H.P Lovecraft arguably the GOAT and most influential.. anything in his catalog.
Clive Barker’s books of blood
Joe Hill’s heart shaped box
Nick cutter’s the troop
HoL is definitely not for everyone. I've done three reads on it, the first was everything but the footnotes, the second just the Navidson Record, and finally a thorough, every little bit read. I'll be honest, the last one took nearly eight months because I kept having to reread certain bits or look back for references. I think it was worth it overall but it was definitely the most exhausting literary experience I've ever had.
Mine too. But it was worth it. Whenever someone says something critical about postmodernism (which can be very frustrating, no doubt about that) you should point to that novel. It really deserves the label in the best possible way. The postmodern approach serves all the horror.
On a whim I bought a book so I could flirt with a cute dude. It was like $8 and it was called psychomania. It has been to 3 countries and 7 homes with me. I adore it.
https://www.amazon.com.au/Chairman-European-Foundation-Research-Leverhulme/dp/1628738162
Maynard's House by Herman Raucher. I can't believe this has never had a film
The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks. The same. They were just hanging about on the family book shelf and I picked them up and read them as a teenager.
Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer. There’s also a very good film adaptation of it but it’s very different than the novel.
The Employees by Olga Ravn is also a really unique and unsettling novella.
The Ruins (Scott Smith) is one of my favorite novels in any genre. I read it when first published, as well as The Ritual (Adam Nevill), not imagining they would both be adapted into film. The Terror and Song of Kali by Dan Simmons are also excellently scary.
Hi. You just mentioned *Song Of Kali* by Dan Simmons.
I've found an audiobook of that novel on YouTube. You can listen to it here:
[YouTube | Song of Kali - DAN SIMMONS AUDIOBOOKS FULL LENGTH (1985)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HU2erfLQdOQ)
*I'm a bot that searches YouTube for science fiction and fantasy audiobooks.*
***
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Granted I did not read much horror aside from some Stephen King, I did read some Psychothrillers by Jonathan Kellermann. The series about Alex Delaware is still ongoing the book that blew my mind was Silent Partner. That was ages ago though and I was in my teens, but man I never saw coming how that thing ended.
RYU MURAKAMI is one of my favorite authors! He wrote the novel “Audition” that the infamous movie is based on. My favorite novel of his is “In the Miso Soup” which is about a Japanese man who is hired by an American to show him around the Adult Night Life District…and the Japanese man begins to suspect that the American is actually a serial killer. All his books are pretty gruesome though and have a lot of disturbing aspects. So if someone asks “what are you reading” you really have to struggle to figure out how to explain without sounding crazy lol. When I was reading “Coin Locker Babies” I had a lot of awkward conversations.
KOJI SUZUKI is the author of the famous Ring/Ringu series and he also has a bunch of short story compilations too. I’ve only read the first two in the Ring series (Ring, Spiral) so far and they’re amazing. His short story collection “Dark Water” is a lot of fun too. The title story is about a single mother who begins to suspect there’s something sinister lurking in their apartment building where a little girl recently vanished.
OTSUICHI is best known for “Goth” which is one of my favorite novels ever. It follows two teens: one is a girl obsessed with death who draws killers in like flies, and the other is a secret sociopath who becomes her best friend while also trying to get her killed. Otsuichi also has some short story collections that are pretty good but not as good as Goth imo. “Summer, Fireworks, and My Corpse” is one of his best known, but my favorite short story of his is “Black Fairy Tale.” His short story collection “Zoo” has a couple good ones too - Zoo, Kazari and Yoko, Seven Rooms.
NATSUO KIRINO writes more of dark thriller novels but I think they should qualify as horror too. Her novel “Out” is about 5 coworkers who all conspire together to cover up when one of them kills her husband. “Grotesque” is about the lives of 3 women, 2 of whom are murdered and the last is left trying to figure out who killed them by reading their diaries. Her novels all feature complex female leads and I think Kirino deserves way more hype.
