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For me it was Carrie, King's first book. I think it was the first horror book I ever read and I think I was a teenager then - can't quite remember when it came out. I couldn't finish it. I put it aside and then tried to sleep and after tossing and turning for a few minutes, got up to pile a bunch of other books on top of it. Tried to sleep again. Got up again. Put a bible on the very top and shoved the whole pile under my bed. It was years before I read King again. Not sure why it affected me so strongly. I think it might have been the very real bullying aspect to the book, coupled with all the usual horrors of being a teenager, coupled with menstration.
The Road is a great book. When I read, as a young man, that in the event of a nuclear war that the living would envy the dead, I never understood why. After reading The Road, I now know.
In the non-fiction department, it's a tie between In Cold Blood and Helter Skelter.
Ahem . . . back to where I left off. I accidentally deleted some of my own post! Anyway, In Cold Blood was the first true-life crime/murder book I ever read. I was too young to be aware of the murder when it occurred (or my mother protected me from it). So it was quite the introduction to the real world and gave me nightmares for a long long time.
Helter Skelter had a personal tie to it so it was frightening in a different way. Back in the day, some friends and I used to cruise the Cielo Drive house hoping to see the residents coming and going. The previous renters were prominent musicians of the day and a couple of us had crushes on them. Just dumb teenager stuff. But when the news reported what had happened, and before the victims were ID'd, we feared that it was "our" people. Plus we used to ride our horses on trails adjoining the Spahn Ranch and knew about those weird and crazy people dumpster diving at Ralph's. To this day I can't even look at a photo of Charles Manson without being taken back to the horror and not knowing where they would strike next, especially after they hit the Lo Bianco's. It all seemed so random at the time.
So, there you go. They may not be the most horrifying books ever but they were for me.
Last edited by movinon; 04-18-2014 at 11:53 AM..
Reason: added detail
In the non-fiction department, it's a tie between In Cold Blood and Helter Skelter.
Ahem . . . back to where I left off. I accidentally deleted some of my own post! Anyway, In Cold Blood was the first true-life crime/murder book I ever read. I was too young to be aware of the murder when it occurred (or my mother protected me from it). So it was quite the introduction to the real world and gave me nightmares for a long long time.
Helter Skelter had a personal tie to it so it was frightening in a different way. Back in the day, some friends and I used to cruise the Cielo Drive house hoping to see the residents coming and going. The previous renters were prominent musicians of the day and a couple of us had crushes on them. Just dumb teenager stuff. But when the news reported what had happened, and before the victims were ID'd, we feared that it was "our" people. Plus we used to ride our horses on trails adjoining the Spahn Ranch and knew about those weird and crazy people dumpster diving at Ralph's. To this day I can't even look at a photo of Charles Manson without being taken back to the horror and not knowing where they would strike next, especially after they hit the Lo Bianco's. It all seemed so random at the time.
So, there you go. They may not be the most horrifying books ever but they were for me.
Wow, you are incredibly brave! I don't even have the guts or the stomach to read true crime books!
Coverage of the Manson murders in my local paper traumatized me. Before that case I was never really afraid of anyone breaking into our home. I just thought "they will just rob us and leave",but the Manson case made me aware that there are disgustingly sick subhuman psychos in the world who want to hurt people for no reason,except for some perverted personal agenda!
I have heard of In Cold Blood,but it's another that I know I could not stomach!
I'm not a big fan of scaring myself but all three of those books are outstanding. I read some very distrurbing things in a college course I took about Nazi Germany. Whew. One I'll never be able to get out of my mind, the true stuff is always scarier to me.
In high school our teacher scared us by playing an audio book (vinyl record) of the late great Vincent Price reading stories by Edgar Allen Poe.
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Creepy in how real it seemed
