# Scariest Book You Ever Read?



## Val2 (Mar 9, 2011)

What's the scariest book you ever read? This I think one could be based on a real story and scared me horribly even though I don't have children.

We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver


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## ColinJ (Jun 13, 2011)

A recent example of a book that chilled, disturbed and haunted me is Mo Hayder's TOKYO. It's available from Amazon in the US as THE DEVIL OF NANKING.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Devil-of-Nanking-ebook/dp/B0035X1BWU/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_11

I think that book is amazing and Mo Hayder (a female thriller writer from Britain) instantly became one of my favourite writers.


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## barbara elsborg (Oct 13, 2010)

I've read Tokyo and I love all Mo Hayder's books!! Tokyo was scary but I'd be hard pressed to say which is the scariest I've ever read. Something about Kevin disturbed me - but didn't scare me.  I think I could pick of few of Stephen King's that made me want to leave the light on!


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## ColinJ (Jun 13, 2011)

TOKYO may not strictly be the 'scariest' book I've ever read, but it sure has stuck with me long after the final page was turned.

But then, I've had something of a fascination with the Nanking Massacre and how unspeakably horrific it was. I went to Shanghai a few years ago and found that even in the young Chinese there was still deep resentment against the Japanese for what happened during the war.

Mo Hayder just managed to capture that and create a tale of a disturbed young woman and her quest to confront the unthinkable.


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## JRainey (Feb 1, 2011)

Now, this book wouldn't scare me at my current age, but when I was about 10? Eek! I STILL think of these stories when everyday things happen that relate to them. I don't know how many children (or maybe parents) of the 80s/90s we have here, but does anyone else remember this?










Terrified me as a child, but I LOVED it! And it was the first book that came to mind when I saw the title of this thread!  I'm not easily scared these days, so I'm having trouble thinking of a book I've read recently that scared me.


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## John Zunski (Jun 8, 2011)

A toss up between The Shining and Pet Cemetery... Both had me looking over my shoulders.


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## James Everington (Dec 25, 2010)

JRainey said:


> Now, this book wouldn't scare me at my current age, but when I was about 10? Eek! I STILL think of these stories when everyday things happen that relate to them. I don't know how many children (or maybe parents) of the 80s/90s we have here, but does anyone else remember this?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Hey, that sounds great! There's something to be said for how childish horrors stick with you (and indeed some scary adult books exploit this theme - Stephen King with IT and especially The Library Policeman in Four Past Midnight springs to mind.

But I've already bought two books based on discussion threads today. I really can't buy any more... can I?


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## Jon Olson (Dec 10, 2010)

James Dickey's DELIVERANCE.


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## Julie Christensen (Oct 13, 2010)

@JRainey, YES!  And I loved the drawings, too!  In fact, I saw it for sale recently at a thrift store and bought it for my kids, even though they are only 2 and 3 right now.  No harm in planning ahead when it comes to books!


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## JRainey (Feb 1, 2011)

James Everington said:


> Hey, that sounds great! There's something to be said for how childish horrors stick with you (and indeed some scary adult books exploit this theme - Stephen King with IT and especially The Library Policeman in Four Past Midnight springs to mind.
> 
> But I've already bought two books based on discussion threads today. I really can't buy any more... can I?


Absolutely there is something to be said for it. I've found so many people in my age range who just flip out when you mention these books and all these terrors from when they were pre-teens come back to them at once. There was one story in the book about a girl who bought a dress at a pawn shop for her prom, but the dress was stained with poison that seeped through her skin and killed her on prom night. I didn't buy ANYTHING from a thrift store or pawn shop until I was about 15 years old because of that story, LOL!



Julie Christensen said:


> @JRainey, YES! And I loved the drawings, too! In fact, I saw it for sale recently at a thrift store and bought it for my kids, even though they are only 2 and 3 right now. No harm in planning ahead when it comes to books!


Hahaha! Exactly! And yeah, the drawings are insane. Some of the creepiest stuff in the book is just that guy's artwork.


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## balaspa (Dec 27, 2009)

The Exorcist, without a doubt, probably ranks as the scariest book I ever read.  Also, surprisingly, Helter Skelter, which is a true crime book.  But I tell you, the opening pages of Skelter will scare the bejeezus out of you.

I am also a huge fan of Stephen King and, for me, the book The Shining will always be his scariest.


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## grahampowell (Feb 10, 2011)

The scariest book I ever read was a true-crime book called _Whoever Fights Monsters_ by Robert Ressler, a colleague of John Douglas at the FBI's Behavioral Science group. I had two young children when I was reading this and it was literally giving me nightmares. Back then I almost never quit reading a boot but I wasn't able to finish this one.

