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

I too have read the babysitter one - Let's go Play at The Adam's. I found it in a drawer in the nurse's station at a psychiatric hospital where I was working nights. That was 30 years ago by my reckoning and that bloody book still preys on my mind!

The most disturbing part of Room for me was that they weren't MORE excited when they finally escaped.
I thought that part was unrealistic.
I mean, if you were kept prisoner for years and years in a small room (and in the case of the child - had never experienced the outside world) - wouldn't you be amazed, astounded, in awe etc etc, when you were finally released?
(I think the author should have explored that part of it more)

I don't remember the one about the fly child either!

thenightsky - I would never recommend Lets Go Play At The Adams' to anybody, because it DOES play on your mind for years! Who would think that children could be capable of such evil!

I Love HP Lovecraft! His stories are wonderful, scary and thought provoking.

I remember a story from when I was young, was about a man who choked on a bone and he kept appearing to people all purple and swollen. And a Ray Bradbury story about a bedridden boy who kept bringing people to visit him, then his teacher died and the dog brought back...
And the Monkeys bloody Paw. (Shudder)

Does anyone remember 'The Rocking Horsee Winner', apparently by DH Lawrence, but I saw it on TV years ago and still remember it.

Horse not horsee, not so scary if its a Horsee!

Fly child - maybe it wasn't Stephen King . I can't remember but I read it when I was a massive SK fan so just assumed it was one of his. I definitely read it though and it was in an anthology of short stories.

All my horror books are at my mum's so I can't check

I think "Because we are too menny" is one of the most depressing lines ever written (mind you, Hardy was said to have been a pretty miserable so-and-so, according to all the people they wheeled out at prize-giving and so on, because they'd once met him... scarred by a Dorchester childhood.)

I think one of the reason Stephen King is successfully scary is that he can do things like Cujo - entirely ordinary situations which can get very scary, which are very credible, because the really could happen. And then in It, like Orwell's Room 101, he understands that what is scary for one person isn't necessarily what's going to send another person's bones to jelly. Having said that, he has common phobic themes in It, like clowns and spiders. I haven't yet read Dr Sleep - I'll need to be in the right mind for it.

We Need to Talk About Kevin - not sure I'll ever need to reread that again, either.

Cat mamma, I think I had those same M and S compilations! There was a really weird story about a monster that couldn't be seen because it wasn't on the colour spectrum visible to the human eye.

NotALondoner The Gerald Durrell story is something I have read that haunts me to this day!! The thing in the mirror when it realises someone can see it Is there also a story in the same book about a row of shops where nobody wanted to sell you anything because then the landlord would put up the rent? And a retired Colonel who loved to play with toy soldiers in his attic. That's the same book, isn't it??

I read Let's Go Play at The Adams in the 70s, I am sure, I got it at a jumble sale and when I had read it, I threw it into the fire as it had spooked me so much :(

I also saw ' The Rocking Horse Winner' on tv and from that moment I have hated rocking horses and their horrible faces...it's only recently I found out that it was a short story by DH Lawrence.

That's definitely a Gerald Durrell, it's not a story though, it's about a place where he used to work when he was a teenager, isn't it?

I'm going to dig all my Geralds out for a reread! The Picnic is hilarious, I love the ones that have Larry in.

verruca ...there was one about snails too that was pretty vile!

whilst i love a horror, I dont think i will read the babysitter one. Its based on Silvia Likens which is beyond harrowing

I like Mo Hayder, and as her books develop they are more clever, equally spooky and less toture porny

Pig Island creeped me out

Oh Sylvia. God. That case haunts me. :(

The funny thing is, I love Stephen King but hate other horror writers and never watch scary movies. I'm a complete wimp!

I don't know why the bit in the OP makes me shudder... It doesn't scare me really. It's just so other worldly yet the way King writes it seems so plausible. And also mixed in is thinking about how the father must be feeling, realizing he came THAT close to losing his son.

I dug it out last night to see if that part still did it for me...yup!

Also in the same book he looks at a photo of his doctor's mother and goes into a trance and begins singing a cradle song in Polish, then tells the Dr that his mother survived the Nazis after all and is living in California. Those two aren't the only psychic bits in the book but they really affect me for some reason!

The bit that gets to me in The Dead Zone is where he touches a scarf belonging to someone who sank in quicksand. I have never got rid of that image.

It is a great book, though!

I didn't get Sarah waters' The Stranger at all - would love an explanation if it worked for anyone else!

Just read about Sylvia likens. How hideous was that

Billy by Whitley Strieber. It's about a twelve year old boy who is kidnapped by a serial killer and his family searching for him. I had to get rid of it so it wouldn't be in my head anymore. Just haunting and horrific.

Either Pet cemetery or cujo by stephen king. He is often misunderstood as blood and guts horror, but I think (especially his early stuff) is so beautifully written and just takes you on a read where you may or may not want to go. Bloody creepy though. Feel a bit edgy thinking about those books now.

The Shack by William P. Young.

The Shack is the single worst book I have ever read. I thought it was manipulative tripe. Hated it

But the bit where they describe his daughter in the truck. Horrible.

It's horrible but it's all part of the manipulation. I found it despicable tbh