Scariest book!

[rocklobster]

To tie into Halloween, I thought I'd ask what the scariest book you've ever read was. You can also post the scariest short story too.
For me it would be It by Stephen King. As for short story, anything by Edgar Allen Poe.

[Tenshi no Ai]

Honestly, I've never read a book that actually scared me (nor can really see how a book can really scare someone unless they have a SUPER good imagination^^) Well, there was this one "Scary Stories" book my friends and I read in Elementary... more gross than scary, really^^ Either way we made it scary by hyping up our storytelling.

[Animus Seed]

The only book to ever scare me was Lord of the Flies.

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

I scare easily.

The Oath by Frank Peretti.

[Tenshi no Ai]

The only book to ever scare me was Lord of the Flies.

I guess I would've been too... but I saw part of the movie (which happen to be the most violent parts >_<) and that was a shock... so probably since I saw that already reading the book after wasn't too bad :/

[bigsleepj]

The cosmology of the HP Lovecraft's Cthulhu stories scare me, or distress me. I'm referring to The Call of Cthulhu, At the Mountains of Madness and Dreams in the Witch-House. His stories are scary, which is a fictional extension of his nihilstic mindset. Still his stories are good in themselves.

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

Yeah, I've heard those are quite scary. There's a game from many years ago called Alone in the Dark and that was based on his writings (very chilling).

[JasonPratt]

I used to read King for the fantasy--if I want to be scared I'll watch a movie, though for the most part I think in terms of the _fantasy_ there, too. Several of his books are tense, but it's hard to write 'scary' because timing is so critical. (In a book you have to go with concept, which is why horror and even terror is easier than fright.)

I guess the book that scared me worst, was a book on Bigfoot I read as a child. All the books I read on such things were serious books by anthropologists, or at least were on topics that serious anthropologists were looking into, and that made it a lot more unnerving to me. I was in the middle of reading perhaps the largest such book I ever found at the library, when this hideous inhuman _SCREEECH_ erupted behind me. I just about died right then and there before it got me.

It was Dad, cleaning the window outside with a squeegee.


(Still, the effect has lingered!)

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

Wowsers! Squeegees definetly make horrifying screeches don't they? (lol)

[Althaia]

i have to say the scariest book i have read would eitherbe misery by stephen king or in my hands a holocaust story

[soul alive]

I don't get scared by books so much, it's movies that get me, since I'm incredibly jumpy.

But when I was little, I checked out this series of three scary story books from the library. While the stories were not too scary, the drawings were horrific. Gave me nightmares. I think the books were titled 'Scary Stories' 'More Scary Stories' and 'Even More Scary Stories' or something like that. *shudder*
And I recently found out that the books are on the banned book list in places solely because of those drawings. o_O

[Kokhiri Sojourn]

Bram Stoker's Dracula.

I get scared pretty easily if the setting is right. I was unable to sleep after some chapters in The Lord of the Rings Trilogy until some parts had concluded. I was a bit younger, of course, but still...

[Animus Seed]

Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Parts of Dracula--namely, scenes with Renfield--scare me. The minimalist creation sequence in Frankenstein: or, the Modern Prometheus scared me, too. But Golding's the only one where the book as a whole "scared" me.

[Mr. SmartyPants]

I never got scared of books o.o

Someone recommend me a scary book

[mitsuki lover]

The Sherlock Holmes stories can get quite scary at times.

[Animus Seed]

I never got scared of books o.o

Someone recommend me a scary book

Have you ever read and been not-scared by any of the ones we've mentioned so far?

[Kokhiri Sojourn]

The Sherlock Holmes stories can get quite scary at times.

I agree. I loved The Hound of the Baskervilles when I was early in High School, and much of it was pretty tense. I always got an adrenaline rush from reading it.

[Puritan]

Hmmm. Bigsleepj is right that Lovecraft is quite scary (in more ways than one). However, book don't usually scare me (unless I worry about the people who believe the things in the books, like followers of the violent and murderous racism in "The Turner Diaries"), though much of that is because I'm not into horror.

[Shao Feng-Li]

Bram Stoker's Dracula and The hound of the Baskervilles- still they really didn't scare me but they're the scariest I've read.

[memmer66]

Pet Sematary by Stephen King. Scared the hibidabijeebies out of me! So did the movie!

[Htom Sirveaux]

As far as Stephen King goes, I prefer his short stories. "1408" out of Everything's Eventual was one of my favorites. Most of his full-length novels though, take too long to get to the real substance - although to his credit, The Stand was one of the best books I've ever read and I'm enjoying the Dark Tower series.
I've recently discovered H.P. Lovecraft and it really is good stuff. "The Hound" just about scared the crap out of me.

[HisaishiFan]

Lord of the Flies.
Pet Sematary (couldn't sleep with the light off!)
Johnny Got His Gun (very disturbing, gruesome even).

[wingedfox]

the haunting of hill house really scary
( then again i have a very hyper imageination(spelt it wrong))