John Douglas was used by Thomas Harris as a source for _The Silence of the Lambs_ and Scott Glenn's character in the movie is based on him.


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## EliRey (Sep 8, 2010)

I think the scariest ones are the true crime ones because it actually happened. The scariest one I started but never got to finish because I drove my husband nuts was the true story of The Night Stalker - Richard Ramirez. 

Reading about how he made his way into his victims homes through open windows and unlocked doors. I swore as I lay there in bed every night that I heard footsteps and such in the house. I kept waking up my husband to ask "Did you hear that?" "Are you sure you locked both the the front door and the back?" Needless to say he FORCED me to stop reading it. In the end I think it was for the best.


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## Sean Thomas Fisher (Mar 25, 2011)

Joe Hill's _Heart-Shaped Box_ was absolutely terrifying. The old man in the suit gave me nightmares for nearly two weeks. It was awesome. Snooki's book _A Shore Thing_ is equally as disturbing...


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## Paul Jones (Jun 11, 2011)

Whitley Strieber's, Communion. It actually gave me nightmares -- to the point that I woke up in my parents room, stark naked and holding a samurai sword one night, as I thought the Grays were after me.

I may have shared _too _much information there.


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## CoolMom1960 (Mar 16, 2009)

The Shining - I took me an entire summer to read it.  I could only read a few pages at a time in broad daylight.  Last Stephen King book I ever read.


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## stormhawk (Apr 29, 2009)

Do not read this if you want to be able to sleep at night.

Understanding how the Federal Reserve System works is real, true-life scary.

(murderers are creepy, I've met several. The Fed, however, that's a kind of creepy I can't defend myself against.)


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## kCopeseeley (Mar 15, 2011)

When I was a kid I had to read _Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_ for school. That book scared the heck out of me. Also, _Intensity_ by Dean Koontz. I don't find supernatural books scary, but anything that could happen to a person in real life (a stranger showing up at your house to kill everyone) scares me. Which is why I don't normally read those kind of books.


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## joanhallhovey (Nov 7, 2010)

Stephen King's Pet Semetary, hands down.  It reminded me of W.W. Jacobs short story The Monkey's Paw.  In face Stephen King mentioned the story in his book, so I think it inspired the book.  I read Pet Semetary again recently and it had the same chilling effect.  He's just brilliant.

Joan


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## Coral Moore (Nov 29, 2009)

JRainey said:


> Now, this book wouldn't scare me at my current age, but when I was about 10? Eek! I STILL think of these stories when everyday things happen that relate to them. I don't know how many children (or maybe parents) of the 80s/90s we have here, but does anyone else remember this?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I feel like we're really bonding today. First Flipper and now this book! This is one of the first scary books I ever read as well, and I agree, it was really scary! I think I got it in one of those book sales from the little flyers. Do they still do that anymore? I guess probably not. Gah, now I feel old.


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## maryannaevans (Apr 10, 2010)

_The Omen_.

When I realized that the devil-boy had killed both his poor parents, unleashing himself on the world, I was a wreck. And in the movie, it was _Gregory Peck_ that he killed. I love Gregory Peck. Sniff.


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## kiyash (Jun 9, 2011)

@jrainey, you nailed it. "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" traumatized a whole generation of us, I think. Those illustrations will never get out of my head.

As far as books without pictures, "It" was the one that really scared me. Pennywise was a truly frightening monster. Joe Lansdale, who wrote "Bubba Ho-Tep," has some good short horror - a book called "High Cotton" has some great stories. I think I'll have to add "Heart-Shaped Box" to my list of books to read. It's come up on my radar a bunch of times now.


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## JRainey (Feb 1, 2011)

Coral said:


> I feel like we're really bonding today. First Flipper and now this book! This is one of the first scary books I ever read as well, and I agree, it was really scary! I think I got it in one of those book sales from the little flyers. Do they still do that anymore? I guess probably not. Gah, now I feel old.


 Flipper and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark: a winning combination. But that's how I bought it, too! I would get so excited when we got the Scholastic sheets with all the books each month. I'd circle fifty different books I wanted, and then I'd get home and mom would tell me I could only get two or three... I don't know if they do that anymore. I'd be kinda sad if they didn't.

But I LOVE how many people remember that book! It really sticks with you. I've seen animations made out of the drawings. Those are flat-out nightmare fuel, lol!


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## kiyash (Jun 9, 2011)

@jrainey, where did you see those animations? I'd kind of love to see what an animator would do with those images. I think I'd also be terrified, but I still want to know. (that's the best kind of scary anyway, right?)


