men to murder women, and the religious movement that helps justify the killings. Notably, Sheldon is better known by her pen name, James Tiptree Jr. — her true gender wasn't known until late in her career. And today, the James Tiptree Jr. Award is given for works of sci-fi and fantasy that expand our understanding of gender."]
51. Falling in Love With Hominids 'Left Foot, Right' by Nalo Hopkinson
52. Come Closer by Sara Gran
53. Furnace by Livia Llewellyn ["Perhaps we should put a content warning here: Poll judge Ruthanna Emrys says Livia Llewellyn's work is "occasionally X-rated, with a dash of Y, Z and WTFBBQ." However, she adds, "I'm a hard scare and it scares me." The stories in Furnace are surreal and gorgeously written, shot through with equal parts lust and confusion, dripping with bright blood. Read with care."]
54. The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter -- weird narrative style, sort of poetic. Not easy to read.
55. Through the Woods by Emily Carroll
56. The Sandman 1 Sandman by Neil Gaiman, Mike Dringenberg, Malcolm Jones III and Sam Kieth
57. Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
58. White Is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi
59 . Goblin Market and Other Poems 'Goblin Market' by Christina Georgina Rossetti
60. Experimental Film by Gemma Files
61. 'The Lottery' by Shirley Jackson
62. The Collector by John Fowles
63. The Terror by Dan Simmons
64. Intensity by Dean R. Koontz
65. The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum
66. Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite [I've read Brite, but not this notorious novel that was a love story between two serial killers that was so controversial it almost ended her career.]
67. The Best of Joe R. Lansdale "Night They Missed the Horror Show" by Joe R. Lansdale
68.Penpal by Dathan Auerbach
69. NOS4A2 by Joe Hill
70. 'Bloodchild' by Octavia E. Butler
71. Lord Of The Flies by William Golding,
72. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood -- I tried, reader, I tried.
73. Beloved by Toni Morrison [A lyrical and at times unnerving ghost story about the horrors of slavery.]
74. Kindred (A Graphic Novel Adaptation) by Octavia E. Butler, John Jennings and Damian Duffy - Uhm, I read the novel version not the graphic novel. Not sure I'd want to read the graphic novel version.
75. The Devil in America by Kai Ashante Wilson
76 'I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream' by Harlan Ellison
77. Books Of Blood by Clive Barker
78. October Country The October Country: Stories by Ray Bradbury
79. The Weird - The Weird: A Compendium Of Strange And Dark Stories by Ann Vandermeer and Jeff VanDermeer
80. The Imago Sequence and Other Stories by Laird Barron
81. Alone With the Horrors
Alone With the Horrors: The Great Short Fiction of Ramsey Campbell, 1961-1991
by Ramsey Campbell
82. Things We Lost In The Fire by Mariana Enriquez
83. Shadowland by Peter Straub
84. A Head Full Of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay
85. Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin (Scarier than the movie by the way.)
86. The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty
87. The Body 'The Body' by Stephen King [The judges stated "Stephen King is the worst brand name author -- you don't know what you'll get", he jumps genres. Which is why he's so good. He puts story and characters above all else and doesn't follow formula. This is the story that inspired the River Phoenix/Will Wheaton film Stand by Me)
88. Mirror, Mirror: Classic SF By The Famed Star Trek And Fantastic Voyage Writer
'It's A Good Life' by Jerome Bixby [The short story that was turned into the classic Twilight Zone story about the boy who could make bad things happen to people who didn't give him whatever he wanted.]
89. The Other by Thomas Tryon -- buried somewhere in my shelves, never read.
90. The Troop by Nick Cutter
91. Elizabeth, by Ken Greenhall
92. Please, Momma by Chesya Burke
93. Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark by Alvin Schwartz and Stephen Gammell
94. Night Of The Living Dummy Goosebumps (Series) by R. L. Stine
95. Rotters by Daniel Kraus
96. The Jumbies
The Jumbies/Rise Of The Jumbies by Tracey Baptiste
97. The House With A Clock In Its Walls by John Bellairs
98. Spirit Hunters by Ellen Oh
99. Coraline by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean
100. Down A Dark Hall by Lois Duncan
There's so many that they left off this list. But hey, I counted right. Had to go back and fix, once. I had somehow skipped from 46 to 50 in one place, and 50 to 55 in another.
