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in Top 10 Scariest Books of All Time, thread started by pablo re the list that appeared in literaryman.com, he asked me what my own list would be. Compiling such a list will take, of course, some thinking; so far I only know my top three:
1. Nikolai Gogol. A Terrible Vengeance (Н.В.Гоголь. Страшная месть)
2. Stephen King. Pet Sematary
3. E.A.Poe. The Tell-Tale Heart
what are yours, people and animals? Let's make our own Top 10 Scariest Books!
Listing Top 10 will definitely require some thinking, but for me some of the scariest stories are the following 3 by E.A.Poe:
- The Pit and the Pendulum
- The Black Cat
- The Facts In the Case Of M.Valdemar
Also, the more I think about it, the more I come to realize that there are different kinds of 'horror' stories (and not all of them are true 'horror' stories per se). Some make you want to look behind your shoulder - they are 'in-the-moment' scary (but later may even seem funny in their scary-ness). Others send shivers down your spine every time you think about them (a lot of King's and Poe's works fall into this category). And the third category is the one that really makes my heart stop beating for a moment when the realization hits home that something like that did happen (or could have happened) with ordinary people like me and my loved ones. In this 3rd category, the novel that had hit me the hardest was "В списках не значился" by the Soviet author Boris Vasiliev. No other book I have read so far had me terrified as profoundly as this one (it also brought out many other emotions in me, because it is not a horror story - it is a World War II novel about a Russian/Soviet soldier, the last defender of the Soviet Brest fortress during Nazi invasion).
BTW, Jean, if you by chance happen to know where an English translation of this book can be d/l, I would greatly appreciate the information.
Don't forget pure existential horror -- stories that point beyond the plot to redefine our place in reality; depressing or revolting perspectives like you find in Lovecraft.