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.

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.

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.

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

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!

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.

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?

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

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

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.

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

Definitely SK's Pet Semetary (that is the title, not a typo!!)

That's it HarderToKidnap thank you!. Just asked my dad if he could get Pet Semetary from the library next time he was in town and turns out he took it out a few days ago, what are the chances! He didn't finish it as wasn't impressed so has passed it on to me.

Faezy did you like Lasting Damage? The multiple endings and the just plain weird plot annoyed me so much I gave my copy away.

Dracula also. I have never had an actual nightmare about a book ever before, and I've read/seen some scary shit.

just started reading pet sem... on chapter 7. not scary yet

Best thing about it is the very slow build.

When I was a teen (about 40 years ago) there was a whole series of Pan Books of Horror Stories. I can still remember some of the stories to this day. They seem to be out of print now-probably banned for being too disturbing

marissab - some of Roald Dahl's came to my mind too actually. I think yours is called Royal Jelly; there's another I found horrible called (I think) Piggy.

I found Woman In Black very shocking but only slightly scary. It bothered me for a few days after. Sheridan LeFanu's In A Glass Darkly has some brilliant spooky stories in it... and of course Poe's collection The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Stories. A lot of those are nasty. I read The Shining but it didn't massively freak me.

I'm too chicken to read many of those mentioned, but I might try the Durrell one. Amityville Horror the film still terrifies me so there's no way I'm going near that!

I read one that was aimed at teens recently. It was called 172 Hours and it was about three teenagers who win a trip to the moon with NASA, who have held the competition to disguise the real reason they are going back, mining something that is in short supply on Earth.

But something strange is up there, something they have known about since the moon landings in the 60's, and it's been waiting for us to go back.

It really wasn't scary at the time but last night DS was looking at the full moon and it gave me the creeps thinking something might be up there looking back at him. I love it when a book can do that weeks after I've read it.

I read all the mentioned SK books as a teenager and still break out into a sweat at the memory.

I also loved James Herbert as a teen. The Rats terrified me so much that, even now - 35 years later, I still have to check the exits in a cinema, just in case The Rats come!

Chapter 27 now... getting freaky

The one that's stayed with me for 40 years is 'The Monkey's Paw' by W.W. Jacobs. Not a book, a short story. Salem's Lot also scared me, and parts of It, and parts of The Shining. Stephen King lost me when he started going for graphic nastiness rather than horror, though his recent offerings of Under the Dome and 11/22/63 are better, though not horror novels at all, really.

Another SK one - The Long Walk. I read it when I was a young teen and something about it just terrified me.