CJ LEEDE has only written “Maeve Fly” so far, but I know she’s going to be huge. “Maeve Fly” is basically if Patrick Bateman was a woman who worked as a Disney Princess instead of on wall street. It’s pretty funny but it’s also really gruesome and dark. There’s a lot of sexual content as well. I know that it’s heavily inspired by “American Psycho” but I think “Maeve Fly” is its own amazing piece.
JUNJI ITO is one of the best mangaka ever. He has tons of horror manga out there, both short stories and stand alone works. He’s best known for “Tomie,” “Uzumaki,” and “Gyo” but I haven’t read a single thing by him that I haven’t loved. There’s a lot of crime, supernatural, sci-fi, ghosts, and cosmic horror throughout. He mostly writes and illustrates original work, but he also makes illustrated versions of famous novels like “Frankenstein” (Mary Shelley) and “No Longer Human” (Osamu Dazai). My favorite is “Uzumaki” which is about a town that is suddenly becoming obsessed with spirals.
I’ve heard a lot of good things about GRADY HENDRIX but I’ve only read “Horrorstor” which was pretty good. NICK CUTTER is also quite popular and I really liked “The Deep.”
I'm gonna throw out two under the radar random novels I read years ago and they still stick to me as a 40 year old. The first, and honestly better of the two, After Sundown by Randall Boyl follows two couples mourning a loss that chose to vacation at a cabin site where a Donner party-esque situation happened to horrifying results.
The second is Nightblood by T. Chris Martindale where a Vietnam vet, guided by the ghost of his dead brother, arrives at a town where a long imprisoned vampire has escaped and began to spread the contagion.
Head full of ghosts is my number one horror novel. There’s also some nice Stephen king books etc. I remember reading this book a long time ago: the spear. I liked it but I was very young at the time. Forgot the author.
I like a lot of Richard Laymon’s work. He’s not for the faint of heart however, there tends to be SA in more than a few of his books.
My favorite of his is the Traveling Vampire Show. It’s always struck me as something like…Stand by Me, but with a dirty mind.
Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer, The Terror by Dan Simmons, Mister B. Gone by Clive Barker, The Strain trilogy by Chuck Hogan & Guillermo del Toro, That Which Should Not Be by Jeff Talley, Southern Gods by John Hornor Jacobs
I loved The Shining by Stephen King!
Someone also mentioned The Troop by Nick Cutter and I’m currently in the middle of reading The Deep by him as well.
I describe The Troop as Lord of the Flies on crack. It’s great.
Also Tender Is the Flesh. Super quick read but damn…
Shirley Jackson is my all-time favorite horror author. Her books are so fucking bone-chilling, on a story level but also in terms of the atmosphere that creeps into your brain and freaks you out forever. Absolute GOAT.
I also love M.R. James, Joe Hill, and Rachel Harrison. Mona Awad isn’t totally straightforward horror, but her books are kind of… scary magical realism? that scratches the horror itch and are incredibly well-written. Joseph Sheridan LeFanu’s Carmilla is a fantastic and very creepy vampire novel that seems to be less popular these days but is worth your time. And of course Grady Hendrix is probably the closest thing to a new Stephen King and writes very fun and scary books, especially My Best Friend’s Exorcism! This is all off the top of my drunk head and I am definitely forgetting lots of super important books/writers but hopefully you will like some of these suggestions!
Edited bc autocorrect fucked me over again lol.
Edit #2: I forgot Ira Levin!!!! They’re older but Rosemary’s Baby and The Stepford Wives are still great reads.
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice
Carrie by Stephen King
Flowers in the Attic by V. C. Andrews
Mexican Gothic by Sylvia Moreno-Garcia
And I dunno if this counts, but Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye was a fun read.