Doing that reminded me of how much horror has always intrigued me. I seem to have a love/hate relationship with it -- in that it keeps me awake at night.
Oh well, it's only three blocks away. Will take me less then ten minutes to get there.
2. 100 Favorite Horror Novels (courtesy of NPR National Readers/Listener's Poll of 2018)
As with our other reader polls, this isn't meant to be a ranked or comprehensive list — there are a few books you won't see on it despite their popularity — some didn't stand the test of time, some just didn't catch our readers' interest, and in some cases our judges would prefer you see the movie instead. (So no Jaws, sorry.) And there are a few titles that aren't strictly horror, but at least have a toe in the dark water, or are commenting about horrific things, so our judges felt they deserved a place on the list.
One thing you won't see on the list is any work from this year's judges, Stephen Graham Jones, Ruthanna Emrys, Tananarive Due and Grady Hendrix. Readers did nominate them, but the judges felt uncomfortable debating the inclusion of their own work — so it's up to me to tell you to find and read their excellent books! I personally, as a gigantic horror wuss, owe a debt of gratitude to this year's judges, particularly Hendrix, for their help writing summaries for all the list entries. I'd be hiding under the bed shuddering without their help.
And a word about Stephen King: Out of almost 7000 nominations you sent in, 1023 of them were for the modern master of horror. That's a lot of Stephen King! In past years, we've resisted giving authors more than one slot on the list (though we made an exception for Nora Roberts during the 2015 romance poll — and she's basically the Stephen King of romance.) In the end, we decided that since so much classic horror is in short story format, we would allow authors one novel and one short story if necessary.
They grouped it by category. So bold what you've read, italicize what you tried and couldn't complete or own and couldn't get into.
[A lot of really interesting books on this list that I've never heard of and want to try.]
1. Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (Me and 19th Century writers are unmixy things, which begs the question -- how did I survive being an English Lit Major? I went to a cool undergrad that had a lot of profs who didn't like 19th Century English Lit that much either -- so only had to take one class and most of it was short stories.)
2. Dracula by Bram Stoker -- skimmed a good portion of it. It's told in epistolary style and I found it ponderous and annoying.
3. Young Goodman Brown and Other Tales -'Young Goodman Brown' by Nathaniel Hawthorne (If you like Henry James, you probably like Hawthorn, if you don't, you don't...both are flowery in their prose and both take a long ass time to get to the point. But their short stories are rather good. If you have to read either - read the short stories.)
4. The Tell-Tale Heart And Other Tales 'The Tell-Tale Heart' by Edgar Allan Poe (Poe is also flowery with Prose -- those 19th Century writers. But he also did great short stories.)
5. Carmilla, by Sheridan Le Fanu
6 The Turn of the Screw and Other Short Novels 'The Turn Of The Screw' by Henry James - not an easy read, James writes in an odd style that is more focused on long descriptive moody passages than dialogue.
7. 'The Great God Pan' by Arthur Machen
8 The Monkey's Paw and Other Tales of Mystery and the Macabre 'The Monkey's Paw'
by W. W. Jacobs (I loved this collection, particularly the Monkey's Paw, which is frightening. And was heavily borrowed from by Joss Whedon for the Buffy S5 episode "Forever")
9. The Willows by Algernon Blackwood -- ah, here's the story about the trees that eat people that I was hunting for and I vaguely remember. (I used to read horror stories while a library aid during my lunch hour in high school and junior high. I despised lunch, so would find ways to avoid it. Also did it during study hall. I spent a lot of time reading horror short stories and novels in the library and book stores.
