10 Best Horror Books—Joyce Carol Oates, Stephen King, more
“Horror can be a space for readers and authors alike to work through fear, trauma, and anxiety in a safe and controlled environment.” (Get Literary)
When things get dark, horror fiction allows you to practice being brave—to learn how to cope with your fears and worries. Some love to read scary books for the adrenaline rush. Others look for the mental release of feeling all the terror. Either way, the best horror stories take you for a terrifying ride.
Whether you’re a horror fiction expert or getting into these books for the first time, YouTube book reviewer Anda Kent offers a list of her 10 favorite horror books. Watch the video to hear her describe what each title means to her—including books from Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, Ray Bradbury, Clive Barker, and more. Below the video, find more information about the books, and links to find them on Amazon.
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01 The Ruins by Scott Smith
Trapped in the Mexican jungle, a group of friends stumble upon a creeping horror unlike anything they could ever imagine.Two young couples are on a lazy Mexican vacation–sun-drenched days, drunken nights, making friends with fellow tourists. When the brother of one of those friends disappears, they decide to venture into the jungle to look for him. What started out as a fun day-trip slowly spirals into a nightmare when they find an ancient ruins site . . . and the terrifying presence that lurks there.
In an author Q&A from Penguin Random House, author Smith explains the origins of The Ruins. “I had the original idea when I was a graduate student, sixteen years ago. At that point, I envisioned it as a short story. The plot was very different—a group of archaeologists in an isolated setting digs up an extremely virulent disease, which they fear might cause a terrible pandemic if it were to spread into the world. The story was going to focus on the characters arguing over what they should do, as they and their hired laborers start to sicken and die.
“I never wrote it, but all these years later, when I decided to attempt another novel, it was one of a handful of ideas that I picked up and began to toy with. Around that time, I happened to see a horror movie, and I thought that it might be fun to attempt something in that genre. This impulse came together with the ailing archaeologists, and The Ruins emerged from it.”
02 The October Country by Ray Bradbury
Welcome to a land Ray Bradbury called the “Undiscovered Country” of his imagination—that vast territory of ideas, concepts, notions and conceits where the stories you now hold were born. The October Country is many places: a picturesque Mexican village where death is a tourist attraction; a city beneath the city where drowned lovers are silently reunited; a carnival midway where a tiny man's most cherished fantasy can be fulfilled night after night.
The October Country’s inhabitants live, dream, work, die—and sometimes live again—discovering, often too late, the high price of citizenship. Here a glass jar can hold memories and nightmares; a woman’s newborn child can plot murder; and a man’s skeleton can war against him. Here there is no escaping the dark stranger who lives upstairs...or the reaper who wields the world.
Each of these stories is a wonder, imagined by an acclaimed tale-teller writing from a place shadows. But there is astonishing beauty in these shadows, born from a prose that enchants and enthralls. Ray Bradbury’s The October Country is a land of metaphors that can chill like a long-after-midnight wind...as they lift the reader high above a sleeping Earth on the strange wings of Uncle Einar.
Buy The October Country from Amazon.
“Back when I was 12 years old,” author Bradbury told The Saturday Evening Post. “I was madly in love with L. Frank Baum and the Oz books, along with the novels of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, and especially the Tarzan books and the John Carter, Warlord of Mars books by Edgar Rice Burroughs. I began to think about becoming a writer at that time.
“Simultaneously, I saw Blackstone the Magician on stage and thought, ‘What a wonderful life it would be if I could grow up and become a magician.’ In many ways, that is exactly what I did.”
RELATED: How Charles Addams helped Ray Bradbury’s monster family in ‘From the Dust Returned’
03 The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker
Frank Cotton’s insatiable appetite for the dark pleasures of pain led him to the puzzle of Lemarchand’s box, and from there, to a death only a sick-minded soul could invent. But his brother’s love-crazed wife, Julia, has discovered a way to bring Frank back—though the price will be bloody and terrible—and there will certainly be hell to pay.