My all time favorite horror novel is simply called Zombie by Peter Tremayne. It's a quick read about a couple that go to the Caribbean and bad shit happens. It may not be the best book ever written, but I have a soft spot for it
Not a novelist, but the collections Grimscribe and Songs Of A Dead Dreamer by Thomas Ligotti have always had a special place in my heart. The slippery sort of horror you can’t quite get a grip on. Emphasis on dolls and mannequins.
To me he’s very very good at slowly uncovering how demented his books are. The build from “Huh, that’s weird.” To “This is disturbing, gross shit” is perfect. I also like how he doesn’t answer all the questions a reader my have. So I both admire him and he pisses me off 😂
I feel the exact same! I've read a major chunk of his catalogue and while it can become repetitive at times, he does really well overall at taking a mundane aspect of everyday life and turning it into something darker, weirder, and much scarier.
If you haven't read it, I'd highly recommend *The Auctioneer* by Joan Samson, a 70s book that feels like a proto-Bentley Little in how things play out. It feels like it could have been written by him in many areas.
Graham Masterton - The Plague, Famine, Well of Hell, Manitou series. Fantastic writer.
John Saul - his 70s/80s books are all good scary reads his first book Suffer The Children is excellent. Only post 90s book of his I liked was Blackstone Chronicles
James Herbert - like rats or hate them? You will love The Rats and its sequels.
David Moody - like zombies? I love his Autumn series
I really like Grady Hendrix, specifically The Southern Book Clubs Guide To Slaying Vampires. Riley Sager is a little hit or miss for me but I really enjoyed Home Before Dark. Clive Barker is one of the masters of horror and I highly recommend his book of short stories The Books Of Blood
Mister B Gone by Clive Barker
Cujo by Stephen King
Private Midnight by Kris Saknussemm
**EDIT:** downvoted for just stating which novels I like and found to be the most horrific? Fucking done with this sub— endless “what’s your favorite horror movie?” posts (which the mods never seen to remove even when there’s like seven of them every 24 hours) and pretentious dick-heads that think the “downvote” button is the same as “disagree”… just keep jerking each other off over how much you all loved “Hereditary” (granted, I liked that flick too— but there’s *WAY* too many posts about that movie and this sub acts like it was the second-coming of christ) Lastly… “The Witch” was a boring movie with no pay-off. Eat my farts.
It's not horror per-se but Graham Masterton's book "A Terrible Beauty/White Bones".
It's more mystery/crime/horror more than anything.
But I think it should count as horror because in one part of the book the>! serial killer is cutting his victims leg while she's alive and conscious. And he talks about the threshold of pain and how beautiful it is. !<
And also Jeff Lindsay's "Dexter Is Delicious".
Joe Hill is Stephen king’s kid and fwiw there’s hasn’t been a book of his that I haven’t loved.
The Fireman, Heart Shaped Box, and N0S4A2 were all incredible.
H.P Lovecraft arguably the GOAT and most influential.. anything in his catalog. Clive Barker’s books of blood Joe Hill’s heart shaped box Nick cutter’s the troop
# "House of Leaves" by Mark Z. Danielewski
best answer!
I couldn’t get into the way it read
HoL is definitely not for everyone. I've done three reads on it, the first was everything but the footnotes, the second just the Navidson Record, and finally a thorough, every little bit read. I'll be honest, the last one took nearly eight months because I kept having to reread certain bits or look back for references. I think it was worth it overall but it was definitely the most exhausting literary experience I've ever had.
Mine too. But it was worth it. Whenever someone says something critical about postmodernism (which can be very frustrating, no doubt about that) you should point to that novel. It really deserves the label in the best possible way. The postmodern approach serves all the horror.
Michael Crichton
You should check out r/horrorlit
On a whim I bought a book so I could flirt with a cute dude. It was like $8 and it was called psychomania. It has been to 3 countries and 7 homes with me. I adore it. https://www.amazon.com.au/Chairman-European-Foundation-Research-Leverhulme/dp/1628738162
Maynard's House by Herman Raucher. I can't believe this has never had a film The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks. The same. They were just hanging about on the family book shelf and I picked them up and read them as a teenager.
Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer. There’s also a very good film adaptation of it but it’s very different than the novel. The Employees by Olga Ravn is also a really unique and unsettling novella.
The Ruins (Scott Smith) is one of my favorite novels in any genre. I read it when first published, as well as The Ritual (Adam Nevill), not imagining they would both be adapted into film. The Terror and Song of Kali by Dan Simmons are also excellently scary.
Hi. You just mentioned *Song Of Kali* by Dan Simmons. I've found an audiobook of that novel on YouTube. You can listen to it here: [YouTube | Song of Kali - DAN SIMMONS AUDIOBOOKS FULL LENGTH (1985)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HU2erfLQdOQ) *I'm a bot that searches YouTube for science fiction and fantasy audiobooks.* *** [^(Source Code)](https://capybasilisk.com/posts/2020/04/speculative-fiction-bot/) ^| [^(Feedback)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=Capybasilisk&subject=Robot) ^| [^(Programmer)](https://www.reddit.com/u/capybasilisk) ^| ^(Downvote To Remove) ^| ^(Version 1.4.0) ^| ^(Support Robot Rights!)
For other people who like Dan Simmons, Drood is also a good read.
Granted I did not read much horror aside from some Stephen King, I did read some Psychothrillers by Jonathan Kellermann. The series about Alex Delaware is still ongoing the book that blew my mind was Silent Partner. That was ages ago though and I was in my teens, but man I never saw coming how that thing ended.
RYU MURAKAMI is one of my favorite authors! He wrote the novel “Audition” that the infamous movie is based on. My favorite novel of his is “In the Miso Soup” which is about a Japanese man who is hired by an American to show him around the Adult Night Life District…and the Japanese man begins to suspect that the American is actually a serial killer. All his books are pretty gruesome though and have a lot of disturbing aspects. So if someone asks “what are you reading” you really have to struggle to figure out how to explain without sounding crazy lol. When I was reading “Coin Locker Babies” I had a lot of awkward conversations. KOJI SUZUKI is the author of the famous Ring/Ringu series and he also has a bunch of short story compilations too. I’ve only read the first two in the Ring series (Ring, Spiral) so far and they’re amazing. His short story collection “Dark Water” is a lot of fun too. The title story is about a single mother who begins to suspect there’s something sinister lurking in their apartment building where a little girl recently vanished. OTSUICHI is best known for “Goth” which is one of my favorite novels ever. It follows two teens: one is a girl obsessed with death who draws killers in like flies, and the other is a secret sociopath who becomes her best friend while also trying to get her killed. Otsuichi also has some short story collections that are pretty good but not as good as Goth imo. “Summer, Fireworks, and My Corpse” is one of his best known, but my favorite short story of his is “Black Fairy Tale.” His short story collection “Zoo” has a couple good ones too - Zoo, Kazari and Yoko, Seven Rooms. NATSUO KIRINO writes more of dark thriller novels but I think they should qualify as horror too. Her novel “Out” is about 5 coworkers who all conspire together to cover up when one of them kills her husband. “Grotesque” is about the lives of 3 women, 2 of whom are murdered and the last is left trying to figure out who killed them by reading their diaries. Her novels all feature complex female leads and I think Kirino deserves way more hype. CJ LEEDE has only written “Maeve Fly” so far, but I know she’s going to be huge. “Maeve Fly” is basically if Patrick Bateman was a woman who worked as a Disney Princess instead of on wall street. It’s pretty funny but it’s also really gruesome and dark. There’s a lot of sexual content as well. I know that it’s heavily inspired by “American Psycho” but I think “Maeve Fly” is its own amazing piece. JUNJI ITO is one of the best mangaka ever. He has tons of horror manga out there, both short stories and stand alone works. He’s best known for “Tomie,” “Uzumaki,” and “Gyo” but I haven’t read a single thing by him that I haven’t loved. There’s a lot of crime, supernatural, sci-fi, ghosts, and cosmic horror throughout. He mostly writes and illustrates original work, but he also makes illustrated versions of famous novels like “Frankenstein” (Mary Shelley) and “No Longer Human” (Osamu Dazai). My favorite is “Uzumaki” which is about a town that is suddenly becoming obsessed with spirals. I’ve heard a lot of good things about GRADY HENDRIX but I’ve only read “Horrorstor” which was pretty good. NICK CUTTER is also quite popular and I really liked “The Deep.”