10. The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
11. Collected Ghost Stories "Oh, Whistle, And I'll Come To You, My Lad' by M. R. James and Darryl Jones - My father had an illustrated version of this in hard back, with engravings.
12. The Werewolf Of Paris by Guy Endore
13. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
14. Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist [ No seeing the movie does not count, the judges tell us to read the book.]
15. Interview With the Vampire The Vampire Chronicles (First Triology)by Anne Rice -- yes I read about four them. The best ones are The Body Theif and the original Interview with the Vampire. Although I have a fondness for Queen of the Damned.
16. Minion (Vampire Huntress Legend Series) by L. A. Banks -- I vaguely remember reading this.
17. The Hunger by Alma Katsu
18. Those Across The River by Christopher Buehlman[The description of this one sounded interesting.]
19. Bird Box by Josh Malerman
20. Feed - Feed (Newsflesh Series) by Mira Grant [This is Seanne McQuire -- the same writer who wrote The Toby Fantasy series -- and I don't like her writing style, so couldn't get into the sample.)
21. World War Z by Max Brooks
22. The Girl With All The Gifts by M. R. Carey
23. The Shadow over Innsmouth, by H.P. Lovecraft [a bit on the xenophobic side of the fence. Lovecraft was notoriously racist, xenophobic, and misogynistic. I find him unreadable -- he is flowery. Similar to Hawthorn, no worse than Hawthorn.]
24. The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor Lavalle [ a recrafting of Lovecraft in a more progressive anti-racist tone.)
25. The Fisherman, by John Langan
26. The Atrocity Archives - Laundry Files (Series) by Charles Stross
27. The Cipher, by Kathe Koja ( A shot fired across the bow of a horror industry that was becoming increasingly misogynistic and conservative, it reminded readers that another early name for horror literature was "the weird." Which may explain why I like horror...although a lot of it is misogynistic, conservative and racist -- so I avoided a lot of stuff.)
28. John Dies at the End by David Wong
29 At the Mountains of Madness, by H.P. Lovecraft [Problematic -- considering he sort of supports slavery in it. Why I don't read Lovecraft.]
30 Forget the Sleepless Shores 'All Our Salt-Bottled Hearts' by Sonya Taaffe {Poll judge Ruthanna Emrys calls this story "my single favorite modern deconstruction of Lovecraft. ... Sonya [Taaffe] is among my favorite emerging voices and not nearly enough people have heard of her." I haven't.]
31. Uzumaki by Junji Ito ["A dental technician turned manga artist, Junji Ito is one of horror's singular visionaries. He employs tight, precise draftsmanship to deliver stories that are hard to read, not because they can become grotesque, but because they take ideas (living over a greasy restaurant, falling in love with a house) and pursue them to their logical, and deeply disturbing, ends." - Alrighty then.]
32. Communion: A True Story by Whitley Strieber [I think I read this in a book store. I don't like Strieber that much. Nor did I buy the story.]
33. The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers - 'The Repairer Of Reputations' by Robert W. Chambers
34. The Haunting Of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
35. The House Next Door by Anne Rivers Siddons
36. Burnt Offerings, by Robert Marasco -- vaguely remember reading it.
37 The Shining by Stephen King
38 House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski -- I found it unreadable but go for it, if you love footnotes, and different colored ink.
39 The Elementals by Michael McDowell [apparently he wrote the screenplays for Beetlejeuice and Nightmare Before Christmas, which explains a lot.]
40. The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
41. Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis
42. The Bone Key by Sarah Monette
43. Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand
44.Infidel by Aaron Campbell, Jose Villarrubia, Pornsak Pichetshote and Jeff Powell
45. The Ruins by Scott Smith -- skimmed bits in a book store once.
46. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
47. Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? 'Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?' by Joyce Carol Oates
48. The Red Tree by Caitlin R. Kiernan
49. Swan Song by Robert McCammon
50. Her Smoke Rose Up Forever 'The Screwfly Solution' by James Tiptree Jr. ["This 1977 short story by Alice Sheldon is still scarily relevant today in its depiction of a world devastated by a disease that causes men to murder women, and the religious movement that helps justify the killings. Notably, Sheldon is better known by her pen name, James Tiptree Jr. — her true gender wasn't known until late in her career. And today, the James Tiptree Jr. Award is given for works of sci-fi and fantasy that expand our understanding of gender."]
