Top 10 Favorite Horror Novels

Anyone that knows me knows that I love horror and I love reading horror novels as well.  A lot of my favorite novelist work in the horror genre so it was easy putting together a list of some of my favorite novelist but picking just my favorite novels was a little trickier so if nothing more, I hope you enjoy this list and it makes you go out and seek some of these novels out to read yourself.  Enjoy this, what was one of my favorite “Top 10” list to put together and don’t forget to post your comments and put together your own list:

      1.       Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux

      2.       Misery by Stephen King

      3.       The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker

      4.       The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty

      5.       The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

      6.       World War Z by Max Brooks

      7.       The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

      8.       The Meg by Steve Alten

      9.       Ringu by Koji Suzuki

     10.   The Books of Blood (all volumes) by Clive Barker

Top 10 Favorite Books

It is hard to create a list of favorite novels especially considering that I have more favorite authors than novels so some of my favorites will inevitably get left off which is why with this list of favorite novels I will explain why I love some of these novels and the writer that wroth it.  Enjoy!  I would love for you to list your own “Top 10” and post them and don’t forget to comment of this list.  The list is in no particular order and don’t for get to check out some of my other Lists:

      1.       The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

      2.       The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux

      3.       Sacrament/Weaveworld by Clive Barker – I can’t really choose between these two as they are both some of the best written modern fantasy I’ve ever read!

      4.       Congo/Sphere/Airframe by Michael Crichton – He is my favorite author of all time so it’s hard for me to decide which of these three are my favorites but Airframe does get elevated a bit higher as it is the one I’d love to direct as a film

      5.       The Exorcist/Legion by William Peter Blatty – The Exorcist is the better novel but Legion was the first novel of his I ever read which prompted me to go out and look for his other novels.

      6.       Ringu/Loop/Dark Water by Koji Suzuki – All three are equally magnificent (as are pretty much everything he writes) but Loop does edge out the other just a little as it has such an amazing premise with some heady themes and ideas like a Crichton novel

      7.       The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

      8.       Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri – I absolutely love her writing and think she can do no wrong and even though I think all of her work are masterpieces this is one of the few anthologies I think every story is a masterpiece

      9.       The Stepford Wives/Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin – A tie with these two as it’s hard to decide which is the better novel.

      10.   Misery by Stephen King – This may not be his best novel but it is the novel from which if I had never read it, I would have never read anything else he did.  This is the first book of his that I ever read in high school and I’ve been a fan ever since.  Even after all the other novels of his I’ve read I can still remember my first experience reading this one when most of the other novels I’ve forgotten the experience.

2016 YEAR IN REVIEW - "BOOKS IN REVIEW"

BOOKS IN REVIEW

I’d like to first say that even though it’s now February, I’m still thinking about what a great year 2016 was and all the amazing films, live events, and books I read that helped make the year better than 2015.  At the beginning of 2016 I told myself I was going to read more books than in 2015 because as a writer I should be reading more fiction and non-fiction to be able to craft more well-rounded and compelling stories.  Although I didn’t fulfill my overall goal of the year, I did manage to read a good amount of non-fiction books which in my opinion is always a good thing.

Of the fiction books I read I managed to finish “The Meowmorphosis” from Franz Kafka and Coleridge Cook which is a mash-up take of the Kafka classic except the main character morphs into a giant cute kitten instead of a cockroach.  Being a huge fan of Kafka’s story I enjoyed the novelty of the book but to me giant cute kittens are just as terrifying as cockroaches.  I also managed to read my first Elmore Leonard novel with “Raylan”, which is a sequel to the show Justified (based on Leonard’s series of novels).  I loved this novel so much that I plan on going back to read more Leonard novels because he has a great style as an author.  I was completely disappointed with John Shirley’s novelization of “Resident Evil: Retribution.”  I’ve read all the books based on the films and this is the worst of the lot; it took me a while to get through the book because of the style of writing which wasn’t on par with any of the previous novelizations.  I’m hoping that the novelization of “The Final Chapter” is much better.

I will say that a majority of the non-fiction books I read this year were film related.  I started the year off with another book on director David Cronenberg (if you remember I read two in 2015); “Cronenberg on Cronenberg” which is edited by Chris Rodley was an excellent book on the insight of the infamous director of Scanners, The Brood, The Fly, Dead Ringers, and countless others and getting into his process of crafting these films was key to the books success.  Now this isn’t a new book but because the process of crafting these films isn’t going to change reading this book was instrumental into getting into his head.  I would love to read an updated version of the book where the director discusses his more current films.  Along these same lines is “Lucio Fulci: Poetry & Cruelty in the Movies” by Antonio Bruschini & Antonion Tentori.  Not the best book on the infamous director as it spends more time on synopsis of the films rather than on any meaningful discussion of the films themselves but it works for those with a cursory knowledge of the director and his films.  Not really for those of us who have read many of the other books dedicated to the director.  Another film related book that I managed to finish was actor Gunnar Hansen’s “Chainsaw Confidential: How We Made the World’s Most Notorious Horror Movie” which details the making of the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre for the perspective of the man that played Leatherface.  This was another great book as it really got into the heart of what it felt like to be on the set of this infamous film from beginning to end.  Hansen has a clear and concise way of presenting his story that is engaging and entertaining at the same time.  It is said to say that this was his final book before passing away in 2015.  Life Books also put out the excellent “Life: Science Fiction: 100 Years of Great Movies” which every film fan should make sure to pick up in order to put together their own list of “must see” films.

A couple random books that I finished reading this year include Inazo Nitobe’s “Code of the Samurai: Bushido: The Soul of Japan” which is more of a coffee table book about everything as it relates to Bushido and “30-Second Religion” edited by Russell Re Manning.  I’ve been reading several of the books in the “30-Second” series and they are a quick and informative reference guide to all sorts of useful and helpful subjects.  I’m currently reading one of Ancient Egypt and well tell you how it is next year.

Imagine Publishing updated it’s “100 All-Time Greatest Comics (Third Edition)” which for comic fans is a must read.  I learned a lot a great many comics that are now on my “must read” for 2017.  As you know I read a lot of graphic novels but even this list had tons of titles I wasn’t even familiar with.

On the supernatural side of things, I read “An American Haunting: The Bell Witch” edited by Brent Monahan and based on the true story of the Bell Witch incident (which was recently made into the film An American Haunting).  This was the entire story of the legend and even those who have watched the film will be able to know all the real details of what allegedly happened.

Ending my 2016 reading list will be several books in the Rue Morgue

Magazine Library series.  A couple years ago Rue Morgue started putting out books in there Library series on many different topics geared towards horror fans and fans of the magazine.  I managed to get through five of them last year – “Blood in Four Colors: A Graphic History of Horror Comics”, “Cryptic Collectibles: A Concise Compendium of Creepy Keepsakes”, “Horror Movie Heroes”, “Horrorwood North: The Extraordinary History & Art of Canadian Genre Cinema”, and “Weird Stats & Morbid Facts.”  I could go into detail about each of these books but suffice it to say that these are an excellent series of books from all different aspects of the horror genre.  All of them are well written and put together and informative.  These are some great additions to any horror fans book shelf and since they each contain hundreds of photos they are great to look at as well.

Now that I look forward to 2017, I still need to get off my ass and read more fiction books and read more variety of non-fiction books (because I read too many books on film) but that’s something I’ll have to work on.  I’ll let you know next year how it goes.