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Recommend some of the best horror books. Something unsettling

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Recommend some of the best horror books. Something unsettling or disturbing maybe? Your favourites?
Thanks
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>Perchance to Dream, Charles Beaumont
>Anything from Thomas Ligotti


I have that book in your OP, is it good? I read the first 20 pages and gave up several years ago. Should I start again?
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>>8556681
A newfag here, sorry. I just got into literature and English is my second language. But I heard it's good. You should try it I guess.
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Lovecraft. King is shit.
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>>8556822
Some say he's good, some say he's really shit. I really don't know who to listen to. Why's he shit according to you?
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>>8556822

King. Lovecraft is shit. He wrote like a secluded autistic 12 years old - ops, this is what he was. His story are all the same. There are horrible (help!) monsters that he can't describe because they are so horrible (help! help). Then someone commits suicide because the horror is too horrible!
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>>8556837
Hes not shit, he just writes a lot. Having plebs like that anon bored to death.

(He indeed has some shitty books, tho)
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>>8556856

This. He writes too much, so some books are shitty and others better. Too much fantasy. DFW loved him because he had what Wallace craved once he stopped to write post-modernist experiments - great plots and narration, a natural inclination to write real stories to entertain
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>>8556901
This is accurate.
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>>8556856
>>8556901
>>8556923
So what should I start with?
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Is that it? The whole horror genre is Lovecraft and King?
Never read the latter myself but lovecraft isnt horror at all
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>>8556975
With King you mean, or horror in general?
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>>8556975
Karl Edward Wagner edited a long running anthology called "The Year's Best Horror Stories" pick up a few next time you're in half-price books.
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Saved this from another thread. Not really a big horror reader, so not sure how good of a list this is.
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>>8556673

>us kids gotta rape the girl to make the alien go away

More "wtf" than "ooo, gotta look under my bed before I sleep"
>>
>>8557393
Can anyone recommend anything from the bottom line?
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>>8557393

Is it true Books of Blood ends right in the middle, and there's a volume 4-6 that's hard to find?

I hate an unfinished series.
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>>8557471
Books of Blood are easy to just kind of randomly pick stories. I didnt notice any undercurrent.
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>>8556673
>pic unrelated
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>>8556901
I'm not sure that's true. Many of his short stories are actually un-readable and very tedious. When he's good he's very entertaining: The 10 o clock people, Room 1408, Everything's Eventual. But actually, those aren't typical of him, and Wallace at HIS best is pretty damn compelling: Brief Interview Nb 20, Forever Overhead, large sections of IJ. Dunno, I'd never sprint though a DFW book the way I would Bag of Bones, admittedly.
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>>8557393
>not including the shining or misery from Stephen King
>u dun goofed, /lit/
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>>8556673
King's best are The Shining and Misery.
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>>8557787
>that rape scene in bag of bones
Fucking brutal. My god that man can write some fucked up shit when he's peeved.
>>
books of blood by clive barker
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>>8557466
>>8557466
Pilo family circus. I haven't seen anyone talk about it, but it's pretty good
>>
I have never been scared by a book in my life.
>>
Gogol has some great stories, though calling them horror is a bit of a stretch due to his comedic style. The Portrait was spooky at times.
>>
>>8558438
>Where is Salem's Lot
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>>8557317
In general. But king too
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>>8558965
Take this plus

S.K :
It
Salem's lot
The Stand
Night shift (start with this one)
The shining//Misery
>>
>>8556673
The only time a book has ever scared me was in Century Rain by Alasdair Reynolds - and that was because I wasn't expecting to be scared. I don't go out of my way to read horror. Would certainly recommend Century Rain however.
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>>8557393
There's no way in hell Silence of the Lambs is horror. It's a crime novel. As is Red Dragon.
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>>8556673
Pickman's Model by H.P. Lovecraft

Most of Lovecraft has been memed into oblivion, but that story holds up real well.
>>
>>8556846
I love Lovecraft, but this anon is right that all of his stories have a very predictable structure.
>be me
>i saw some shit
>(oh what terrible shit, i can't stand it)
>let me tell you about it
>so me and the boys were talking shit about dagoes and mullatos
>but then I learned about something
>(something I now wish I didn't know)
>which led us to a place
>and that's when I saw it
>(I can hardly describe it)
>It had a front like a back and a top where its bottom should of been
>it was a colour not known to man and spoke in a language that didn't require sound, but was somehow deafening.
>i blacked out
>next I remember I was back at Arkham
>and now I must write this down for the sake of my own sanity
>oh no they found.....
>>
>>8557471
In the US the extra stories were released under other names. The Inhuman Condition was one, In the Flesh was the other.
>>
You can feel the shitty baby boomer energy dripping off the pages of every Stephen king story.

