Got a $30 Barnes and Noble card for my birthday, would like some good /x/ book recommendations.
Pic related is the only book to unnerve (and enthrall) me. It was the closest thing to a Silent Hill novel, and I loved it.
Also read John Dies at the End, and I bought the sequel book.
Check out Haruki Murikami
>>17719765
Seconding him
If you want some classics, pick up a collection of Lovecraft's works. I enjoy them but they're not everyone's taste.
"Hostage to the Devil" Written by Malachi Martin. Martin was a guest on Art Bell's Coast to Coast on at least two occasions. Martin was an exorcist. The priest digging in the desert part of "The Exorcist" was based on him, though all the rest of "The Exorcist" is loosely based on a case he had nothing to do with ( Hollywood!). Martin left the priesthood, at an advanced age got a girlfriend, got a nice apartment in NYC, and then promptly fell down a flight of steps and died!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malachi_Martin#Death
"Ancient Evenings" by Norman Mailer.
This was supposed to be the first in a trilogy on magically obtained immortality, if he ever wrote the other two they never made it to print. Ancient Evenings starts with a XXX rated retelling of the SET/OSIRIS/ISIS/HORUS mythos, then gets into mystical scatology ( I kid you not ), war, harems, and sex magic... HUGE book, get a hardbound copy, easier on the eyes.
>>17719758
Israel Regardie has some cool books out there if you're into mystical experiences. I would also approve anything written by Alan Watts in a heartbeat. He really taught me about how to live a good life and understand the world. You can also listen to his talks on YouTube
>>17719758
That book is crazy. Are you looking for reccs in the horror genre or others like occult texts and so on?
>>17719765
Any of his particular works I should check out?
>>17719772
I read a couple Lovecraft stories, and I don't think they're for me. I love his concepts, but his writing is a bit too pretentious, like he was literally holding a glass of blood-red wine with a crow resting on his shoulder as he wrote.
![Haruki_murakami_hardboiled_9780679743460[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/3nd8Roz.jpg "Haruki_murakami_hardboiled_9780679743460[1].jpg")
>>17719819
This is probably most similar in theme to House of Leaves but all his shit is pretty good.
>>17719792
Basically anything that's legitimately spooky and may cause me to look over my shoulder from time to time, which House of Leaves managed to do (it didn't help I was alone while reading it).
I find anything that's a combination of psychological mind-fuckery as well as a nondescript monster/entity gets me spooked far more than something with body horror or a monster I've seen in one form or another.
Pic related was another great "read". Even without the pictures and audio it probably would've still terrified me.
Metamorphosis by Kafka
House of Leaves and The Master and Margarita are the two best books recommendations I ever got from /x/.
You've read HoL so I say try The Master and Margarita. Like HoL it's more fun if you DON'T know what it's about and where it is going. Just get it.
>>17719819
Also check out The Elephant Vanishes.
>>17720027
This is a short story collection so it's better in a way to familiarize yourself with his writing but at the same time it's not nearly as good as the novels because they subtly manipulate the reader psychologically in a long-game way I've never experienced with any other author.
>>17719876
>The Master and Margarita
Seconded
If you want something a little newer, 77 Shadow Street is pretty good
>>17719758
I really need to finish house of leaves. but it reads like a textbook, and I've got enough of those to read. But I really really need to finish it.
Any books about excavations of religious places. Something like As Above, So Below in book form.
The woman in the dunes - Kobo Abe
Amityville horror - Jay Anson
Penpal - Dathan Auerbach
The damnation game - Clive Barker
The shining girls - Lauren Beukes
The October country - Ray Bradbury
Incarnate/Darkest part of the woods - Ramsey Campbell
[On horror writing - Mort Castle]
American pyscho/Lunar Park - Bret Easton Ellis
I have no mouth and must scream - Harlan Ellison
Last Days - Brian Evenson
Coraline - Neil Gaiman
Silence of the lambs - Thomas Harris
[Various titles by Joe Hill (Stephen King's son) and various by King]
The woman in black - Susan Hill
The turn of the screw - Henry James
The Trial - Franz Kafka
The Lost/The girl next door - Jack Ketchum
Phantoms/The taking/Watchers/Midnight - Koontz
The Devil in Silver - Victor Lavalle
Little Star - John Ajvide Lindqvist
The great God Pan - Arthur Machen
Child of God/Blood meridian - Cormac McCarthy
White is for witching - Helen Oyeyemi
Haunted/Lullaby - Chuck Palahniuck
Carrion Comfort/the Terror - Dan Simmons
The Ruins - Scott Smith
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson
>>17719758
I'm not an enormous King fan, but 'Salem's Lot scared the ever living shit out of me, and made me legitimately afraid of vampires. The Shining is also more in line with House of Leaves, as they're both basically about insane genius loci.
The Exorcist is always a classic, though I doubt you'll be terrified. You'll probably be nervous.
