What's the scariest book you've ever read?

Oo, it turns out that Gerald Durrell book is out on Kindle now. link

an absolutely terrifying short story by Gerald Durrell, in a collection called The Picnic and Suchlike pandemonium.

Yes yes yes Scariest shit ever, as voted by me and DH. Everyone please go click Amazon's 'I would like to read this on Kindle' link for that, it is terrifying!

Also Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane. From Stephen King, his short story 1408 is the one that gets me most. Funny how short stories can be much much scarier (for me anyway) than books. It's much more 'undiluted' horror.

That's a Sophie Hannah book, faezy. Lasting damage I think.

Yes Sarah. Thats it! Still in my head after all these years! Horrible but you couldn't help but read on to the end!

I vaguely remember a book about a picture appearing on the internet of a woman murdered in a room then it disappeared. Might've been on a site advertising houses. Does this ring any bells with anyone?

Marissab I think that was a Graham Masterton book wasn't it?

If it's the one I'm thinking of, it's called Ritual and it's about a food critic and his son who visit a restaurant which is run by some kind of cult that practices cannibalism as part of it's religion. The father has to try and join the cult to save his son.

I love Graham Masterton. His Harry Erskine books are some of my favourites, he features in the Manitou series and one called The Djinn and I loved them all when I was younger. Very scary and creepy in places if I remember rightly. I think the third one of the Manitou books, Burial, is my favourite.

Have you read The Hymn by the same author? It's about a man whose fiancé burns herself to death shortly before the wedding. Shortly afterwards a bus full of people drive out to the desert (I think) and set themselves on fire as well. One of them is his fiancé's friend so he starts to investigate and realises that something sinister is taking place. The bit where the young woman sets herself on fire is just awful though, at least in my memory. She's so calm and almost cheerful about it.

And the Night Warrior series was good as well I think. It was about a group of fairly ordinary people who turned into some sort of superheroes while they slept and had to join together to defeat a demon.

Oh and the one roald dahl wrote about the man who turns in to a bee. That and the film 'the fly' both meld together in my mind and scare me bad!

I read a horrid book once about a boy who joined a cult that worshipped christ and baron samedi and ate pieces of each others bodies. Still stuck in my mind years after. Horrid

prophecy by Peter James, read nearly everything by Sk and many other horror writers but this freaked me out so much. I actually wrote yo the author it was so good.

Salem's Lot, especially after I saw a bit of the TV series (film?) where the little boy is scratching at the window

Also the Woman in Black. I've seen the stage show twice because it is amazing.

all of Stephen King's books are scary as shit.

Cujo
Christine
Little Shop of Horrors
Shining
and there's one with bones or cemetery or sg in title

I blocked out the rest.

Louise, funnily enough that's the story I immediately thought of when I saw the thread title. I agree, extremely frightening story - and from someone you wouldn't expect to write that sort of thing.

i don't really care for scary books, but I once read an absolutely terrifying short story by Gerald Durrell, in a collection called The Picnic and Suchlike pandemonium. The story frightened me so much i have never attempted to read another horror story. And I can never be in a room with a mirror in it if I am alone in the house.

Mine are Dark Matter and one called Shrike by Joe Connelly - about a seance that brings a demon into the world. So so scary!

Gin, I grew up in the Midlands and I was still terrified he was going to come through my window. I remember them playing that tape that turned out to be hoax on the news

Thank you Nobody

Hope you like Last Days, I thought it had some very good creepy moments in it.

Nerfmother I also found The Girl on the Landing scary, or at least very unsettling.

I wasn't scared by The Woman in Black, but I read it in a busy and well-lit place, probably very different if I'd read it at home alone after dark! I've got The Small Hand on my shelf but haven't read it yet.

eetraceyluv agree with woman in black, read it when my husband was out! I had to do the whole arm out to switch on the hall light thing!

And the film was pants! Don't know why the book was so scary, I like horror stories.

Also liked the little stranger, books that let you use your imagination are the scariest IMO

Sarahandfuck (Love your name btw, it always makes me ) as you said you liked Cottam, I just took a look at Last Days on Amazon. That def sounds like my sort of horror; more psychologically scary. Think I might give it a go, thanks!

I love FG Cottam Nobody. Lots of my favourites have been mentioned here already so I'm going to suggest a different one.

I read Last Days by Adam Nevill and it gave me the creeps with just a few shadows and creaky floorboards. I liked his previous one, The Ritual, as well.

Lots of Stephen King books of course, but another (by FG Cottam) The House Of Lost Souls terrified me.

Not fiction, but a book about the crimes of the Yorkshire Ripper.

Many of the crime scenes were and still are 'local' to me and I shudder when I drive past them. Even today, over 30 years later, I can't walk down a ginnel* without remembering the fear that was around at the time and checking that no-one is behind me or lurking along it.

I was a young girl then and I remember crying my eyes out because my mum had gone out (probably locally and not for long) and I was convinced he had got her.

• Urban footpath, between high walls, for non Leeds/Yorkshire folk.

The Yellow Wallpaper is such a haunting novella. I studied it at uni many years ago in a module about women and mental illness. I also read The Shutter of Snow by Emily Holmes Coleman which is similar - written in a modernist form and very disturbing. I loved them at the time and was very disturbed. The writing in both was so striking.

The thousand eyes of night by Robert Swindells. I read it as a teenager from the school library scared me to death!