Scariest book you've read?

[JinnTolser]

Scary Stories to tell in the Dark, back in 4th grade. The illustrations were often nastier than the stories themselves though...

Indeed, although the stories in the second and third volumes were much scarier.

[Dorrick Longblade]

I'd have to say 1984 by George Orwell. It's more of a psychological horror, but I think that's the type that stays with people longer than the blood 'n guts kind. I just remember reading it one week, then I couldn't stop thinking about all the topics it brought up and how it still relates to our world today even though it was written over 50 years ago. Now that's scary!

[Kel-nage]

I'd agree with 1984. The book nigh-on made me paranoid for a week afterwards.

[Jennifer]

Hi all,
I have read a lot of books in my time and was for a while very much into steven king and his like. Nice scary stuff. But once I read a collection of short stories by a thai writer, somtow, very scary, very disturbing. I dreamt about one story and not in a good way.

I looked it up at amazon, pavillion of frozen women it was called, after i read that, i tried to read more by somtow. moon dance was a good werewolf story ad scary as well.


defenitely check out books by somtow if you want something scary and disturbing.

jennifer

[Guardian of Twilight]

Book that scared the *beep* out of me? War and Peace. How can someone drone on forever about this thing? *shudders*

On a serious note, there was a ghost book at my old elementary school that was EXTREMELY popular and was hard to find. The name eludes me now, but it talked about the different kind of ghosts, what they done and why, and their classification/category. Some of the reasons that ghosts haunt an area was pretty hair raising, not to mention some of the things that they would do to people that came looking for trouble.

[maraudar]

The Homocide Investigators Handbook. This a text book no less. The things you learn about people and what they can be capable of will definately keep you up at night.


Maraudar

[Dion of the Fraternity]

I'll have to say it was The Amityville Horror for me. That is, until I found out that the whole thing was almost fiction...

[Pamela]

The Shining was the scariest for me. It took me hours to get to sleep and even then I woke up with nightmares....brrrr...

For short story, I'd have to choose a comic I once read (bear in mind I was only seven or eight ). One story in particular frightened me so much that I went to the schoolyard to leave it there- too scared to destroy it!

[BigBadQDaddy]

For short story, I'd have to choose a comic I once read (bear in mind I was only seven or eight ). One story in particular frightened me so much that I went to the schoolyard to leave it there- too scared to destroy it!

Thats so great! I can imagine some other kid coming along and reading it and becoming equally scared, if not more so. Ah the little things make life good...

[Nathan of the FoS]

I'd have to agree with the posters who have mentioned the "Scary Stories..." illustrations. I have to say, I would not want to live in that man's mind. I'm sure he's a nice guy and all, but...yeesh.

Only two books/stories have ever scared me badly enough to make me stop reading--"Dracula" and a short story whose title I can no longer remember, about a boy who dresses up as a ghost famous in his neighborhood for a practical joke, only to discover that the ghost is real...and that he and the ghost are changing places.

[Boccaccio Barbarossa]

I don;t know about scary books... it's harsd to scare me in writing, I think. Though, maybe it would be more accurate that I am horrified at times, by the ramifications of a book Or, for myself, poetry works well:

My suggestions include:

"The Second Coming," a short poem by W. B. Yeats - horrifying!
http://www.potw.org/archive/potw351.html

Dante's "Inferno" has some really horrifying parts, of course (as one would expect from a poem about a trip through hell...)

Robert browning's "My Last Dutchess" is a great poem that contains the seeds of a phenomenal Ravenloft villlain.

"The Picture of Dorian grey", by Oscar Wilde is so amoral it's terrifying.

oh! or "Lady Lazarus", by Sylvia Plath! Wow! frightening stuff!

There's plenty more, of course.... I guess these are more "inspiring" than scary... but I suppose that's one and the same sometimes! loL!

[Undead Cabbage]

The Stone Angel By Margaret Laurence. I still have nightmares...

No really, 1984 makes everyone paranoid. Now try reading both Brave New World by Aldous Huxely and 1984 at the same time...that will make you VERY analytical of your surrounding society.

[Catman Jim]

The scariest thing I've read recently is the Inbound Events Log on my firewall.

[Fido]

HP LOVECRAFT - The Picture in the House quite scared me.

Also Stoker's Dracula.. "moved" me...

[Korath]

Salems Lot was the first book I ever read for pleasure. It scared me and it kept me in the horror genre.