Sunday, February 8, 2015

The ten best horror books you've never read

Nick Cutter is a pseudonym for an acclaimed author of novels and short stories. His new novel is The Deep.

At Publishers Weekly Cutter named a ten best list of littler-known horror books, including:
Ghost Story by Peter Straub

I hesitated to put this on, only because I’m not sure anyone could label Straub or his masterwork “little known.” Straub is a titan of the genre. He’s probably the most purely literary horror writer we have, along with Ramsay Campbell. And Ghost Story—which Stephen King famously called “a tiger tank of a book, made of iron and well-nigh unstoppable”—is, I suspect, quite well known outside of the horror genre. It’s one of those exceptional works that, while written primarily for horror readers, is so wonderful that it breached its containment and ran roughshod over the general populace. But it’s been out for decades and maybe some newer horror readers don’t know about it, so hell, I threw it on the list. Sue me! It’s one of the very best horror books you will read in your lifetime.
Read about the other entries on the list.

Ghost Story is among the Telegraph's fifteen spookiest books and Lauren Oliver's ten favorite ghost stories.

The Page 69 Test: Nick Cutter's The Deep.

--Marshal Zeringue