Friday, May 22, 2015

Ten of the best dark books

Amelia Gray's new story collection is Gutshot.

One of her ten best dark books, as shared at Publishers Weekly:
The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Thinking back I imagine every scene taking place in the pitch black, figures chained or roiling in the background, human and animal figures screaming. The book’s sentences group about their paragraphs like a band of feral cats munching on corpses. They raise the hairs on your arms. The running story is a post-apocalyptic march alternating terror and gloom in pursuit of the sea for some reason. Finishing it threw me into such a delicious depression, I started reading it again right away.
Read about the other entries on the list.

The Road appears on Weston Williams's top fifteen list of books with memorable dads, ShortList's roundup of the twenty greatest dystopian novels, Mary Miller's top ten list of the best road books, Joel Cunningham's list of eleven "literary" novels that include elements of science fiction, fantasy or horror, Claire Cameron's list of five favorite stories about unlikely survivors, Isabel Allende's six favorite books list, the Telegraph's list of the 15 most depressing books, Joseph D’Lacey's top ten list of horror books, the Barnes & Noble Review's list of five unforgettable fathers from fiction, Ken Jennings's list of eight top books about parents and kids, Anthony Horowitz's top ten list of apocalypse books, Karen Thompson Walker's list of five notable "What If?" books, John Mullan's list of ten of the top long walks in literature, Tony Bradman's top ten list of father and son stories, Ramin Karimloo's six favorite books list, Jon Krakauer's five best list of books about mortality and existential angst, William Skidelsky's list of the top ten most vivid accounts of being marooned in literature, Liz Jensen's top 10 list of environmental disaster stories, the Guardian's list of books to change the climate, David Nicholls' top ten list of literary tear jerkers, and the Times (of London) list of the 100 best books of the decade. In 2009 Sam Anderson of New York magazine claimed "that we'll still be talking about [The Road] in ten years."

--Marshal Zeringue