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## planet_janet (Feb 23, 2010)

I'd have to agree with others who have already mentioned it and say that Pet Semetary is one of the scariest books I've ever read.


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## JRainey (Feb 1, 2011)

kiyash said:


> @jrainey, where did you see those animations? I'd kind of love to see what an animator would do with those images. I think I'd also be terrified, but I still want to know. (that's the best kind of scary anyway, right?)


Wow, I don't even remember. It was a while ago, and I think I saw them on LiveJournal back when I was on there. I'll poke around and see if I can find them because holy crap, are they terrifying!  They moved only very slightly. So you thought you were just looking at the image and then all of a sudden...!


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## Michelle Muto (Feb 1, 2011)

The Exorcist. I was a kid when I first read it. Scared the tar out of me.  

As an adult? Pet Semetery. I was working midnight then, and had to walk under a bridge at 4 in the morning when I got off work. I took the book in to read while I babysat computer systems. Then, I'd come home to a dark house with my cat waiting for me - those glowing eyes in the dark. The whole thing. Creepy times. Just creepy.


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## Julia444 (Feb 24, 2011)

I don't read much horror, but I remember being really scared when I read Stephen King's PET SEMATERY.

I've also read some suspense novels that were truly terrifying--Barbara Michaels wrote some scary stuff.

Julia


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## Erica Sloane (May 11, 2011)

Red Dragon by Thomas Harris. It's the story before Silence of the Lambs.

It's those kinds of stories -- about people who could be real, doing scary things -- that scare me. Ghosts, monsters, paranormal stuff, etc. isn't nearly as scary because it's not realistic.


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## Geoffrey (Jun 20, 2009)

the scariest book? In the history of ever? It would have to be the first 80% of Stephen King's _IT_. I was terrified of clowns as a kid and it pulled them right up and paraded them around the room as I read.

One night in 1988 or 9, it was about 11pm and I was reading _IT_ with all the lights in the apartment on and both the front and back doors open - in case I needed to make a quick escape. My friend, Laura, came over, pressed herself against my picture window and knocked on the glass. I screamed like a child, leapt over the back of the sofa and ran out of the room. Thank god it was before cellphone cameras - it took long enough to live it down without video to share with friends.


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## AuthorJMKelley (Jun 17, 2011)

I read a collection of Edgar Allan Poe short stories as a child. Way too young to read Edgar Allan Poe, I think. The Black Cat freaked me OUT. I already had issues with cats, and that short sealed the deal.


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## Carol (was Dara) (Feb 19, 2011)

_Why Mermaids Sing_ by C.S. Harris. People who read horror would call this mystery mild but I'm not used to really scary stuff and I was terrified by this book. And yet I couldn't look away.


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## Joseph.Garraty (May 20, 2011)

Pet Sematary for me, too. Scared the heck out of me, and I was reading the end at two in the morning in a strange house when somebody started walking around in the hall. Not much sleep that night!

King's short story 1408 was also really frightening, especially for being so bizarre. I got up and turned on all the lights in the house after reading that one.


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## Tamara Rose Blodgett (Apr 1, 2011)

Without-a-doubt, _Salem's Lot_, by Stephen King~!


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## SaraDagan (May 25, 2011)

The book that poped up immediately on my mind is the genius, outstanding Perfume by Patrick Suskind.

Although it reflects the absolute chemical influences on the human mind I find it pervert in a way.

beware....


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## James Everington (Dec 25, 2010)

SaraDagan said:


> The book that poped up immediately on my mind is the genius, outstanding Perfume by Patrick Suskind.
> 
> Although it reflects the absolute chemical influences on the human mind I find it pervert in a way.
> 
> beware....


Perfume _is_ brilliant, and perverse, although I'm not sure it's scared me as such. But for those out there who haven't read it, Sara's use of the word "genius" is completely apt in this case. A true one-off.


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## Sandra Edwards (May 10, 2010)

I don't read scary books anymore (way past the urge to scare myself. lol), but two that instantly come to mind are _The Shining_ and _Ghost Story_.


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## Stephen_Melling (Jun 26, 2011)

MMmmm. My first Post. Hard to pick out the scariest book I ever read. PHANTOMS by Dead Koontz stayed with me a while. THE SHINING is up there. A few of Ramsey Cambell's stories still give me a chill.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Well, The Shining, Carrie and 'Salem's Lot are high on the list, but the one that really creeped me out was The Tommyknockers. I think maybe for the reasons he mentioned in On Writing about his state of mind when writing it (for reasons other than drugs as was in his case) I could somehow identify with it. It literally gave me nightmares and I couldn't read any more of his novels for quite a while.