51. Falling in Love With Hominids 'Left Foot, Right' by Nalo Hopkinson
52. Come Closer by Sara Gran
53. Furnace by Livia Llewellyn ["Perhaps we should put a content warning here: Poll judge Ruthanna Emrys says Livia Llewellyn's work is "occasionally X-rated, with a dash of Y, Z and WTFBBQ." However, she adds, "I'm a hard scare and it scares me." The stories in Furnace are surreal and gorgeously written, shot through with equal parts lust and confusion, dripping with bright blood. Read with care."]
54. The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter -- weird narrative style, sort of poetic. Not easy to read.
55. Through the Woods by Emily Carroll
56. The Sandman 1 Sandman by Neil Gaiman, Mike Dringenberg, Malcolm Jones III and Sam Kieth
57. Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
58. White Is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi
59 . Goblin Market and Other Poems 'Goblin Market' by Christina Georgina Rossetti
60. Experimental Film by Gemma Files
61. 'The Lottery' by Shirley Jackson
62. The Collector by John Fowles
63. The Terror by Dan Simmons
64. Intensity by Dean R. Koontz
65. The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum
66. Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite [I've read Brite, but not this notorious novel that was a love story between two serial killers that was so controversial it almost ended her career.]
67. The Best of Joe R. Lansdale "Night They Missed the Horror Show" by Joe R. Lansdale
68.Penpal by Dathan Auerbach
69. NOS4A2 by Joe Hill
70. 'Bloodchild' by Octavia E. Butler
71. Lord Of The Flies by William Golding,
72. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood -- I tried, reader, I tried.
73. Beloved by Toni Morrison [A lyrical and at times unnerving ghost story about the horrors of slavery.]
74. Kindred (A Graphic Novel Adaptation) by Octavia E. Butler, John Jennings and Damian Duffy - Uhm, I read the novel version not the graphic novel. Not sure I'd want to read the graphic novel version.
75. The Devil in America by Kai Ashante Wilson
76 'I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream' by Harlan Ellison
77. Books Of Blood by Clive Barker
78. October Country The October Country: Stories by Ray Bradbury
79. The Weird - The Weird: A Compendium Of Strange And Dark Stories by Ann Vandermeer and Jeff VanDermeer
80. The Imago Sequence and Other Stories by Laird Barron
81. Alone With the Horrors
Alone With the Horrors: The Great Short Fiction of Ramsey Campbell, 1961-1991
by Ramsey Campbell
82. Things We Lost In The Fire by Mariana Enriquez
83. Shadowland by Peter Straub
84. A Head Full Of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay
85. Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin (Scarier than the movie by the way.)
86. The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty
87. The Body 'The Body' by Stephen King [The judges stated "Stephen King is the worst brand name author -- you don't know what you'll get", he jumps genres. Which is why he's so good. He puts story and characters above all else and doesn't follow formula. This is the story that inspired the River Phoenix/Will Wheaton film Stand by Me)
88. Mirror, Mirror: Classic SF By The Famed Star Trek And Fantastic Voyage Writer
'It's A Good Life' by Jerome Bixby [The short story that was turned into the classic Twilight Zone story about the boy who could make bad things happen to people who didn't give him whatever he wanted.]
