/lit/ - Literature

>>24069652

Old thread: >>23952664
Spooky season never ends!
What are you currently reading? What do you think of it?

I made this chart last year, and I'm trying to read as many important horror works so I can update and improve it.
So far, there's already a few works I have read and will definitely add (I'll create a separate section for individual short stories):
>Horace Walpole - The Castle of Otranto
>Nikolai Gogol - "St. John's Eve", "A Terrible Vengeance", and "Viy"
>Jeremias Gotthelf - The Black Spider
>Hanns Heinz Ewers - Alraune
>Edogawa Ranpo - "The Human Chair", "The Caterpillar"
>Jean Ray - Malpertuis

>Shirley Jackson - "The Lottery"
>Roland Topor - The Tenant
>Harlan Ellison - "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream"
>Karl Edward Wagner - In a Lonely Place

I'm also thinking of removing Koji Suzuki's Ring (thriller, not horror, not that great), James Herbert's The Rats (poorly written, just pulp), and maybe Susan Hill's The Woman in Black (poorly written in my opinion, although it's seen as a big classic).

There's a lot of works I still want to read, too many to just list here; either because I want to make sure I've read every work on the current chart, to see if they should be added to the chart, or to make sure I've read most/all the essential horror works by each author.

>>23952664
You told me you finished The Eyes, what are your thoughts on it?
Also currently reading The Black Spider by Jeremias Gotthelf.

>>23934382

not OP but is there a chart like pic related for mystery/detective books?

>>23910101

>>23867635
Currently reading The Imago Sequence by Laird Barron, might read Occultation, also by him, immediately after

>>23838629

>>23816288
Just finished Haunted Castles by Ray Russell, which was pretty damn good. Now starting on some gothic short stories by Robert Louis Stevenson.

>>23783959
Just started with Haunted Castles: The Complete Gothic Stories, by Ray Russell. Trying to get through all books on this chart (and a lot of others not on here) in order to get a clear and well informed overview of horror classics (and maybe improve this chart in a year or two).

>>23783967
I found the first three to be stronger than the latter three, although the latter three still has bangers like "Down Satan!", "The Forbidden", and "The Madonna".

>>23749352
I'm currently reading Melmoth the Wanderer. It's good, but way too long. After this I'm going to read The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, by Mariana Enriquez.
From what I've read this year, I can highly recommend:
>Nathan Ballingrud - North American Lake Monsters
>Stefan Grabinski - The Dark Domain
>Jean Ray - Malpertuis
>Karl Edward Wagner - In a Lonely Place
>Angela Carter - The Bloody Chamber

>>23750184
All of Lovecraft's work is freely available online: https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/

>>23750963
Ring is pretty good. If you want a literal Japanese Edgar Allan Poe, check out Japanese Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Edogawa Ranpo. If you want traditional ghost stories, Japanese Ghost Stories by Lafcadio Hearn. If you want something a bit more transgressive than horror, I can recommend In the Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami.

>>23751242
What did you think of Negative Space?

>>23751314
Definitely also check out "The Wendigo". He has a lot of great stories and his prose is indeed incredible; for collections, I'd say go for Best Ghost Stories of Algernon Blackwood, or The Wendigo and Other Stories if you're interested in reading more.

>>23707391
Poe is great. Good Lovecraft is great, bad Lovecraft is awful. Check out The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories for most of his best work.

>>23678001

Let’s get a horror fiction thread going. But…

HARD MODE
You CANNOT talk about:
>Stephen King
>H.P. Lovecraft
>Edgar Allan Poe
>Thomas Ligotti

Let’s try to talk about horror authors we don’t usually talk about.

>>23601627

>>23569577
I made this chart at the start of the year, with the help of a lot of anons. I'm currently reading all of the books on this chart to verify they belong on there, as well as reading books that might be good to include.
I will update this chart in about a year and a half, when I'll be hopefully done with reading them all. Note that I already have a lot of ideas/changes that will improve this chart, but most of the ones on here are solid.
I can give you a list of what I think should be on there, if you're interested. Most of the additions/changes will be in the early section, where I first decided to remove most of the the gothic precursors to horror, but now think that was a mistake and gothic horror definitely deserves a place on this chart.

>>23485258
No subtitles for the bottom row?

>>23170445
Here's the most recent horror chart, that I made with some other anons. Not perfect, but definitely an upgrade over the previous one. Currently trying to read everything on here (and more works by the same authors), to hopefully adjust it and make a more definitive chart.
Last books I read that were pretty spooky were The Dark Domain, by Stefan Grabinski, and The Other, by Thomas Tryon. Both very strong novels, although The Other tends to lag a little bit in the middle.