{"id":1688,"date":"2013-09-30T09:05:14","date_gmt":"2013-09-30T07:05:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=1688"},"modified":"2013-10-13T12:18:58","modified_gmt":"2013-10-13T10:18:58","slug":"the-gift-of-terror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=1688","title":{"rendered":"The Gift of Terror"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\u00bfCu\u00e1ndo<\/a>It is just about October, Halloween is around the corner, the creepy time of year. It\u2019s that time of year that a good \u2013 a great \u2013 scary story just tastes better. There\u2019s something about October twilight, the Philadelphia Eagles, and leaves dying that makes a creepy tale all the more enjoyable.<\/p>\n

In celebration of October, I suggest reading a scary book. Do it for a small change in your routine, or to try something new. Last October I read Ellen DeGeneres’ autobiography – oh, the horror!<\/p>\n

Oh, and why a scary book and not a scary movie?<\/p>\n

Because movies are too easy. It\u2019s so much easier to scare a person with a movie. There\u2019s a whole range of input available to work with: visuals, a passing face in the window, whispering, eerie music, the breeze that creeps along the trees, and, of course, something jumping out at and eviscerating a Japanese teenager.<\/p>\n

When it comes to a good scary book, nothing matters \u2013 not the author, its \u2018classic\u2019 status, its cover \u2013 the only thing that matters is whether it scares you or not. That\u2019s part of why spooky fiction is so hard to pull off. It\u2019s also why I love it.<\/p>\n

However, as a connoisseur of horror, speculative, and creepy fiction, I find that most horror leaves me as disappointed as the last time I ordered a filet mignon in a truck stop.<\/p>\n

This post is dedicated to making a list of scary books for us to read. Below are my four recommendations, four books that truly spooked me. They were not researched, not found on websites, and I didn\u2019t put them there so I\u2019d seem more well-read or worldly.<\/p>\n

They scared me.<\/p>\n

5. Cycle of the Werewolf<\/b><\/p>\n

One of Stephen King\u2019s possibly lesser known works, this novella was made into a movie called Silver Bullet<\/i>. This is the story of a werewolf terrorizing a small town.<\/p>\n

One of my favorite things about Stephen King is his disinterest in social mores when it comes to killing people. That means he will kill dogs, happy parents, grandparents. He will kill a child in his book, feed its corpse to a thresher as the parents are forced to watch and sing songs.<\/p>\n

This book is full of those moments where you can\u2019t sit down because you\u2019re hoping the poor schmuck can get away from that thing that\u2019s stalking him.<\/p>\n

And they almost never do.<\/p>\n

4. 20th<\/sup> Century Ghosts<\/b><\/p>\n

In a genre where many books and collections of stories fall short, this one stands out.<\/p>\n

Joe Hill tells some damn scary stories. Standouts in this collection are \u2018Voluntary Committal,\u2019 \u2018My Father\u2019s Mask,\u2019 and \u2018The Last Breath.\u2019<\/p>\n

I think Hill\u2019s best ability is to scare you in the periphery. To allow a glimpse at that thing that\u2019s terrorizing you without letting you get that full, satisfying, debunking look at it. Oh yeah, and his dad is Stephen King, so you know he suffers from prolonged bedtime story induced trauma.<\/p>\n

Read this book!<\/p>\n

3. Nocturnes <\/b><\/p>\n

This is another book of stories \u2013 and one novella \u2013 that in no way disappoints. John Connolly knows how to write a tale that will creep your pants off, even if you\u2019re not wearing pants. That\u2019s right, he\u2019s that good.<\/p>\n

Stories such as \u2018The New Daughter,\u2019 \u2018The Furnace Room,\u2019 and \u2018Some Children Wander by Mistake,\u2019 take fantastic, terrifying spins on otherwise tired motifs seen in dozens of spooky stories. This book finishes with a novella featuring Charlie Parker, his protagonist and the often supernatural world he must fight.<\/p>\n

Damn good stories.<\/p>\n

2 The Complete Stories of M.R. James<\/b><\/p>\n

Honestly, this man is the grandfather of the modern-day ghost story. And boy, did he know how to write them. He even wrote a set of rules that to this day is the barometer to which a ghost tale is judged.<\/p>\n

This collection of stories is chock full of those disturbing moments that you pass over while reading, but which revisit you later while you are not sleeping. M.R. James was one of the first writers to break out of the timely standard of horror stories and, along with H.P Lovecraft, really let people have it. He knew how to scare in so many ways, he was clearly ahead of his time.<\/p>\n

1. You<\/b><\/p>\n

Recommend a scary book! Anything that\u2019s horror, speculative, or creepy. Suggest one that kept you up at night, reading and sweating, hiding under your covers, too afraid to keep reading and too afraid to shut off the lights.<\/p>\n

There are two prerequisites to recommending.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. You have actually read the book you are suggesting. I don\u2019t want recommendations about books you\u2019ve heard<\/i> were scary. These are always exaggerated and almost always lead to disappointment.<\/li>\n
  2. The book you are recommending scared you. Bigtime.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    It is just about October, Halloween is around the corner, the creepy time of year. It\u2019s that time of year that a good \u2013 a great \u2013 scary story just tastes better. There\u2019s something about October twilight, the Philadelphia Eagles, and leaves dying that makes a creepy tale all the more enjoyable. In celebration of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-re","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1688"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1692,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1688\/revisions\/1692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}