recommend a scary book

MooseJam

I wanna have my pants scared off, recommend a really scary book

John

M.R. James' Ghost Stories is one of the few books that scares my pants off. It was recommended to me by another user here and I in turn recommend it to you. Excellently written, especially "Oh, Whistle and I'll Come to You, my Lad" and "The Mezzotint". They're very restrained and build up the tension subtly, they're not over the top gore fests in case that's what you're looking for.

H.P. Lovecraft is another obvious choice in the existential horror sense. Instead of the ghosts and slight alterations of reality like M.R. James, Lovecraft is a weirder and more surreal take on horror. There's monsters lurking out there and Lovecraft shows just how scary the monsters are. There are three omnibus collections of his work that are well worth getting (one, two and three). My personal favourite is the first one as it features "The Mountains of Madness" and "Dreams in the Witch House", my favourites of Lovecraft.

Thomas Ligotti is an obscure but brilliant author. I have some beautifully bound copies of his work which unfortunately are all out of press and sell for substantial amounts second-hand. Luckily there's a paperback anthology called The Shadow at the Bottom of the World available on Amazon. Highly recommended.

Hope these do the trick!

keeffe2001

Stephen King's The Shining is the obvious answer I suppose. It terrified me (and I love that episode of friends when joey has to put it in the fridge).

Peter Straub is also pretty scary. I am reading Shadowland at the moment.

doonothing

beaten to it, cant recommend m r james enough, the wailing well is literally hair standin up on your neck terrifying.. loved that and the man who dwelt by a graveyard

amazing!

MooseJam

M r James it is so, thanks guys

luckat

Pet Sematary too.