Buy The Hellbound Heart from Amazon.
The Hellbound Heart introduced Barker’s character Pinhead. Barker talked to Nightmare Magazine about the audience falling for the character.
“When the movie came along, people really liked the character. Soon after the movie opened, we saw that almost every photograph that was printed from the movie was of the guy with the pins in his head. And that had to tell you something, right? People were choosing an image to identify what the movie was, and he wasn’t a significant part of it. People teach you what they want; they educate you in what you’ve done.”
Of course, Pinhead has since appeared in lots of things. “I think they have nine movies, sequels—two of which I was connected with—and then the comic books, which have been rather brilliant and taken the mythology into new and interesting places,” Barker said. “I’m really proud of the comic books in a way that I’m not really proud of any of the sequels to the movie.”
04 Zombie by Joyce Carol Oates
Zombie is a classic novel of dark obsession from the extraordinary Joyce Carol Oates. A brilliant, unflinching journey into the mind of a serial killer, Zombie views the world through the eyes of Quentin P., newly paroled sex offender, as he chillingly evolves from rapist to mass murderer. Joyce Carol Oates—the prolific author of so many extraordinary bestsellers, including The Gravediggers Daughter, Blonde, and The Falls—demonstrates why she ranks among America’s most respected and accomplished literary artists with this provocative, breathtaking, and disturbing masterwork.
The author has spoken of crime as being a metaphor of society and the country in which we live. When she was interviewed by Tin House, they asked Oates whether changes in crime and violence has impacted how she writes about them.
“Writers evolve in ways not always obvious to them,” she replied. “I don’t write about crime per se—I never have—but about individuals who may have encountered “crime”—violent domestic incidents, in particular—that has affected their lives.”
05 Pet Sematary by Stephen King
Stephen King’s #1 New York Times bestseller is a “wild, powerful, disturbing” (The Washington Post Book World) classic about evil that exists far beyond the grave—among King’s most iconic and frightening novels.
When Dr. Louis Creed takes a new job and moves his family to the idyllic rural town of Ludlow, Maine, this new beginning seems too good to be true. Despite Ludlow’s tranquility, an undercurrent of danger exists here. Those trucks on the road outside the Creed’s beautiful old home travel by just a little too quickly, for one thing…as is evidenced by the makeshift graveyard in the nearby woods where generations of children have buried their beloved pets.
Then there are the warnings to Louis both real and from the depths of his nightmares that he should not venture beyond the borders of this little graveyard where another burial ground lures with seductive promises and ungodly temptations. A blood-chilling truth is hidden there—one more terrifying than death itself, and hideously more powerful. As Louis is about to discover for himself sometimes, dead is better…
“I just had the greatest time writing the book until I was done with it,” author King told Entertainment Weekly. “And I read it over, and I said to myself, ‘This is awful. This is really f—ing terrible.’ Not that it was badly written, necessarily. But all that stuff about the death of kids. It was close to me, because my kids lived on that road.”
RELATED: Quiz: How Well Do You Know Stephen King?
06 Dante’s Inferno by Dante Alighieri
Belonging in the immortal company of the works of Homer, Virgil, Milton, and Shakespeare, Dante Alighieri’s poetic masterpiece is a visionary journey that takes readers through the torment of Hell.
The first part of Dante’s Divine Comedy is many things: a moving human drama, a supreme expression of the Middle Ages, a glorification of the ways of God, and a magnificent protest against the ways in which men have thwarted the divine plan. One of the few literary works that has enjoyed a fame both immediate and enduring, The Inferno remains powerful after seven centuries. It confronts the most universal values—good and evil, free will and predestination—while remaining intensely personal and ferociously political, for it was born out of the anguish of a man who saw human life blighted by the injustice and corruption of his times.
Translated by John Ciardi
With an Introduction by Archibald T. MacAllister
and an Afterword by Edward M. Cifelli
Buy Dante’s Inferno from Amazon.