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## LydiaNetzer (Jun 25, 2011)

JRainey said:


> Now, this book wouldn't scare me at my current age, but when I was about 10? Eek! I STILL think of these stories when everyday things happen that relate to them. I don't know how many children (or maybe parents) of the 80s/90s we have here, but does anyone else remember this?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yes! I had this book! I remember it very well. And yes, it scared the crap out of me when I was a kid, but nowadays I'd probably have to say something like _Never Let Me Go_ is scarier. Or maybe _Salem's Lot_. Can't go wrong there.


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## James Everington (Dec 25, 2010)

Kelvecion said:


> MMmmm. My first Post. Hard to pick out the scariest book I ever read. PHANTOMS by Dead Koontz stayed with me a while. THE SHINING is up there. A few of Ramsey Cambell's stories still give me a chill.


Kelvecion - good first post! Ramsey Campbell's stories are excellent, for certain. 'The Companion' is the one I always recommend people start with, but there's so many good ones.


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## SJCress (Jun 5, 2011)

Erica Sloane said:


> Ghosts, monsters, paranormal stuff, etc. isn't nearly as scary because it's not realistic.


This. Thrillers and murder mysteries tend to scare me more than most horror stories, though nothing is really standing out at the moment. It's a different kind of fear. But on that note, _Pet Sematery_ didn't get to me as much as _Misery_ did.

Although, Robert McCammon's _They Thirst_ freaked me out a bit. Just the way everyone was trapped in the buildings and the vampires being able to wander about at will...I'm cringing just thinking about it.

I've read tons of horror, ever since I was a kid, and I'm wracking my brain as to what scared me the most...stuff with bugs, I think. Also, zombies. I have nightmares about zombies still.


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## Coral Moore (Nov 29, 2009)

JRTomlin said:


> Well, The Shining, Carrie and 'Salem's Lot are high on the list, but the one that really creeped me out was The Tommyknockers. I think maybe for the reasons he mentioned in On Writing about his state of mind when writing it (for reasons other than drugs as was in his case) I could somehow identify with it. It literally gave me nightmares and I couldn't read any more of his novels for quite a while.


Oh, _The Tommyknockers_ was quite scary too. For me, _It_ is probably the scariest of his, although it might be that I was not much older than those kids. I had nightmares with clowns for weeks.


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## SaraDagan (May 25, 2011)

James Everington said:


> Perfume _is_ brilliant, and perverse, although I'm not sure it's scared me as such. But for those out there who haven't read it, Sara's use of the word "genius" is completely apt in this case. A true one-off.


One surely needs a 'strong stomach' for this book! - I find it a super-dark fantasy. I hardsly read horror. I think the television and the press are doing an extremely 'good work'...

have a great week, everyone!


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## Robert Clear (Apr 10, 2011)

I remember being scared by Jonathan Aycliffe's 'The Matrix,' though I was about 11 at the time. Maybe I should read it again and see if I've toughened up!


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## Stephen_Melling (Jun 26, 2011)

James: The Companion _is my favourite Ramsey Cambell short. I reread Above the World the other day and was impressed by its imagery and mood. I'm pretty familiar with the location in The Lakes so the story had particular resonance. Scary stuff._


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## Elizabeth Black (Apr 8, 2011)

Two books scared me, and it takes a lot to scare me. The first is Hiroshima, by John Hershey. Sadly, it's not available in Kindle format. The other book is "The Screaming Skulls and Other Ghosts" by Elliott O'Donnell. Good luck finding that one anywhere, since it's rare. When you do find it, you'll pay a mint for it now. It's a collection of haunting legends from Europe. Scared me silly when I was a kid and that book still scares me to this day.


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## James Everington (Dec 25, 2010)

Kelvecion said:


> James: The Companion _is my favourite Ramsey Cambell short. I reread Above the World the other day and was impressed by its imagery and mood. I'm pretty familiar with the location in The Lakes so the story had particular resonance. Scary stuff.
> _


_

Kelvecion - yes he's one of my favourite authors and a big influence on my own writing. I read a collection of his called Dark Feats at an impressionable age, I think...

Recently I started a thread about him on the Amazon discussion boards, and while it got a disappointing number of responces, one of them was from Ramsey Campbell himself! Which was pretty cool - apparently a lot of his harder to find stuff is getting a Kindle release at some point this year._


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## cork_dork_mom (Mar 24, 2011)

"Summer of night" by Dan Simmons scared me so much that for the longest time I couldn't hang my feet over the bed for fear of something grabbing me. The story gets a bit absurd near the end, but I highly recommend it.

