![]() ![]() The book feels a lot like something you’d stumble upon in a dark alley at 3AM, some anomalous partially tampered with package, as curious as it is obviously a danger. Still, Gira managed to create one of the most gruesome and vile collections of stories any reader may ever encounter. Long out of print and word has it the author, Michael Gira of Swans fame, doesn’t want it back in print. I’ll provide a disclaimer for this one, but it’s just too disturbing to not be included in this list: This book is hard to find. We’re talking simple terrors like strange noises in the night, to a nearby neighbor watching from an adjacent window without any care of being found out, but then it lengthens to invade the tenets of privacy. The Tenant is about a man named Trelkovsky who moves into an apartment building and is systematically driven mad by horrible yet easily erased and/or denied occurrences around the building. The terror within Torpor’s initially quiet and eerie novel is uncanny, the closest comparison I can give would be Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis on downers. This one might be more familiar, seeing how it was adapted into an eponymous film by Roman Polanski in the 70s, but the novel is so much darker and dire than the film ever could produce. The novel is as shocking as it is saddening, and it’s one of the most important novels in recent history. The secret revealed, the women face a dire choice-remain in the colony or escape. Based on a true story, it follows eight Mennonite women escaping trauma: a colony where they have been held captive, drugged and illiterate, while being used as sex slaves by the colony’s men. It isn’t the outright fear that’ll get you rather, Toews’ novel will terrify you for it’s accountability. This book will likely be the biggest departure in this list, not because of its volume of terror, but rather because it exhibits a breed of terror that gets under your skin. This one stands out as one of the greatest horror manga but is constantly mentioned in whisper rather than adamant shout, probably because it’s just that terrifying. Such a genius premise, and it gets weird. ![]() ![]() Think what Pontypool Changes Everything does for language as a vessel for a zombie plague but instead it’s the pattern itself, spiral haunting townsfolk, appearing wherever they look. The infamous manga series that gets name-dropped frequently by horror fans everywhere, Uzumaki is about a fictional city that is plagued by one of the strangest and most clever curses possible: a pattern. Just like if you care about horror at all, you should have already viewed The Shining at least once. The book is one that you should experience at least once in your life. There’s far more to it though, a true deep dive into madness and love. Simply stated, it’s about a house that’s bigger on the inside than it is on the outside, whole hallways and rooms appearing in the night. I may be a little biased with this one, given that I wrote a book about the book, but after asking literary Twitter about the scariest reads, this book consistently popped up as the one that left scars, frightening countless readers for decades. The following books exist as vessels of terror, and I present them to you unabashedly. They keep you distracted during the workday, mumbling warnings to your friends… empathetically not wanting to recommend the book while simultaneously wanting them to share in your terror just so you don’t have to be alone with it. But let’s get one question out of the way: You want true terror, right? I’m not talking a little chill or a tiny knot in your throat I’m talking books that leave such an impression on you, they keep you up at night. But I’m here to give you a very different look at what will leave a mark. ![]() Readers have been asking for fresh, new scares across lists, conversations, Twitter threads, and you may think this list is yet another in the sea of lists. Tis the season to scare yourself shitless. ![]()
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