“Dante’s nearly 700-year-old, three-part epic poem, the Divine Comedy—of which ‘Inferno’ is the initial part—remains an influential piece of literature in exploring the origins of evil,” notes science magazine Futurity. “Dante’s work has influenced or inspired music, novels, films, mobile apps, and even video games.”
07 American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
In this modern classic, the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author explores the incomprehensible depths of madness and captures the insanity of violence in our time or any other.
Patrick Bateman moves among the young and trendy in 1980s Manhattan. Young, handsome, and well educated, Bateman earns his fortune on Wall Street by day while spending his nights in ways we cannot begin to fathom. Expressing his true self through torture and murder, Bateman prefigures an apocalyptic horror that no society could bear to confront.
“A masterful satire and a ferocious, hilarious, ambitious, inspiring piece of writing, which has large elements of Jane Austen at her vitriolic best. An important book.” —Katherine Dunn, bestselling author of Geek Love
Buy American Psycho from Amazon.
In an interview with Numero, author Ellis talked about how the Patrick Bateman character in American Psycho was based on his abusive father. “I think in a way it was about him as a hip, young businessman in his 20s,” Ellis said. “But ultimately, I think I was too afraid to talk about how much that book was about me. It wasn’t until ten years ago, during the Imperial Bedrooms book tour, that I was finally able to say, ‘Look, this was a very autobiographical novel, and it was really about my youthful despair in New York during the Reagan 80s and the years of the yuppie.’”
08 Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell | The Novella That Formed the Basis of The Thing
Who Goes There? The novella that formed the basis of ‘The Thing’ is the John W. Campbell classic about an Antarctic research camp that discovers and thaws the ancient, frozen body of a crash-landed alien. The creature revives with terrifying results, shape-shifting to assume the exact form of animal and man, alike. Paranoia ensues as a band of frightened men work to discern friend from foe, and destroy the menace before it challenges all of humanity!
Hailed as “one of the finest science fiction novellas ever written” by the SF Writers of America, the story is best known to fans as THE THING, as it was the basis of Howard Hawks’ The Thing From Another World in 1951, and John Carpenter’s The Thing in 1982. With a new Introduction by William F. Nolan, author of Logan’s Run, and his never-before-published, suspenseful Screen Treatment written for Universal Studios in 1978, this is a must-have edition for sci-fi and horror fans!
Buy Who Goes There from Amazon.
RELATED: Flashback: John Carpenter’s ‘The Thing’ (1982) inspired a generation of filmmakers
Reviews
“It’s a brilliant piece of paranoia, and characters react to it in logical, irrational ways. Considering its age, it’s also remarkable how original its ideas were. The underlying concept of a space alien picking off an isolated crew in a kind of sci-fi slasher story was utterly unheard of, and it served as the inspiration for an enormous subgenre, popularized perhaps most famously by Ridley Scott’s Alien, itself strongly inspired by Campbell’s novella.” (The Unapologetic Geek)
“This story reminded me quite a bit of H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness—not just because of the Antarctic setting, but also the stark terror of ordinary, rational-minded men facing alien, cosmic horror. Campbell’s story is more psychological suspense, though, as the survivors eye one another knowing that not everyone is human. A classic for good reason, and the remote, Antarctic setting has not changed all that much in the decades since, so it hasn’t aged too badly. Being a short, fairly straightforward monster story, it’s not surprising that Hollywood has revisited it multiple times.” (inverarity)
09 The Silence of the Lambs (Hannibal Lecter Book 2) by Thomas Harris
As part of the search for a serial murderer nicknames “Buffalo Bill,” FBI trainee Clarice Starling is given an assignment. She must visit a man confined to a high-security facility for the criminally insane and interview him.
That man, Dr. Hannibal Lecter, is a former psychiatrist with unusual tastes and an intense curiosity about the darker corners of the mind. His intimate understanding of the killer and of Clarice herself form the core of Thomas Harris’ The Silence of the Lambs—an unforgettable classic of suspense fiction.
Buy The Silence of the Lambs from Amazon.