"The shining" is a great book... I grew up not far from the Stanley Hotel which the story is based on and even though it's a beautiful hotel, you can imagine the stories being true.

I'm a fan of any book that by the simple use of words can create outward emotion... spontaneous laughter, hearing footsteps at night, tears. That is a gift.


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## etexlady (May 27, 2009)

May sound like a silly choice but I was scared by the book, Jaws.  To this day I cannot go to the beach and not think about that book.  Too bad the movie made it all kind of cheesy.


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## Stephen_Melling (Jun 26, 2011)

James: I read a lot of Ramsey Campbell's stuff in the late 80's. He was a frequent guest at the PSFG (Preston Speculative Fiction Group) and was always happy to chat, sign copies and particularly read out his own work. Last time I saw him was at FantasyCon in Nottingham. He was wandering around in shorts! It was a good FantasyCon. Clive Barker and Neil Gaiman put in appearances. During a question and answer session I was given an opportunity to ask Clive Barker a question. I could think of nothing so I blurted out that the four panelists sounded like members of alcoholics anonymous! To which Clive Barker replied: "My name's Clive Barker and I'm a horror writer!" Ah, well.


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## James Everington (Dec 25, 2010)

Kelvecion said:


> James: I read a lot of Ramsey Campbell's stuff in the late 80's. He was a frequent guest at the PSFG (Preston Speculative Fiction Group) and was always happy to chat, sign copies and particularly read out his own work. Last time I saw him was at FantasyCon in Nottingham. He was wandering around in shorts! It was a good FantasyCon. Clive Barker and Neil Gaiman put in appearances. During a question and answer session I was given an opportunity to ask Clive Barker a question. I could think of nothing so I blurted out that the four panelists sounded like members of alcoholics anonymous! To which Clive Barker replied: "My name's Clive Barker and I'm a horror writer!" Ah, well.


Cool - I live in Nottingham actually, although I've never been to a convention ever. Maybe I should.

Clive Barker's pretty good - but not as good as Campbell.


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## Adam Kisiel (Jun 20, 2011)

I liked the tense atmosphere in the "Pale Mansion"


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## Milly Reynolds (Jun 19, 2011)

I know it's crime and not horror, but for me it was 'The Snowman' by Jo Nesbo. I read it behind the sofa!


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## dabnorfish (Jun 30, 2011)

Other than the obvious Exorcist by William Peter Blatty, Dark Matters by Michelle Paver is particularly unnerving.


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## Theresaragan (Jul 1, 2011)

IT by Stephen King. I liked Bozo the clown before I read that book. I only read it once years ago and I still look at those storm drains they put in sidewalks and know that IT is down there...waiting for some clueless person to peek inside.


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## Lursa (aka 9MMare) (Jun 23, 2011)

Pretty sure it would be any of a number of books from my epidemiology collection. Probably “The Coming Plague” by Laurie Garrett, which covers a number of diseases and the conditions that enable them. It’s also one of my favorite books.


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## Ursula_Bauer (Dec 12, 2010)

Salem's Lot. OMG> freaked me out. I was home from college one night, my mother was working ER midnights, so I'm alone in the apartment, ground floor. She had it in the house, I could not sleep, so I picked it up. It was cold, dark, late fall, and I'd started reading at around 11pm. By midnight I was convinced Vampires were going to get me, and I was easy to get, on the first floor, alone in this easy to access garden apartment. I didn't go to sleep after finishing the book either. In fact, if I recall, I got into my car a bit after dawn and drove back upstate.

The only thing worse, a few weeks later, I'm back down, it's this wet wet night. This crazy fog rolls in and is blanketing long island. The news has on all the crashes because it's so thick, and all these warnings about avoiding driving and such. I'm a night owl back then, and figure, I'll pass some time w/a movie. I'm not reading any other books in the house, all of which are Stephen King. Learned my lesson the month before, right? What do I turn on at midnight? John Carpenter's The Fog. I'm thinking, "well, at least it's not Salem's Lot." Nope. It's even worse. 

Yes. I am an idiot.


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## Steven Slavick (May 15, 2011)

Ursula - I read Salem's Lot about 20 years ago, and I still remember the vampire (boy) floating outside his best friend's window - he was on the 2nd floor. And the Fog? Saw that one so many times. Always scared me as a kid. I own both of those now, the book and the movie. 

I'd say the scariest book I ever read was Swan Song by Robert McCammon. It wasn't really a horror book. It was apocalyptic fiction, but the scenes are so vivid and terrifying that it sort of became a horror novel. If you've read The Stand by Stephen King, you might like this one.


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## Tommie Lyn (Dec 7, 2009)

The two books which tie for scariest are both by Dean Koontz...._Dragon Tears_ and _The Bad Place_.

