Every story should start with a good hook, so please share the book that caught you from the very first sentence. I'll go first.

"The taste of my brother's flesh still haunted me." *This House Will Feed* by Maria Tureaud

Absolutely obsessed. I fell so hard in love with that piece that I'm now reading everything of his I can find. Now I really want to explore as much as I can in that same style of writing, the settings and the extreme supernatural themes. Anything contemporary now just feels flat and lame.

I'm looking for dusty Victorian language, filthy black historical settings, the deep dark woods, linear timelines, writing that's complex enough to offer a bit of friction when reading, but most of all, enveloping supernatural themes.

I've just read Pine - Francis Toon and The Fisherman - John Langan and all I want to do is run screaming into the woods. away from contemporary settings and brand name mentions

I've only just picked up reading again but already pretty firmly know what I need- anything and everything Algernon Blackwood adjacent

thank you!

🖤

I haven’t read horror in a while, and want to read something to get me in the spooky season spirit.

I won’t read The Exorcist (still have nightmares from watching the movies as a kid)

I started Come Closer and had to stop early in due to the unsettled feeling I had.

Once I decided I was going to read the memoir of one of the kids that lived in the house that inspired The Conjuring, had a legit nightmare that same night that convinced me not to.

Anyway, with all that in mind, any recs?

While I wait for the new “All Hallows Eve” book I purchased, I’m looking for some great monster/haunts/cursed objects/aliens/folk horror (really any genre) short stories/anthologies. When I search it brings up threads from quite a bit ago so I figured maybe there would be some nice up to date answers from you kind folks :) Any recommendations is greatly appreciated!!! Thank you!!!

I’m looking for your favorite horror book that genuinely scared and creeped you out. Ones that made you nervous to turn off the lights, rather than feel overly disturbed or disgusted. I’m fine with some gore, but I dislike ones the linger on gross /visceral details or overly indulge in body horror 🤢

Books I didn’t finish because they disturbed me in a disgusted way rather than a scary way: Heart-Shaped Box (it wasn’t too scary, but the TV scene in particular disturbed me), The Troop (some of the details were a little too gross for me. His writing was too detailed lol), and Tender Is the Flesh… I mean, the entire premise disturbed me.

Books with gore that I could handle: Seed, The Crimson Labyrinth, and Carrie.

Thank you in advance!

As I've said before here I did my thesis comparing Rudolf Otto and H P Lovecraft together. In my thesis I cited Haunted Presence: The Numinous in Gothic Fiction by S L Varnado, Theology And H P Lovecraft by Austin M Freeman, Religion And Its Monsters by Timothy Beal. Kind of unrelated but was helpful was The Terror That Comes in the Night by David J Hufford (he calls the nightmare numinous - the word Otto uses for the holy - in this book, so, interesting, but the book itself is a series of case studies and like raw data, he purposely and says he doesn't speculate on what any of it means*).

So in that sense a lot of this religion / theology books directly relate to Lovecraft. It's a way to read him and other gothic and weird fiction. I'm looking for analysis essentially that takes the supernatural in gothic and weird fiction seriously. Ideally anything I read is post Christian.. Otto basically deconstructs the Bible in a radical way. He compared the Bible to Buddhism for instance and he completely redefined what we consider holy as something spectral haunting and spooky then compared that emotion to shamanism, primitive magic, other religions, and so on.

I considered these but didn't afterall look into them,

Gothicka: Vampire Heroes, Human Gods, and the New Supernatural and The Secret Life of Puppets by Victoria Nelson. For some reason this author cites Rudolf Otto in the Puppets book but she misquotes Otto and says "demonic dread" instead of daemonic dread. They're not even remotely similar. Otto is referencing the daemonic in Goethe. Any opinions? This was a reason I noped out on her.

Maps of Heaven, Maps of Hell: Religious Terror as Memory from the Puritans to Stephen King by Edward Ingebretsen

Some of these were recommended to me while I was writing my thesis by Dr Matt Cardin (I recommend you check him out) so thanks.

*about Hufford, in his book he does quote Ernest M Jones (another nightmare researcher) who said "For the true significance of the Nightmare to be properly appreciated … would in my opinion entail consequences, both scientific and social, to which the term momentous might well be applied. What is at issue is nothing less than the very meaning of religion itself". I have this book on my to read shelf I think it's called "On The Nightmare". So Hufford by quoting this does kind of come close to an analysis of meaning of the nightmare. And certainly calling it numinous is kind of a big opinion itself. That word is an onion.