BTW, Nook has the complete works of Lovecraft for free (or like 99 cents) since they're in the public domain, so you can pick and choose what you find interesting. I'd recommend Color Out of Space, Shadow of Innsmouth, The Thing on the Doorstep, and the Haunter of the Dark.
>>17719758
Raw shark texts, wasn't too bad.
>>17720161
You're expected to skip parts of it the first time through, I think. It's fine. Then you may decide to go back and check some of those footnotes.
Probably The best thing I GoT from One of this threads was The Troop, by Nick Cutter. Great book, and The only One I GoT nightmares from since HoL, evento when they are not in The same vein.
From updating The Troop to Goodreads I GoT a lot of recomendations, being the most remarcable "The Summer I Died" which is Torture Porn, kinda scary, but a great book over all.
Oh, and Cows. Great book, do not read it.
>>17719758
It is a really easy read, read it all in one sitting.
Limp, the body of Gorrister hung from the pink palette; unsupported—hanging high above us in the computer chamber; and it did not shiver in the chill, oily breeze that blew eternally through the main cavern. The body hung head down, attached to the underside of the palette by the sole of its right foot. It had been drained of blood through a precise incision made from ear to ear under the lantern jaw. There was no blood on the reflective surface of the metal floor.
When Gorrister joined our group and looked up at himself, it was already too late for us to realize that, once again, AM had duped us, had had its fun; it had been a diversion on the part of the machine. Three of us had vomited, turning away from one another in a reflex as ancient as the nausea that had produced it.
Gorrister went white. It was almost as though he had seen a voodoo icon, and was afraid of the future. "Oh, God," he mumbled, and walked away. The three of us followed him after a time, and found him sitting with his back to one of the smaller chittering banks, his head in his hands. Ellen knelt down beside him and stroked his hair. He didn't move, but his voice came out of his covered face quite clearly. "Why doesn't it just do us in and get it over with? Christ, I don't know how much longer I can go on like this."
It was our one hundred and ninth year in the computer.
He was speaking for all of us.
http://hermiene.net/short-stories/i_have_no_mouth.html
I really like the Faction Paradox series, it's about a time-traveling cult that worships paradoxes and time loops. They wear masks made from the bones of creatures that never evolved.
Newtons Sleep is up as a free pdf on their website, it's got alchemists, a dead angel found in a tree, and other trippy stuff.
http://randomstatic.net/newtonssleep.php
One of the best books i believe is snow crash
>>17720491
Mah nigga. Apparently the sequels' coming too, we finally figure out what happened to Gavin the Cat.
>>17719758
I'm not entirely sure if this is the sort of thing you're looking for, but try "The Psychedelic Experience" by Timothy Leary and Ram Dass. Just throwing it out there as a unique suggestion in the thread.
>>17722796
>>17722800
>no Shearman
Good charts otherwise, ty anon
>>17722877
Anytime. Feel free to make your own. ;)
I'm really surprised I haven't heard Caitlin Kiernan mentioned on /x/ in the time I've been lurking. I've read hundreds of "lovecraftian" and "New wierd" stories and hers always stand out. I would recommend any of her novels. The short story collections she's in are also great, and a good place to find other authors.
She's also about as /x/ as you can get, the characters in her story have always been earily familiar for me.
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4798562.Caitl_n_R_Kiernan
BEHEAD ALL SATANS
>>17719876
This book is my absolute favorite book of all time. If you just take away one book from this post, let it be Master and Margarita
>>17719758
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
I haven't read it but it's on my list of next book to get
Check to see if they have it on sale and if they do you should get it
>>17719758
Mike Carey's Felix Castor books. Basically, a noir based crime thriller with an exorcist as the protagonist.
>>17719876
>>17720122
>>17723045
absolutely!
I would recommend H.P. Lovecraft. His work has inspired many famous horror writers like Stephan King and has a cult following of authors who continue his mythos.
The genius behind his writing is the sense of impending doom and powerlessness the protagonists experience; the readers are given descriptions of nightmarish horrors that has you envisioning grotesque beings based off of what you would fear if in the story.
I have all of his work and though not all of his stories are exactly scary, but they are uncomfortably strange to say the least.
>>17722953
lol what
Douglas Adams Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and accompanying titles.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez One Hundred Years of Solitude
Hermann Hesse Siddartha
>>17723046
I read it. It's bretty good.
>>17723591
One Hundred Years of Solitude is a phenomenal book (perhaps the greatest novel of the past century), yet I didn't find it unnerving in the slightest. A bit depressing, for sure (Garcia Marquez was a Pisces, lol), but definitely not creepy or anything.
>>17719819
>but his writing is a bit too pretentious, like he was literally holding a glass of blood-red wine with a crow resting on his shoulder as he wrote.
You have to read past that. Eventually you get used to his style and it's really worth it, you get a better exposure to the horror genre and some of his stuff, especially the dream cycle, is worth it for the content.
But don't buy Lovecraft, especially at B&N. If you need a physical copy trawl used book stores because they're almost everwhere and B&N charges way too much.
>>17723607
Better than the movie fo sho