But the piece of fiction which scared and horrified me most was Shirley Jackson's short story, "The Lottery." (_The Hunger Games_ takes a page out of "The Lottery"...but it isn't as deeply chilling, perhaps because I've become inured to that kind of fiction.)


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## elalond (May 11, 2011)

joanhallhovey said:


> Stephen King's Pet Semetary, hands down.


Ditto.The Pet Cemetery is for me the scariest book I ever read. 
What got me was the way King through the story describes the cat, its behavior and how it moved, and then when I imagine the wife as she walked through the door. *shivers*
I like horror stories where author plays on reader's imagination and the Pet Cemetery is a story that does this so wonderfully.



ColinJ said:


> A recent example of a book that chilled, disturbed and haunted me is Mo Hayder's TOKYO. It's available from Amazon in the US as THE DEVIL OF NANKING.


There's something so creepy about this story, and I couldn't shake it off for a long time. Brilliant book, but it was not that scary for me; fascinating yes, scary so-so. Maybe because the story was finished with the last chapter, everything was resolved, while with Pet Cemetery the story has just begun and since it's the end of the book, what happens next is left to reader's imagination.



James Everington said:


> Perfume _is_ brilliant, and perverse, although I'm not sure it's scared me as such. But for those out there who haven't read it, Sara's use of the word "genius" is completely apt in this case. A true one-off.


Perfume is another one of not-scary books for me. Great book, but it didn't give me the chills, it just gave me glimpse of a twisted human mind and his struggle in the world that rejected him. Not that lessens the greatness of the book.


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## Pamela Davis (Feb 7, 2011)

_The Tommyknockers_ by Stephen King was the one that got to me the most. I had to stop reading it I got so freaked out. I think what got to me was how the teeth kept falling out. I tried later to finish that novel and had the same reaction. I've never been able to complete the book! I've read others of his that were terrifying in their own ways, but nothing got under my skin the same way. The crazy thing is, I think _The Tommyknockers_ is one of King's worst books! Weird how a book can push all your buttons.

_The Exorcist_ is the scariest book I've read that I finished. I remember being in high school sitting up in bed late late at night reading it and being scared out of my wits. Ah, good times.


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## goathunter (Jul 8, 2011)

Robert McCammon's _They Thirst_ is still the only book that has spawned a nightmare for me---one of those everyone's-a-vampire-except-me dreams....

Hunter


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## balaspa (Dec 27, 2009)

I forgot to mention another non-fiction work that will scare you almost to death: The Hot Zone.  Reading about what real-world viruses like Marbug and Ebola do to you...it's a thousand times scarier than King's The Stand.  

I am forgetting the author of that book and, honestly, I am too lazy to look it up right now.


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## JimC1946 (Aug 6, 2009)

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. And the book is much scarier than the movie version.


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## MJFredrick (Jun 20, 2011)

Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill. I listened to it on audio and it gave me NIGHTMARES!


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## tinytoy (Jun 15, 2011)

JRainey said:


> Now, this book wouldn't scare me at my current age, but when I was about 10? Eek! I STILL think of these stories when everyday things happen that relate to them. I don't know how many children (or maybe parents) of the 80s/90s we have here, but does anyone else remember this?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


This was the most popular book in the school library when I was in elementary school! "Never laugh as a hearse goes by, for you will be the next do die ..."


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## bnapier (Apr 26, 2010)

Paul Jones said:


> Whitley Strieber's, Communion. It actually gave me nightmares -- to the point that I woke up in my parents room, stark naked and holding a samurai sword one night, as I thought the Grays were after me.
> 
> I may have shared _too _much information there.


The book didn't affect me too terribly, but the movie did. I was 14 or so when I watched it. slept with the lights on for a week.


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## bnapier (Apr 26, 2010)

Everyone gives me the raied eyebrow of skepticism over this but...

Mark Danielewski's "House of Leaves" shook me up pretty bad.  To say it was "scary" might be a stretch but it certainly freaked me out for days.


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## Lursa (aka 9MMare) (Jun 23, 2011)

balaspa said:


> I forgot to mention another non-fiction work that will scare you almost to death: The Hot Zone. Reading about what real-world viruses like Marbug and Ebola do to you...it's a thousand times scarier than King's The Stand.
> 
> I am forgetting the author of that book and, honestly, I am too lazy to look it up right now.


It's by Richard Preston and yes, that _is _ another scary one.


