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

Do you really want to know about Kevin book? Don't want to spoil it for you...

A short precis ? I am not planning to read it any time soon.

Cujo. Oh my god, Cujo scared the absolute living bejesus out of me.

I didn't find It and similar scary because I don't believe in the supernatural, so I find it quite easy to write it off in my head as just a story, iyswim. But things like Cujo seem ever so vaguely possible Like Under the Dome - the premise is ridiculous, but the sense of foreboding as you know everyone will start turning on themselves in horrible, human ways was almost too much for me.

Actually there's also some Stephen King short story about a possessed camera where every time you take a photo the evil dog in the picture gets closer, anyone remember that? Ignores the fact that undermines my previous point

Woman in Black, which is one of the most spine chilling novels I've ever read. The book that really gave me nightmares and stopped me sleeping was Stalingrad by Anthony Beevers - real life horror rather than fiction.

Well you start off by knowing that the son has killed a large number of his classmates, as he is in prison at the start of the book. But, he has a taste for violence and revenge that is unexpected and chilling ( it's a brilliantly written book IMO so don't really want to say more than that...) just read it.

ok

Evil dog camera thing - is it called The Sundog, or similar?

Lolita

Oh God the Sundog was TERRIFYING

I hate Mo Hayder books, not because they are chilling, but they are just really crappy 'torture porn' books, she just goes for the shock factor andit really annoys me that she peddles this gross shit time and time again..

anyway. huff over with!

Book that chilled me was a recent susan hill, Black sheep, it was just so sad and the final bit was really upsetting for me and stuck in my mind.

A horrible short story (but a brilliant writer and horrible because it was so well written) by a writer, i think it was Grace Owens or Alice Owens?Not sure, book cover was a sideways pic of a girl staring ahead with mouth open with a large key placed towards her mouth.

Anyway, the short story was a sister and younger brother who go out when their mum tells them to get out from under her feet and they walk by the beach, the boy is scared but sister tells him to stop being a baby,they pass a man in jogging suit that they both don't like look of,then they walk on further, start arguing, boy I think,if i remember, throw stone at sister and it hits her head and knocks her out, he panics and starts walking back by himself and bumps back into man with joggers on who just takes his hand and walks off with him while sister is on beach in eve uncouncsious while tide is starting to come in, implication that she will be covered with sand and not found aarrghhhhh!!!

Has to be The Road. The most depressing and horrifying book I have ever read.

Most chilling single moment has to be that note in Jude the Obscure, though.

Another one here for "the swan" by Roald Dahl.

Also a story in a bunty or Diana or some such annual about a gild that swapped places with another girl in a painting and got stuck there forever and ever...

Also another vote for we need to talk about Kevin.

Want to read the road now, seen the film and thought it was amazing...

The Sundog is in Five Past Midnight isn't it? Scary book!

I thought Cujo was dreadfully sad (though again, remember nothing of the detail so perhaps I've blanked out the horror).

I gave up on ...Kevin, quite glad now!

this topic is great! It's giving me some ideas for reading material. Off to looks at Amazon in a minute :)

Book that terrified me.

Ammityville 2. I didn't sleep properly for a month (It was even worse than the first book.) Just typing the name gives me the chills!

I think its called Ammityville Part 2.

Americana psycho. Made me shudder and feel sick

The COVER of my Stephen King's IT scared me so much that I could never have it facing upward. I threw it out and never finished it. Wasn't even my copy!

Hi Eugenes, hope I spelt that right. It was about two thirds through the novel when Count Fosco makes a diary entry. I freaked and realised that he had been reading the diaries with me. It felt as if he was looking over my shoulder!

I know it's a children's book,but the murder of a family described in the opening paragraphs of The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, chills me more than any graphic detail could.

'There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife.

The knife had a handle of polished black bone, and a blade finer and sharper than any razor. If it sliced you, you might not even know you had been cut, not immediately.

The knife had done almost everything it was brought to that house to do, and both the blade and the handle were wet.

And this part too.

'The hunt was almost over. He had left the woman in her bed, the man on the bedroom floor, the older child in her brightly colored bedroom, surrounded by toys and half-finished models. That only left the little one, a baby barely a toddler, to take care of. One more and his task would be done.'

Mary - Yes that was the bit I meant, his entry in it - phew! I was thinking a bit that something really significant had passed me by.

A book that haunts me now and I have kids, which I know I will now never read again, is The Child in Time by Ian McEwen

I have just remembered Lets Go Play at The Adams

I read it years ago and its haunted me ever since.
It has to be one of the most disturbing stories ever written.

Provincial I read that last year. Gave me the shivers too. Will never want to re-read. Has made me more vigilant about the DC wandering off in supermarkets.