Fiction Books

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Horror Recommendations? (literature.cafe)

submitted 1 month ago by Elextra@literature.cafe to c/fiction@literature.cafe

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Hello! In the spirit of Halloween, I wanted to see if anyone had some recommendations for good horror books?!

Open to new and classic books. I've read quite a bit of Stephen King already. Some classics like Dracula, Turn of the Screw, Shirley Jackson books, etc. Exorcist is probably the scariest book I've read.

What else should I try?

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[–] Lacanoodle@literature.cafe 2 points 1 month ago

The Green Man by Kingsley Amis.

Maurice Allington has reached middle age and is haunted by death. As he says, “I honestly can’t see why everybody who isn’t a child, everybody who’s theoretically old enough to have understood what death means, doesn’t spend all his time thinking about it. It’s a pretty arresting thought.” He also happens to own and run a country inn that is haunted. The Green Man opens as Maurice’s father drops dead (had he seen something in the room?) and continues as friends and family convene for the funeral.

Maurice’s problems are many and increasing: How to deal with his own declining health? How to reach out to a teenage daughter who watches TV all the time? How to get his best friend’s wife in the sack? How to find another drink? (And another.) And then there is always death.

The Green Man is a ghost story that hits a live nerve, a very black comedy with an uncannily happy ending: in other words, Kingsley Amis at his best.