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## Tracey (Mar 18, 2010)

I can't say that I have ever read a book that has scared the wits out of me.  Stephen King doesn't scare me, but I love his books, except The Tommyknockers, couldn't get into it.  His books are sometimes disturbing, Misery is one of those and the only one of his that "got" to me was Insomnia.  I kept waking up earlier and earlier every day until I finished the book lol.

The only book that has stayed with me and has sort of given me the creeps is The Amityville Horror.  I read it at school and did a review on it.  I have always been fascinated by it.

But I am one of these people that laugh at horror movies and will watch them till the cows come home


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## kindleworm (Aug 24, 2010)

The Amityville Horror also really gave me the creeps.  As a teenager, I read it one summer while I was visiting my grandparents who lived in a big, old farmhouse.  Yikes!  Everytime I walked past a window at night, I thought that I was seeing red pigs eyes.  Don't think I'll ever re-read that one!


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## valleycat1 (Mar 15, 2011)

I finally tracked down Pet Sematary after reading everyone's votes (had to buy a paperback at a bookstore).  I didn't make it all the way through to the end due to boredom & lack of interest in what ultimately happens (I was well into the final build-up to the climax, not to be a spoiler) & realized I just didn't care enough to keep slogging through it.

I'm gonna stick with The Exorcist as the scariest (read when I was in college when it was first released), although I have a book of Roald Dahl's short stories for adults & they're pretty darn disturbing!


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## Todd Russell (Mar 27, 2011)

I've read a bunch of scary stories. Some have been mentioned: Pet Semetary and Swan Song by Robert McCammon too. Jay Anson's Amityville Horror was also spooky. The Manitou by Graham Masterton is pretty creepy. And how about a vote for Lovecraft or Poe (The Tell-tale Heart! Is it a woman or man narrating the story)? Those two wrote some dark, deep, eerie stuff.


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## Todd Russell (Mar 27, 2011)

valleycat1 said:


> I'm gonna stick with The Exorcist as the scariest (read when I was in college when it was first released), although I have a book of Roald Dahl's short stories for adults & they're pretty darn disturbing!


Dahl might be best known for his YA tales (Willy Wonka, James and the Giant Peach, etc) but he was an outstanding short story writer. Would encourage those who love short stories to check out his works. "Lamb to the Slaughter" is one of the best shorts I've ever read. He's more like a Twilight Zone / Alfred Hitchcock eerie versus scary.


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## Ross Payton (Jul 10, 2011)

The Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft freaked me out like no other book has since. Didn't help that I read it at a young age.


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## trixiedog (Feb 13, 2009)

There were parts in Jeffrey Deaver's book, Kiss the Girls that I won't soon forget.....


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## Writtled (Jul 19, 2011)

Richard Laymon books DEFINITELY stay with you. <3


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## Thalia the Muse (Jan 20, 2010)

They certainly do still send out the Scholastic fliers! Although now there's some CD-ROMs and so forth mixed in with the books. And kids still come home with about 100 books circled.  

House of Leaves IS creepy -- although I wish he had jettisoned most of the meta-fiction and stuck with the documentary about the house and what happens there.


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## Tony Richards (Jul 6, 2011)

Not a book in my case -- a short story. 'It's a Good Life' by Jerome Bixby, an old classic from the fifties and absolutely _petrifying_ (in spite of which, The Simpsons managed to send it up in one of their Halloween Specials).


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## J.G. McKenney (Apr 16, 2011)

I read _Helter Skelter_ when I was younger. It's District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi's account of the 1969 Tate/LaBianca murders committed by Charles Manson's "family". I was pretty freaked out by accounts of the knife wielding psychopaths breaking into people's homes and "creepy crawling" around their beds while they slept. I think the fact that it was fact and not fiction made it all the more frightening.


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## EC Sheedy (Feb 24, 2011)

I think the scariest book I ever read--and it was a long time ago--was Truman Capote's IN COLD BLOOD. Everything about that book terrified me: the remote farm house, the dark, the sleeping family, the deranged killers...  I still shudder when I think about it.  A close second was Stephen King's PET SEMATARY. Waking up to a cold, damp, very dead cat on your chest, eyes burning into yours? Yup, that's scary.


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## EC Sheedy (Feb 24, 2011)

Sean Thomas Fisher said:


> Joe Hill's _Heart-Shaped Box_ was absolutely terrifying. The old man in the suit gave me nightmares for nearly two weeks. It was awesome. Snooki's book _A Shore Thing_ is equally as disturbing...


Agree with both of these.


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## Meb Bryant (Jun 27, 2011)

QBII (which stands for the Queen's Bench) horrified me that mankind has the capacity to mistreat other human beings in such a horrific manner as the Holocaust. I was too upset to go to work the day after reading this novel.

