Top Ten Scariest Books

I was placing a order into Barnes and Noble for two books which were recommended to me:

The Woman in Black by Susan Hill

House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski

And it got me thinking about my love of all things scary....especially books

I know its not October when this would be a more appropriate post but

I love Horror/Scary books anytime of year

Without further adieux
This is my top 10 Favorite most scary of all books in no particular order

***all book synopsis are from barnesandnoble.com****

1.The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty

    My opinion: Anything with demons, the devil, possession or religion scares the hell out of me. The book is twice as scary as the movie. You will not sleep during or after reading this book it is so creepy.

Synopsis: The phenomenal bestseller that inspired the classic motion picture--newly re-released in a version you've never seen before! — Chris MacNeil - adored film star, divorced single mother - has come to Washington, D. C. to finish a movie. Swept up by the demands of her busy, flourishing career, Chris is blind to the subtle warnings that a dark, male...  violent presence has invaded her comfortable townhouse. Powerful and cunning, it is taking possession of Regan, her 12-year old daughter. Every avenue of help leads to a dead end. Now hope lies only in a doubt-ridden priest and his fragile elder... in a terrifying battle with an obscene, unspeakable evil that must end in victory ... or madness and death.

2. The Shining by Stephen King

My Opinion: I work in a Hotel that sits high on a hill and whenever I have to come in extra early or get called to come in late at night I can not help but anticipate seeing those creepy twins beckoning me to "come and play with them" at the end of every hallway. That is how scary this book is when you are thinking about its creepiness long after reading it.

Synopsis: Terrible events occur at the isolated Overlook Hotel. It's a place where the guests are deceased but not necessarily departed, high in the wintry Rocky Mountains in the off season. A family checks in so the father can write, and terror lurks behind every door. Their son, who has psychic powers but does not know he has them and does not know how to use them, struggles to hold his own against the forces of evil that are driving his father insane.

3. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

My Opinion: More psychological suspense then horror this book is a classic ghost story.

Synopsis: The classic supernatural thriller by an author who helped define the genre

First published in 1959, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House has been hailed as a perfect work of unnerving terror. It is the story of four seekers who arrive at a notoriously unfriendly pile called Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of a "haunting"; Theodora, his lighthearted assistant; Eleanor, a friendless, fragile young woman well acquainted with poltergeists; and Luke, the future heir of Hill House. At first, their stay seems destined to be merely a spooky encounter with inexplicable phenomena. But Hill House is gathering its powers-and soon it will choose one of them to make its own.

4. Amityville Horror by Jay Anson

My Opinion: It was probably scarier because it was "based" on true events. Growing up there was a house up the street that had the same windows and we used to run as fast as we could past it.

Synopsis: In December 1975, the Lutz family moved into their new home on suburban Long Island. George and Kathleen Lutz knew that, one year earlier, Ronald DeFeo had murdered his parents, brothers, and sisters in the house, but the property complete with boathouse and swimming pool and the price were too good to pass up. Twenty-eight days later, the entire Lutz family fled in terror. Synopsis: "Sometimes dead is better...."

This is the spellbinding, best-selling true story that gripped the nation the story of a house possessed by evil spirits, haunted by psychic phenomena almost too terrible to describe.

5. Stir of Echoes by Richard Matheson

My Opinion: Much Scarier then the movie this book will scare you and then when you think you can't be scared it will scare you again.

Synopsis: Tom Wallace lived an ordinary life, until a chance event awakened psychic abilities he never knew he possessed. Now he's hearing the private thoughts of the people around him-and learning shocking secrets he never wanted to know. But as Tom's existence becomes a waking nightmare, even greater jolts are in store as he becomes the unwilling recipient of a compelling message from beyond the grave!

Dun Dun Duh

(sorry that felt like it should have a dun dun dah after)

6. Ghost Story by Peter Straub

My Opinion: A ghost comes back to avenge against the men that killed her. A secret club of old men (creepy). Even the town and neighborhood this story takes place in is weird.

Synopsis: For four aging men in the terror-stricken town of Milburn, New York, an act inadvertently carried out in their youth has come back to haunt them. Now they are about to learn what happens to those who believe they can bury the past — and get away with murder.

7. Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin

My Opinion: I loved the movie but again the book was so much scarier. You can feel the tension with every word and nothing beats your own imagination when envisioning the scene when Rosemary finally sees her baby.

Synopsis: Rosemary Woodhouse and her struggling actor husband Guymove into the Bramford, an old New York City apartment building with an ominous reputation and mostly elderly residents. Neighbors Roman and Minnie Castavet soon come nosing around to welcome the Woodhouses to the building, and despite Rosemary's reservations about their eccentricity and the weird noises that she keeps hearing, her husband takes a special shine to them.Shortly after Guy lands a plum Broadway role, Rosemary becomes pregnant, and the Castavets start taking a special interest in her welfare. As the sickened Rosemary becomes increasingly isolated, she begins to suspect that the Castavets' circle is not what it seems.

