Has any book ever literally given you chills?

[CheerfulYank]

For me it's Stephen King's Dead Zone, about a man, Johnny, who wakes up from a coma with psychic powers.

(SPOILERS)

He's working as a tutor for a high school boy later on and he tells his student not to go to the graduation party as the restaurant will burn down. No one believes him, but the boy and about half the class come to an alternate party at the boy's house because they're scared. The rest of the class goes to the restaurant.

Johnny and the boy's father are playing cards while chaperoning the alternative party and a radio announcement interrupts to say that the worst fire in the state's history has broken out at the restaurant, and almost everyone there is dead.

I haven't explained it that well, but for some reason ( and I've read it a few times) I literally get goosebumps at that bit. Every time!

Anyone else have this or just me? :o

Stephen Kings The shining. That's one scary book.

I couldn't get passed the first few chapters of Dr Sleep. I knew it would be to difficult to read once I sussed what it was about.

Some of the short stories by M.R James,especially The Mezzotint.

Amazed that so many of you have read the babysitter one - I thought it was some random crap my sister had found remaindered somewhere. Can't remember the title or the poker, but it was hideous. I couldn't finish it because it really scared me - it was awful and gratuitous and terrifying. It makes me feel sick even now, and it must be nearly twenty years ago that I read the bit of it that I did read.

A short comic strip story called 'In An English Country Garden' which appeared in Diana annual in 1982.

I still have the book. It still has 32yo sellotape holding those pages closed so I can't ever open it by accident.

There were evil garden gnomes. It was seriously fucking horrible!

A short story by Gerald Durrell. It was in a book with other stories, all really interesting, and then this horror at the end. It affected me for years. Probably would not recommend it to other14 year olds!

Insomnia by Steven King, I read it as a teenager and I still sometimes feel like there is a little bald man with a pair of rusty scissors watching me from the corner of the room

Hounds - love those little bald doctors. :)

Ghosts of Sleath by James Herbert. I felt so sorry for the main character (David Ash I think), Herbert must have hated him to keep putting into situations like that!
Lord of the dance never sounded the same after reading it.
I've got Let the right one in but haven't started it yet, might give it a go while we still have light nights

was the babysitter one this?

www.goodreads.com/book/show/477801.Let_s_Go_Play_At_The_Adams_

read it years ago, I think it is based on a true story.

Oh Gods, yes. Urgh - I don't want to think about it.

Yes, a short story called Nule, in a compilation by Jan Mark called Nothing to be afraid of - I was about 8 when I read it, am 40 now and can remember it as clear as day. It was about a newel post at the bottom of some stairs that came to life and climbed up the stairs and I can remember moving my bed so that I couldn't see the stairs when I was in my room! Just found some pictures on Google, guess I wasn't the only one who was scared by it

Oh, and another short story by Roald Dahl called The Swan, which was in the Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar. It was about a boy that was being bullied, and his bullies cut the wings off a swan and tied them to him and tried to make him jump out of a tree (if I remember correctly )

It had a huge impact on me as a child, I remember sobbing uncontrollably afterwards - still not entirely sure whether that book was one of Dahl's children's or adults books? It also instilled a hatred for bullying in me - I still can't bear to see it to this day and have to step in if I see it happening.

I read Bird Box (Josh Malerman) recently, and while I was reading it I had trouble sleeping.

The Treatment by Mo Hayder is awful. I didn't sleep well for a long time.

The Road, for sure. That stuck with me for ages.

"Oh, Whistle, And I'll Come To You, My Lad" by the writer M. R. James. It's a cracking spooky short story. Had it read to me as a child and it scared the stuffing out of me.

As a teenager I read Stephen King's The Shining. It was so scary, I had to put it down several times. It was much scarier than the film. The shower......eeeeeek!

Definitely agree with we need to talk about Kevin. Read that on holiday and couldn't switch off from it.

I grew up on Stephen king and love pretty much all of his books but 'it' is horrible (the clown and his little brother) and also Gerald's game - the fact that it wasn't just moonlight and shadows in the corner of the room, gives me shivers still!

First of all, It by Stephen King. That book scared the living shit out of me as a kid. I saw part of the film first - I didn't sleep properly for over 2 years because of it. So obviously, the best course of action was to read the full horror of the book

Years later I read Dreamcatcher, and became loose of bowel when one of the characters goes to the Derry Standpipe, and finds scrawled across a plaque (placed by the remaining members of the Losers Club) PENNYWISE LIVES.

Gerald's Game made me feel sick when I read the description of Jessie getting out of the handcuffs - I had to put the book down for a day.

Yes Furry, I remember that story!

I remember the boy (Peter?) being up the tree and it said "suddenly it occurred to him that he was going to win."

Stuck with me for decades now.

Salem's Lot. Read it at uni, wouldn't read it if I was in the house alone, or after dark. It's the one book I will never, ever re-read. I can't even remember what happened in it, just that it scared the shit out of me (and I'd read quite a lot of Stephen King by that point).

Gerald's game terrified me.
The boy in the striped pyjamas :(

Salem's Lot is the one where there is a horror floating at the upstairs window, isn't it ? That scared the shit out of me when I read at about 13.

Yy to Jude the Obscure - I've read it several times (teaching it) and every time I'm weirdly hoping that part will somehow not happen!