/lit/ - Literature

who the fuck gets scared by tv and books hahaha are you 10 years old

When the stories center around governmental conspiracies they don't scare me. If you cannot be scared by a quality horror book, you have a weak imagination or are putting up barriers in your mind process to make the story seem less frightening.

>>1354285
So what books have scared you?

>>1354293
Select stories from Stephen King's compilation of short horror stories known as "Everything's Eventual (14 Dark Tales)" have scared me a bit. I just want something more powerful than that; something that will make me want to sleep with a light on.

I remember being terrified by The Shining, but I was also 11 when I first read it. I still have no idea why my father threw that book at me when I'd be spending the next few days along in a dark attic in the middle of the woods.

I know one thing that can scare people even when they're adults and have seen everything People For starters try misery by Stephen King.

Jurassic Park was the only book to actually scare me. I remember being alone in the house and peeking around the back of the chair to make sure nothing was creeping up on me. With that having been said, I was only ten or eleven. As an adult, I've not found anything that gave me the same thrill so I think it was all about the childish mindset.

It all depends OP. Here's some well known examples. Are you Christian? Try The Exorcist. Do you believe in ghosts? Try The Elementals by Michael McDowell. Does insanity make you tremble? Try Fear by Ron L Hubbard. Looking for something graphic and depraved? Go to the Stephen King section, close your eyes and reach out (although you might want to start with Desperation, in my opinion). What's scarier to you - horrible creatures or the depths a person can sink to? The supernatural or death? People are too different to be able to say "Oh yeah try this book" ... it's not like if you don't like it, I can say "WELL YOU JUST DIDN'T READ IT RIGHT" or something lol.

>>1354303
My mom gave me The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by King when I was 14 or so. As we were camping in the middle of nowhere. I stayed up all night long, I remember haha

Try Clive Barker's Books Of Blood, they're short story collections. His other stuff isn't as good though, at least it's not scary.

>>1354317
>it's not like if you don't like it, I can say "WELL YOU JUST DIDN'T READ IT RIGHT" or something lol.
People will try though. Just look at /tv/. "THAT'S NOT SCARY" "WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT IT'S TERRIFYING" "NO TRY THIS" "THAT MOVIE IS SO BORING" etc etc etc

>>1354317
Not Christian, but The Elementals and Desperation sound good. Thank you.

>>1354332
have you read Vol4-6? I finally got the first three and they were.....man. Some weeeeeird stuff there. wondering if the others are as good....

Definitely props to whoever reccomended GIrl Who Loved Tom Gordon.
Only book that ever really really really frightened me was Lord of the Rings. I was around 11, and the bloody evil dark rider people scared the beejeesus out of me.

>>1354339
They're not quite on the level of the first 3 but still very good.

>>1354338
No prob, I might warn you though - The Elementals is not graphic or "twisted" at all, it's mostly a ghost story (although technically not ghosts - whatever, hard to say w/o giving it away). If you've ever read The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, it's more in that vein.

Summer of Night by Dan Simmons. It's very similar to King's It - a group of children in a small town being stalked by an ancient evil, coming of age horror story, etc. There's several scenes though that really stick with me. One is where the two brothers sleep in the same room with their beds a few inches apart. The younger one is always afraid that something will grab him in the dark and the older one is constantly telling him what a baby he is. In this scene, they're talking and fall quiet, and a pale arm reaches out from under the bed and grabs the younger kid out of NOWHERE. It yanks him under the bed, the older kid jumps out and looks under and the kid (and the arm) are simply gone. I was very careful not to walk by my bed at night for the longest time after that lol

Note: Don't read the sequel.

Get a copy of Thomas Ligotti's "Teatro Grottesco".

The middle portion of that utilises work, corporations and giant bureaucracies as the main source of its horror.

When I first started dating my boyfriend we realized he read straight from the bestseller's list while I read a lot of popular posh nonsense (all the classic dystopian books like 1984 and Fahrenheit), so we decided to switch over books. First one he gave me was The Taking by Dean Koontz. I wasn't exactly scared by it in the way that I was afraid of the dark or being alone or any of that typical childhood fear, but I definitely felt a sense of fear and dread while reading it. Which completely surprised me from an author that sees more of the Bestseller's list than is typically healthy.

>>1354382
Koontz is VERY hit and miss, and more often misses completely....but he has some very good stories. He also does short stories pretty great, I'd definitely recommend the Strange Highways collection to anyone.

>>1354367
i want to second that thomas ligotti is genuinely terrifying
he also wrote the lyrics to this song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqi4VpdMNmE

bump

>>1354367

Thomas Ligotti? In my /lit/?

I love you.

I'll be that guy:

Any of Lovecraft's short stories.

Honestly, I'm more scared by some of the weird shit that goes on in fantasy and science fiction novels than most of the "horror" I've read.

>>1354765
damn just about to say inb4 Lovecraft

But several of Stephen Kings earlier stuff was good

The Long Mile creeped me out but thats more toward the govt thing

It (the novel) was genuinely frightening

The Shining though i think did the most damage to me, that was a real keep you up at night book, the only one ive found so far.

>>1354765
I second Lovecraft
'Salem's Lot by Stephen King scared me when i was 14 i would check it out

read nausea by jean-paul sartre and feel an existential horror rather than these fleeting spooks contained in the pulp fiction everyone has been suggesting thus far good sir pip pip cheerio guvnuh

>>1354367
good luck finding anything else by him (because book collectors are faggots)

Not sure if his short stories count as a "novel," but yeah, anything Lovecraft.

I just finished 'The Case of Charles Dexter Ward,' and that shit was awesome.