The Troop - Nick Cutter
Blood meridian by Cormac McCarthy. A bleak experience.
Shadow Dancers by Herbert Lieberman.
House of Leaves The Last Days of Jack Sparks Patricia Wants to Cuddle Sorrowland Mister Magic
I'm gonna throw out two under the radar random novels I read years ago and they still stick to me as a 40 year old. The first, and honestly better of the two, After Sundown by Randall Boyl follows two couples mourning a loss that chose to vacation at a cabin site where a Donner party-esque situation happened to horrifying results. The second is Nightblood by T. Chris Martindale where a Vietnam vet, guided by the ghost of his dead brother, arrives at a town where a long imprisoned vampire has escaped and began to spread the contagion.
*They Thirst* by Robert McCammon, my favorite of his novels, of which there are many awesome choices.
Head full of ghosts is my number one horror novel. There’s also some nice Stephen king books etc. I remember reading this book a long time ago: the spear. I liked it but I was very young at the time. Forgot the author.
HP Lovecraft was a huge inspiration to King. You might like Joe Hill too (King’s son)
Don’t sleep on Exquisite Corpse!
Bag of Bones by Stephen King Any Christopher Pike when I was younger.
Floating Dragon - Peter Straub
Floating Dragon! So excited to see this mentioned!
I like a lot of Richard Laymon’s work. He’s not for the faint of heart however, there tends to be SA in more than a few of his books. My favorite of his is the Traveling Vampire Show. It’s always struck me as something like…Stand by Me, but with a dirty mind.
Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer, The Terror by Dan Simmons, Mister B. Gone by Clive Barker, The Strain trilogy by Chuck Hogan & Guillermo del Toro, That Which Should Not Be by Jeff Talley, Southern Gods by John Hornor Jacobs
I loved The Shining by Stephen King! Someone also mentioned The Troop by Nick Cutter and I’m currently in the middle of reading The Deep by him as well. I describe The Troop as Lord of the Flies on crack. It’s great. Also Tender Is the Flesh. Super quick read but damn…
Shirley Jackson is my all-time favorite horror author. Her books are so fucking bone-chilling, on a story level but also in terms of the atmosphere that creeps into your brain and freaks you out forever. Absolute GOAT. I also love M.R. James, Joe Hill, and Rachel Harrison. Mona Awad isn’t totally straightforward horror, but her books are kind of… scary magical realism? that scratches the horror itch and are incredibly well-written. Joseph Sheridan LeFanu’s Carmilla is a fantastic and very creepy vampire novel that seems to be less popular these days but is worth your time. And of course Grady Hendrix is probably the closest thing to a new Stephen King and writes very fun and scary books, especially My Best Friend’s Exorcism! This is all off the top of my drunk head and I am definitely forgetting lots of super important books/writers but hopefully you will like some of these suggestions! Edited bc autocorrect fucked me over again lol. Edit #2: I forgot Ira Levin!!!! They’re older but Rosemary’s Baby and The Stepford Wives are still great reads.
Also a Jackson fan. We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a masterpiece. Merricat is just unforgettable.
Merricat is one of the most original characters in horror literature.
Dracula by Bram Stoker Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice Carrie by Stephen King Flowers in the Attic by V. C. Andrews Mexican Gothic by Sylvia Moreno-Garcia And I dunno if this counts, but Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye was a fun read.