Excerpt from Wikipedia, My source of all knowledge:

QB VII by Leon Uris was a best seller published in 1970. This four-part novel highlights the events leading to a life-shattering libel trial in the United Kingdom.

Meb


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## Patrick Reinken (Aug 4, 2011)

_Pet Sematary_? Yup, absolutely.

But I'll give my award to _Misery_ any day.


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## G.L. Breedon (Jul 7, 2011)

> Everyone gives me the raied eyebrow of skepticism over this but...
> 
> Mark Danielewski's "House of Leaves" shook me up pretty bad. To say it was "scary" might be a stretch but it certainly freaked me out for days.


Bnapier - I totally agree. House of leaves disturbed my mind for weeks. I stayed up late one night reading it in a hotel suite with too many rooms and not enough lights.

I agree with Thalia the Muse about the meta fiction - but at least I could fall asleep after reading that.


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## djgross (May 24, 2011)

Another vote for Stephen King's _It_.

The one Stephen King book that gave me nightmares. Even thinking about the book gives me chills.

I'm not certain why _It _got to me more than _The Stand_ (my favorite) or _Salem's Lot_, but clowns still creep me out.


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## stormhawk (Apr 29, 2009)

Todd Russell said:


> Dahl might be best known for his YA tales (Willy Wonka, James and the Giant Peach, etc) but he was an outstanding short story writer. Would encourage those who love short stories to check out his works. "Lamb to the Slaughter" is one of the best shorts I've ever read. He's more like a Twilight Zone / Alfred Hitchcock eerie versus scary.


My favorite Dahl short is "Royal Jelly." It was in one of those Hitchcock story collections.

Gave me a whole new appreciation of Dahl as a writer, and of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as a really creepy morality tale.


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## Michael_J_Sullivan (Aug 3, 2011)

I think a lot of the reasons why you choose one book or another has to do with the age you read it at.  I remember reading Stephen King's "Salem's Lot" when I was about 13 or 14.  It was the first "scarey" book I selected on my own (as opposed to a Poe or something similar that I had to read in school).  I read it late at night and the whole scene with the kid floating outside the window scratching to be let in really got to me.


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## William F (Jul 31, 2011)

Johnny Got his Gun  by Dalton Trumbo.  Maybe not the fun kind of scary as in an adrenaline rush, but as in something that will challenge your comfort zone.

also, We the Living by Ayn Rand.  Again, not a horror story, but a story about horrible things and the people that do them.


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## B Regan Asher (Jun 14, 2011)

This is all very interesting for me.  I have never really had any interest in reading scary books or watching scary movies.  I love suspense and action but scary is a little outside my realm.  I usually read before going to bed  so ... will a scary book not keep me up at night?  When do you folks read these books?


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## Elizabeth Black (Apr 8, 2011)

balaspa said:


> I forgot to mention another non-fiction work that will scare you almost to death: The Hot Zone. Reading about what real-world viruses like Marbug and Ebola do to you...it's a thousand times scarier than King's The Stand.
> 
> I am forgetting the author of that book and, honestly, I am too lazy to look it up right now.


Richard Preston wrote it. He also wrote "The Demon In The Freezer", fact-based about smallpox. Both books scared me half to death and I couldn't put them down. Two fictional books that scared me were Michael Crichton's "The Andromeda Strain" and Charles Pelligrino's "Dust". Yes, I like biohazard books.


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## cheriereich (Feb 12, 2011)

Stephen King's _The Mist_ - It freaked me out when I read it. I haven't been able to look at fog the same way since. Of course, the movie had to ruin it by tacking on an ending.


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## James Everington (Dec 25, 2010)

cheriereich said:


> Stephen King's _The Mist_ - It freaked me out when I read it. I haven't been able to look at fog the same way since. Of course, the movie had to ruin it by tacking on an ending.


Yeah that film's ending was poor, and "tacked on" is exactly the right description. I wouldn't have minded so much if they'd cleverly set it up, but it just seemed to come pointlessly out of nowhere.


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## ThomasSandman (Aug 10, 2011)

Pet Semetary


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## Riven Owler (Jul 9, 2011)

I also read Salem's Lot as a youngster (about 12).  It terrified me as did The Shining and Amityville Horror.  The last novel that scared me was The Road by Cormac McCarthy.  I was so scared for these characters that I scared myself.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

Stephen King's short story _The Jaunt _ scared me. More sci-fi than horror, but the idea behind it is truly frightening to me.


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## ThomasSandman (Aug 10, 2011)

Patrick Reinken said:


> _Pet Sematary_? Yup, absolutely.
> 
> But I'll give my award to _Misery_ any day.


Both great books and quite scary!


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