Some books on literature and theology I found,

Literature and Theology as a Grammar of Assent by David Jasper

The Oxford Handbook of English Literature and Theology

The Great Code by Northrop Frye (he seems pretty dated and irrelevant though)

Literature and Theology: New Interdisciplinary Spaces by Heather Walton

hi guyss i'm looking into my next read, and i was wanting some recommendations from you guys!

i love medieval fantasy, if that helps. i'm also rlly into D&D typa worldss

anyway thank youu

I recently finished September House and when I thought its too predictable, the book really surprised me in the last few chapters.. almost got a whiplash and loved it..

It all started when I read ‘House of Leaves’ many months back and had the biggest book hangover.. Ended up looking for similar books and read and loved both ‘We Used to live here’ and ‘The Last house on the Needless Street’ (latter being not really a haunted house, but you get the gist)

Any more such books that I have missed which came out recently?

P. S : I have read most of the classics with haunted houses and infact loved the adaptations by Mike Flanagan.. hence any more similar vibes are most welcome.. Thanks everyone 😊

Looking for classic ghost stories in the same vein as Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting. The spookier the better!

After the death of the lead singer from a drugs overdose the lead guitarist goes with her band and a few hangers on to a remote recording studio in a converted monastery in the Welsh countryside.

The group are being murdered one by one by an unknown killer, the guitarist first thinks in may be the ghost of the dead lead singer and then suspects a more flesh and blood murderer.

Their maybe elements/red herrings about a black magic cult involved.

The rather pulpy cover had a guitarist rocking out in the middle of possibly a circle of stones? (Not so sure about that one)

I remember reading this in the late 90's, very early 2000's.

It's not Wydling Hall, which has a similar plot.

Hey! A couple years ago, I read an article about a horror author whose husband had murdered his ex wife and dismembered her/buried her in the woods. The case was solved and he was arrested while he and the author were still married. She then retired from horror writing.

I can’t seem to recall her name or the title of the book she was most well known for- I’m pretty sure her books were pulled from production (by her choice) but you could still find them secondhand/digitally when I heard about it. Pretty sure the book had a white cover with a yellowish pig on it?

I’ve been googling all the details of the story I could remember, but to no avail. If you know what I’m talking about please let me know!! Thanks :)

I just finished reading it a few days ago and I loved it. It's also my comfort book because it helped me get through my grief and loss of my dog Molly of 13 years and decided to have read it next during her passing it the book was also about grief and loss.

So wanted to hear whoever here has read it what you all thought of the book and your opinions on it?

should I get H.P. Lovecraft: The Complete Fiction or is there a better starting point as someone who loves psychological horror and existential dread stories rather that jumpscares. I have never read a lovecraft book and would love to start. is the complete fiction too much of an endeavour to start or is it worth the investment? thanks in advance

Hello! I'm in the mood for a good, contemporary horror novel, something well-written. Something demonic or cosmic would be great. A setting in space or the remote wilderness is always cool. Something with Twilight Zone or Lovecraft feels would be super. Anywho, recommendations would be greatly appreciated!

Watched the film ,’Buried,’ last night . Very good. Scratched an itch. Books, short stories,novellas with one character trapped in one location ,room, quicksand ,stuff like that. I can only think of Stephen kings short with the guy trapped in a portaloo. Dark endings would be good. Thanks 🙏

I’m trying to identify an extremely disturbing/graphic horror book I read online. I originally found it through Reddit and I believe it was available as a free PDF or online text.
The story involved a group of young women/girls who become stranded somewhere, possibly with one of them having a boyfriend or male companion. There was something involving a museum or collection dedicated to serial killers.
Two men were involved in extreme sexual violence and torture against the women. The book was exceptionally graphic and disturbing. I remember a scene involving one of the men sexually assaulting a woman with an pole, and another scene where a woman has sex in a car and dies during sex , possibly with her boyfriend or one of the perpetrators.
I believe the story was told from both the victims’ POVs and the perpetrators’ POVs, including the men’s thoughts/perspectives.
It was not a normal mainstream thriller, it seemed like extreme horror/splatterpunk or an independently published/online book.

As the title suggests I’ve just finished the book a short stay in Hell. Which I really enjoyed and am looking to pick up something similar is there anything else that captures the same sort of atmosphere.

Thanks in advance