“I’ve always thought that stories are out there already,” author Harris told the New York Times. “You just have to find them.”
10 A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay
WINNER OF THE 2015 BRAM STOKER AWARD FOR SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN A NOVEL
A chilling thriller that brilliantly blends psychological suspense and supernatural horror, reminiscent of Stephen King’s The Shining, Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, and William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist.
The lives of the Barretts, a normal suburban New England family, are torn apart when fourteen-year-old Marjorie begins to display signs of acute schizophrenia.
To her parents’ despair, the doctors are unable to stop Marjorie’s descent into madness. As their stable home devolves into a house of horrors, they reluctantly turn to a local Catholic priest for help. Father Wanderly suggests an exorcism; he believes the vulnerable teenager is the victim of demonic possession. He also contacts a production company that is eager to document the Barretts’ plight.
With John, Marjorie’s father, out of work for more than a year and the medical bills looming, the family agrees to be filmed, and soon find themselves the unwitting stars of The Possession, a hit reality television show. When events in the Barrett household explode in tragedy, the show and the shocking incidents it captures become the stuff of urban legend.
Fifteen years later, a bestselling writer interviews Marjorie’s younger sister, Merry. As she recalls those long ago events that took place when she was just eight years old, long-buried secrets and painful memories that clash with what was broadcast on television begin to surface—and a mind-bending tale of psychological horror is unleashed, raising vexing questions about memory and reality, science and religion, and the very nature of evil.
Buy A Head Full of Ghosts from Amazon.
Author Tremblay told Electric Lit about the origins of A Head Full of Ghosts. “I stumbled across some deconstructive essays about William Friedkin’s The Exorcist. It occurred to me that while there have been recent literary updates of vampires, zombies, and werewolves, there hadn’t been much in the way of possession novels. How about a secular/skeptical exorcism novel? Why not, right? All that and I had Bad Religion’s song ‘My Head Is Full of Ghosts,’ running through my own head. Seriously, I think I listened to that song over 100 times that month.”
BONUS
I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison
Seven stunning stories of speculative fiction by the author of A Boy and His Dog.
In a post-apocalyptic world, four men and one woman are all that remain of the human race, brought to near extinction by an artificial intelligence. Programmed to wage war on behalf of its creators, the AI became self-aware and turned against humanity. The five survivors are prisoners, kept alive and subjected to brutal torture by the hateful and sadistic machine in an endless cycle of violence.
This story and six more groundbreaking and inventive tales that probe the depths of mortal experience prove why Grand Master of Science Fiction Harlan Ellison has earned the many accolades to his credit and remains one of the most original voices in American literature.
I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream also includes “Big Sam Was My Friend,” “Eyes of Dust,” “World of the Myth,” “Lonelyache,” Hugo Award finalist “Delusion for a Dragon Slayer,” and Hugo and Nebula Award finalist “Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes.”
Buy I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream from Amazon.
“Harlan Ellison made a very successful career out of biting the hands that fed him,” notes The Digital Antiquarian. “The pint-sized dervish burst into literary prominence in the mid-1960s, marching at the vanguard of science fiction’s New Wave. He paraded a series of scintillatingly trippy short stories that were like nothing anyone had ever seen before, owing as much to James Joyce and Jack Kerouac as they did to Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein. Ellison demanded, both implicitly in his stories and explicitly in his interviews, that science fiction cast off its fetish for shiny technology-fueled utopias and address the semi-mythical Future in a more humanistic, skeptical way. His own prognostications in that vein were almost unrelentingly grim…”
More Books and Authors on Monster Complex
Silvia Moreno-Garcia On MEXICAN GOTHIC: ‘We don’t give horror enough respect.’
‘North Border’ by Benjamin Percy—he has to become the monster to fight the monsters all around him
Delizhia Jenkins: The Book of Maya—Vampire Hunters Academy [Spotlight]
Related link: Why You Should Read Horror (Even If It Scares You) - Get Literary