8. Pet Cemetery by Stephen King

My Opinion: Stephen King is King and I could have done this entire post on just his books but I tried to be fair and decided to only allow myself to pick two. This book has everything...absolute horror when Gage Creed gets hit, terror from the creepy sister, fear of the cemetery. You name it its in this book. The tag line alone will give you nightmares.

When the Creeds move into a beautiful old house in rural Maine, it all seems too good to be true: physician father, beautiful wife, charming little daughter, adorable infant son — and now an idyllic home. As a family, they've got it all...right down to the friendly cat. But the nearby woods hide a blood-chilling truth — more terrifying than death itself...and hideously more powerful.

9. The Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe

My Opinion: Poe is one of my favorite authors and I would have been remiss to exclude him as he is the master of horror. This story is especially scary as it is told from the perspective of an insane person you can almost hear the narrators mind snapping.

Synopsis: An unnamed narrator opens the story by addressing the reader and claiming that he is nervous but not mad. He says that he is going to tell a story in which he will defend his sanity yet confess to having killed an old man. His motivation was neither passion nor desire for money, but rather a fear of the man’s pale blue eye. Again, he insists that he is not crazy because his cool and measured actions, though criminal, are not those of a madman. Every night, he went to the old man’s apartment and secretly observed the man sleeping. In the morning, he would behave as if everything were normal. After a week of this activity, the narrator decides, somewhat randomly, that the time is right actually to kill the old man

10. In a Dark Place: The story of a True Haunting by Ray Garton & Ed and Lorraine Warren

My Opinion: Anything with "true haunting" in the title scares the pants off of me. You can feel the pain and fear of the family as you read this story. And again possession = SCARY

Synopsis: Chronicling the most disturbing case of their career, a demonologist team recounts the haunting of the Snedeker family, whose new home harbored an evil past that resulted in poltergeist activity and the possession of their teenage son.

So that is my top 10 list

How about you? What book has scared the pants off of you?

I know you will wonder with my extreme fear of clowns why I didn't include It by Stephen King and the reason is that I don't even want to think about that creepy clown clutching his bunch of balloons beckoning me with his creepy white gloved hand....damn it! Thank God all of the lights are on ...and now they are staying on!

Childhood Friends

I was thinking about a question I read somewhere

I don't remember the exact wording but it was something like :

What book represents or reminds you of your childhood.

So here is a question I pose to you....

What Book (or movie) most represents your interaction with your childhood friends?

My answer is The Body (aka Stand By Me) for my book choice or Then and Now for my movie choice.

Why The Body?
To me the body was more then about the boys going out in search of the body of a dead neighborhood kid. It was about exceptance and adventure. It was about finding friends you could count on and being able to just be yourself.

Growing up I had two great friends Kathleen and Karen. They are sisters Kathleen my age and Karen one year younger then us. Their grandmother lived two houses away from the house I grew up in. Which is how we met Kathleen and I just toddlers thrown together by our mothers probably so they could have a minute to themselves. We ended up attending the same Catholic elementary school and our friendship grew within those walls during the winter months when we only saw each other during those school hours.

I picked this book because it is set in the summer and when we were growing up....

 the summers belonged to us!

Everything about us changed in the summer. We had no school worries. No thoughts of not fitting in. Our parents barely existed in our summer world. We were the queens of the neighborhood.

Summer Life was an adventure to be had and it seemed to stretch on forever.

Back then all we had was our imagination and we made up games, invented danger, drama and ways to scare ourselves. Behind the house Kathleen and Karen shared with their mother and five brothers and sisters was a tall stone wall. It rose at least ten feet high but back then it was like looking up at a sky scarper. Their house sat low on a hill so the top of that wall on the other side was only waist high. To access the other side of the wall you had to go down an alley between two houses.

We were not supposed to go there.

We were not supposed to sit on the wall.

We definitely were not supposed to slip over the wall and climb down into their backyard.

But we did

And we always got caught...a ratting sibling...a big mouthed neighbor....

Like The Body our adventures involved camping out.

We lived in the city so we slept in sleeping bags on small patches of backyard grass or laid across wooden front porches. Also like The Body my older brother made it his goal to torment us as much as possible without getting caught by my mother.

We were inseparable. We were the keepers of each others deepest secrets and darkest fears.

 I never felt left out by not being their sister.

Our story doesn't involve the discovery of a dead body

Although we did think we killed my little brother once

We blamed Karen

Every summer we found ourselves. We were brave, smart and funny. Slowly we started to carry that confidence into the school year. And when we forgot we had each other to help us remember.

The Body ends with with the friends going their separate ways and sadly all but Gordy die young.

Our story ends happier

We all have families now and although we don't see each other very often we can still count on each other

 They were both there for me when my Dad died 14 years ago.

And I hope they felt my love and support when their Mom died last May.

My children know their names and have heard the stories of our adventures.

We are legends if only in my own mind!

So how about you?