89. The Other by Thomas Tryon -- buried somewhere in my shelves, never read.
90. The Troop by Nick Cutter
91. Elizabeth, by Ken Greenhall
92. Please, Momma by Chesya Burke
93. Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark by Alvin Schwartz and Stephen Gammell
94. Night Of The Living Dummy Goosebumps (Series) by R. L. Stine
95. Rotters by Daniel Kraus
96. The Jumbies
The Jumbies/Rise Of The Jumbies by Tracey Baptiste
97. The House With A Clock In Its Walls by John Bellairs
98. Spirit Hunters by Ellen Oh
99. Coraline by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean
100. Down A Dark Hall by Lois Duncan
There's so many that they left off this list. But hey, I counted right. Had to go back and fix, once. I had somehow skipped from 46 to 50 in one place, and 50 to 55 in another.
Doing that reminded me of how much horror has always intrigued me. I seem to have a love/hate relationship with it -- in that it keeps me awake at night.
A question of genres
Date: 2019-09-08 12:56 pm (UTC)I think Frankenstein should fall under the old category of "gothic" more than horror. The classic movie is more horror. Gothic isn't necessarily scary, and I'd say that's the case for the book. It's heavy with philosophy which made it a tough read for me.
I don't know the genuine definitions, but I'd say Gothic has the weird, often supernatural settings. Awful things happen, but they are often quite impersonal. Horror I think is much more personal, often set in what seems perfectly natural surroundings which makes it all the more scary.
Dracula is more horror and has a lot more action. (I think as epistolary novels go it's not a bad one. But I'm not a huge fan of them in general. I often think of epistolary novels as written in stilted 18th century style, even the ones from the 19th century!)
Poe is uneven, some is really good and some isn't. I don't think I've read anything older than Poe I'd call horror. "Pit and the Pendulum" or "A Cask of Amontillado" I'd call horror. His "Masque of the Red Death," I'd call Gothic.
Steven King just isn't my cup of tea.
Re: A question of genres
Date: 2019-09-08 01:02 pm (UTC)It was fun reading the descriptions of the books I hadn't read.
no subject
Date: 2019-09-08 02:29 pm (UTC)2. Dracula by Bram Stoker
3. Young Goodman Brown and Other Tales -'Young Goodman Brown' by Nathaniel Hawthorne
4. The Tell-Tale Heart And Other Tales 'The Tell-Tale Heart' by Edgar Allan Poe
5. Carmilla, by Sheridan Le Fanu
6 The Turn of the Screw and Other Short Novels 'The Turn Of The Screw' by Henry James
7. 'The Great God Pan' by Arthur Machen
8 The Monkey's Paw and Other Tales of Mystery and the Macabre 'The Monkey's Paw'
by W. W. Jacobs
9. The Willows by Algernon Blackwood
10. The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
11. Collected Ghost Stories "Oh, Whistle, And I'll Come To You, My Lad' by M. R. James and Darryl Jones
12. The Werewolf Of Paris by Guy Endore
13. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
14. Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist
15. Interview With the Vampire The Vampire Chronicles (First Triology)by Anne Rice
16. Minion (Vampire Huntress Legend Series) by L. A. Banks
17. The Hunger by Alma Katsu
18. Those Across The River by Christopher Buehlman
19. Bird Box by Josh Malerman
20. Feed - Feed (Newsflesh Series) by Mira Grant
21. World War Z by Max Brooks
22. The Girl With All The Gifts by M. R. Carey
23. The Shadow over Innsmouth, by H.P. Lovecraft
24. The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor Lavalle
25. The Fisherman, by John Langan
26. The Atrocity Archives - Laundry Files (Series) by Charles Stross
27. The Cipher, by Kathe Koja
28. John Dies at the End by David Wong
29 At the Mountains of Madness, by H.P. Lovecraft
30 Forget the Sleepless Shores 'All Our Salt-Bottled Hearts' by Sonya Taaffe
31. Uzumaki by Junji Ito
32. Communion: A True Story by Whitley Strieber
33. The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers - 'The Repairer Of Reputations' by Robert W. Chambers
34. The Haunting Of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
35. The House Next Door by Anne Rivers Siddons
36. Burnt Offerings, by Robert Marasco
37 The Shining by Stephen King
38 House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
39 The Elementals by Michael McDowell
40. The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
41. Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis
42. The Bone Key by Sarah Monette
43. Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand
44.Infidel by Aaron Campbell, Jose Villarrubia, Pornsak Pichetshote and Jeff Powell
45. The Ruins by Scott Smith
46. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
47. Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? 'Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?' by Joyce Carol Oates I consider having to read anything by Oates a horror.