>black person appears
>they are magic
>>
All right, guys. You want great horror, there are three anthologies to dig up. The Dark Descent and Foundations of Fear, both edited by David G. Hartwell, and the Weird, edited by Jeff and Ann Vandermeer. Both are full of really amazing, pretty definitive horror and weird fiction, and are considered benchmark academic anthologies for their genres. The Weird is hands-on my 'desert island' book. They're all worth owning.
>>
Anything by Clive Barker
>>
>desperation
>>
>>8558438
Carrie has an interesting narrative.
For me when it comes to entertaining I would choose "Cell" though. Is such a comfy book.
>>
>>8559667
Haven't read Cell yet, but my fav is 11/22/63 for some reason. I just really enjoyed it.
>>
>>8558615
I loved that book too, but the final fight scene was a bit of a let down. Barlow was built up so much that I was expecting a lot more from him tbqh.
>>
>>8556673
All Quiet On The Western Front. The scariest book you'll read about one of the worst wars in the history of mankind.
>>
>>8559344
Toppest fucking keks, this is so accurate. Only thing is, it's more of a
>be me
>know a guy who told me about this stuff that's so bad eve hearing about it has terrified me
>Jesus Christ how horrifying
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>>8559423
ME HIM, CAN DE LACH, ME HIM, MIN EN TOW! TAK!
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>>8557466
Read Thomas Ligotti's Teatro Grottesco. Its honestly one of the bleakest collection of short stories I've ever read. His writing is like a drug. After you read his stuff for a while you may feel couch-locked, and devoid of ambition to go out into the world and be among people. The author grew up in Detroit and watched it fall into decay. This heavily influenced the way he views human decision-making. He's heavily suspicious of everyone and everything, and this same attitude seems to infect the reader. In a way, its fun.

Honestly, read it. Two stories in it are the best: "The Town Manager", and "The Bungalow House".
>>
>>8559344
This is way more funnier than any of those YLYL threads!

I love Lovecraft, as well, for all that he did, but that was hilarious.
>>
>>8560042
Thanks.
Wrote that recommendation down for the next time I'm at the library. Hopefully, they'll have a copy being so recent.
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>>8560153
You won't be sorry. Ligotti's horror doesn't actually derive from depicting gruesome gory spectacles and monsters like most modern horror. Instead, he skillfully creates an all-encompassing malevolent atmosphere. Its as if the whole universe is the enemy, and no escape is possible, therefore any further hope for solutions to characters' problems becomes useless.

Pic related is him.

"...the uncanny is to me the defining trait of this strange and terrible world and our strange and terrible minds." --Thomas Ligotti

Also, here are two ambient musical albums which go well with reading Ligotti on a rainy day. The musician who produces them takes inspiration from the haunted ball-room scenes in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. "The Caretaker's second album is the first of a 6 album series that will depict through sound the stages of terminal memory loss resulting from unstoppable Alzheimer's disease:

"An Empty Bliss Beyond this World"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LL998ajnjN4

"Everywhere At the End of Time"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlCKYeQFw3U
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>>8560311
Oh man, thanks again!
I can't stand the cop-out gore factor that is considered 'horror' in the past 30 years or so...

And the musical suggestions, too. Duly noted.
Thanks, Anon.

The last books that creeped me out were The Exorcist (like 25 years ago, so I don't know how it would work for me, today). And halfway through The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks which seems creepy but we'll see.
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>>8560347
and lastly, here's a free EPUB file of the book. You just have to click on the book cover, and then click "download". The file can be converted to .pdf at http://www.online-convert.com/

Physical copies are great too, if you can get it shipped to your library.
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>>8560388
Forgot the link to the EPUB file:

http://gen.lib.rus.ec/book/index.php?md5=91CEA1412C67E32586CA9C1B1E6C5794
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>>8560394
I'm not the OP but do thank you for the suggestions. It's been a while, since most of what I've been reading has been politics and newspapers and I feel like I need that bliss-out break (music included). Much appreciated.

This board and the Origami board seem to be the best ones on 4chan as of late. Well, I'm out 'cuz I have got to get some kind of sleep. Thanks, again; this stuff seems right up my alley. Always nice to spread the good word of good works.
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>>8559344
>>It had a front like a back and a top where its bottom should of been
lmao
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>>8557393
Poe, James, Bierce, and Shelly are the most worthwhile among these.
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