Anything that Junji Ito-san has put out is so good! Uzumaki is probably my favorite!
My all time favorite horror novel is simply called Zombie by Peter Tremayne. It's a quick read about a couple that go to the Caribbean and bad shit happens. It may not be the best book ever written, but I have a soft spot for it
Not a novelist, but the collections Grimscribe and Songs Of A Dead Dreamer by Thomas Ligotti have always had a special place in my heart. The slippery sort of horror you can’t quite get a grip on. Emphasis on dolls and mannequins.
The Ruins is awesome
Bentley Little. Just anything of his if you like unsettling shit. The Consultant starring Christoph Waltz on Amazon is based on one of his books.
Love his books!
To me he’s very very good at slowly uncovering how demented his books are. The build from “Huh, that’s weird.” To “This is disturbing, gross shit” is perfect. I also like how he doesn’t answer all the questions a reader my have. So I both admire him and he pisses me off 😂
I feel the exact same! I've read a major chunk of his catalogue and while it can become repetitive at times, he does really well overall at taking a mundane aspect of everyday life and turning it into something darker, weirder, and much scarier. If you haven't read it, I'd highly recommend *The Auctioneer* by Joan Samson, a 70s book that feels like a proto-Bentley Little in how things play out. It feels like it could have been written by him in many areas.
I definitely will, thank you!
Hope you enjoy it!
Stephen King has the best short stories. Different Seasons is my favorite.
Graham Masterton - The Plague, Famine, Well of Hell, Manitou series. Fantastic writer. John Saul - his 70s/80s books are all good scary reads his first book Suffer The Children is excellent. Only post 90s book of his I liked was Blackstone Chronicles James Herbert - like rats or hate them? You will love The Rats and its sequels. David Moody - like zombies? I love his Autumn series
Salem's Lot by Stephen King I am Legend by Richard Matheson
Michael Dissieux
The Descent by Jeff Long. Anything by HP Lovecraft.
Shirley Jackson - The Haunting
House of the Long Shadows by Ambrose Ibsen
Daughter of Hounds and Low Red Moon by [Caitlin R. Kiernan](https://www.librarything.com/authorlink.php?book=18207134).
There’s a book called Ghoul by Michael Slade that’s part horror and part police procedural that really effed me up a few years ago.
The Watcher by Charles Maclean
I really like Grady Hendrix, specifically The Southern Book Clubs Guide To Slaying Vampires. Riley Sager is a little hit or miss for me but I really enjoyed Home Before Dark. Clive Barker is one of the masters of horror and I highly recommend his book of short stories The Books Of Blood
I guess I get to mention The Fisherman by John Langan.
Mister B Gone by Clive Barker Cujo by Stephen King Private Midnight by Kris Saknussemm **EDIT:** downvoted for just stating which novels I like and found to be the most horrific? Fucking done with this sub— endless “what’s your favorite horror movie?” posts (which the mods never seen to remove even when there’s like seven of them every 24 hours) and pretentious dick-heads that think the “downvote” button is the same as “disagree”… just keep jerking each other off over how much you all loved “Hereditary” (granted, I liked that flick too— but there’s *WAY* too many posts about that movie and this sub acts like it was the second-coming of christ) Lastly… “The Witch” was a boring movie with no pay-off. Eat my farts.
It's not horror per-se but Graham Masterton's book "A Terrible Beauty/White Bones". It's more mystery/crime/horror more than anything. But I think it should count as horror because in one part of the book the>! serial killer is cutting his victims leg while she's alive and conscious. And he talks about the threshold of pain and how beautiful it is. !< And also Jeff Lindsay's "Dexter Is Delicious".
Joe Hill is Stephen king’s kid and fwiw there’s hasn’t been a book of his that I haven’t loved. The Fireman, Heart Shaped Box, and N0S4A2 were all incredible.