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

[Thurlow]

I'm currently reading IT and I didn't think it was particularly scary, maybe because I know what it's about because it's just one of those stories you know without reading/seeing it - but when I walked over a bridge over a stream today and thought "ooooh, this would be exactly the place Pennywise would hide if he lived in this town..." So it must be scaring me somehow!

Of course, it could just be the memory of Cujo, which I remember as the single most terrifying thing I've ever read at the time.

Also, Mo Hayder's first two Caffrey novels, Birdman and The Treatment, but they're probably more violent than scary. Though The Treatment was set less than half a mile from where I lived at the time I read it, which really didn't help much.

[MorrisZapp]

Your Pregnancy and Birth by Miriam Stoppard.

Only kidding. I can't handle the horror genre in any format, as a teen I read Rosemary's Baby and couldn't sleep for a month.

I love a bit of Lesbian Victoriana so have braved Affinity by Sarah Waters but it bloody terrified me. I'm too scared to attempt The Little Stranger. Wish she would write a good old romp again and leave out the ghoulies.

I read the first five or so pages of The Wasp Factory when I was a student, wish I could get my hands on some brain bleach. I still remember how sick it made me feel.

[Junebugjr]

Not sure of the author but - The Entity. Has that classic supernatural/mentalhealth ambiguity.

I'm reading Birdman Mo Hayder atm, does it get more scary? Am quarter of the way through.

[ZombiesAteMyBigToe]

Lovecraft, I always start his collected stories chuckling to myself about how ridiculous some if his stories were and it always ends at 4am with the book stored in the freezer and all the lights in the house on.

World war Z and anything with zombies generally, but I cannot resist. There is one I read a year or so ago with the most horrifying opening scene that I have never forgotten.

MR James and books of ghost stories generally. There is one about Room 13 in a hotel that only appears at night and 'steals' the space from other rooms. Oh and another about a picture where the Image changes slightly over time to give the story of a horrific tragedy/mystery.

All of these are probably responsible for the fact tht I am 31 and still afraid of the dark.

[CharlotteBronteSaurus]

The Woman In Black was very scary, far more so than the film.
yy to The Yellow Wallpaper as well
And The Turn of the Screw

[Rollermum]

Great thread!

Lots Stephen King here too - IT, and The Shining in particular.

When I was a teenager I read MR James ghost stories and terrified myself so much I had to run to a friends house to stay the night because my parents were away.

I find the vaguest hint of ghostly terrifying and generally leap into bed from a distance so the hand can't grab me - harder now 35 weeks pregnant. My Dad (75) also admitted to doing this!

[Thurlow]

Junebugjr, I guess it depends what you find scary! I find Hayder terrifying because it it more real life, but ghost stories, vampires, alients etc just aren't very scary because I don't believe in them.

Psychotic mass murderers who happen to live and work in my neck of the woods, however

[OKnotOK]

Clive Barker - The Books of Blood.
These are all short stories (Dread & The Book of Blood being faves) and still up there with some of the best stuff he has ever written (he seems to have gone more into fantasy than horror nowdays). God alone knows what goes on in that mans head but his ability to put it down on paper is incredable &....sinister!!
I agree with Zombies about Lovecraft, wonderfully dark stuff his bleak descriptions are second to none.

[Elsiequadrille]

Has Dark Matter been mentioned? That's not too bad; set in the Arctic, nice and atmospheric and a quick read.

[bulletwithbutterflywings]

Insomnia by Stephen King I read it years ago, bit I still sometimes wonder if there's a wee bald man standing ing the corner of the room with some rusty scissors

[Kasterborous]

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

[Galaxymum]

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.

[GinOnTwoWheels]

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.

[NobodyPutsTomArcherInTheCorner]

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

[SarahAndFuck]

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.

[NobodyPutsTomArcherInTheCorner]

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!

[Rufus43]

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

[MiddleAgeMiddleEngland]

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.

[SarahAndFuck]

Thank you Nobody

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

[ninah]

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

[carovioletfizz]

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

[Louise1956]

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.

[mistlethrush]

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.

[ZingWantsCake]

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.