48. The Red Tree by Caitlin R. Kiernan
49. Swan Song by Robert McCammon
50. Her Smoke Rose Up Forever 'The Screwfly Solution' by James Tiptree Jr.
51. Falling in Love With Hominids 'Left Foot, Right' by Nalo Hopkinson
52. Come Closer by Sara Gran
53. Furnace by Livia Llewellyn
54. The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter
55. Through the Woods by Emily Carroll
56. The Sandman 1 Sandman by Neil Gaiman, Mike Dringenberg, Malcolm Jones III and Sam Kieth
57. Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
58. White Is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi
59 . Goblin Market and Other Poems 'Goblin Market' by Christina Georgina Rossetti
60. Experimental Film by Gemma Files
61. 'The Lottery' by Shirley Jackson
62. The Collector by John Fowles
63. The Terror by Dan Simmons
64. Intensity by Dean R. Koontz
65. The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum
66. Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite
67. The Best of Joe R. Lansdale "Night They Missed the Horror Show" by Joe R. Lansdale
68.Penpal by Dathan Auerbach
69. NOS4A2 by Joe Hill
70. 'Bloodchild' by Octavia E. Butler
71. Lord Of The Flies by William Golding,
72. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood Read it - hated it.
73. Beloved by Toni Morrison
74. Kindred (A Graphic Novel Adaptation) by Octavia E. Butler, John Jennings and Damian Duffy
75. The Devil in America by Kai Ashante Wilson
76 'I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream' by Harlan Ellison
77. Books Of Blood by Clive Barker
78. October Country The October Country: Stories by Ray Bradbury
79. The Weird - The Weird: A Compendium Of Strange And Dark Stories by Ann Vandermeer and Jeff VanDermeer
80. The Imago Sequence and Other Stories by Laird Barron
81. Alone With the Horrors
Alone With the Horrors: The Great Short Fiction of Ramsey Campbell, 1961-1991
by Ramsey Campbell
82. Things We Lost In The Fire by Mariana Enriquez
83. Shadowland by Peter Straub
84. A Head Full Of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay
85. Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin
86. The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty
87. The Body 'The Body' by Stephen King
88. Mirror, Mirror: Classic SF By The Famed Star Trek And Fantastic Voyage Writer
'It's A Good Life' by Jerome Bixby
89. The Other by Thomas Tryon
90. The Troop by Nick Cutter
91. Elizabeth, by Ken Greenhall
92. Please, Momma by Chesya Burke
93. Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark by Alvin Schwartz and Stephen Gammell
94. Night Of The Living Dummy Goosebumps (Series) by R. L. Stine
95. Rotters by Daniel Kraus
96. The Jumbies
The Jumbies/Rise Of The Jumbies by Tracey Baptiste
97. The House With A Clock In Its Walls by John Bellairs
98. Spirit Hunters by Ellen Oh
99. Coraline by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean
100. Down A Dark Hall by Lois Duncan
I'm not much for horror, though I've read 28 Dean Koontz novels.
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Date: 2019-09-08 03:43 pm (UTC)LOL!
Yeah, similar. I've read a lot of Stephen King. Although, a lot of these, I never heard of...and I read Tyron's other horror novel "Harvest Home".
How's a "Head Full of Ghosts"? (I've been flirting with that one. Got his other book but haven't read it yet.)
no subject
Date: 2019-09-08 04:09 pm (UTC)Head Full of Ghosts is a fabulous book. Tragic, but fabulous. Tremblay can really write.
no subject
Date: 2019-09-08 04:52 pm (UTC)Harvest Home ...the book is really unnerving. Reminds me a little of Shirley Jackson's The Lottery.