Recommendations Please - Horror Novel

[Dinre]

I have been seriously jonesing for a good horror novel for a while now, and I'm having trouble pinning one down. I am enlisting you, the S&L group, for suggestions.

A little about my preferences:
- I'm not impressed by just gore (The Skinner).
- I like horror that really attacks the mind (Fall of the House of Usher).
- Typically, I lose momentum in books that get overly obsessed with sexuality (Along Came a Spider).
- I prefer books that can be read more than once, so thrillers usually don't fit the bill.
- I prefer audiobooks.

Within that framework, can someone point me towards a story horrifying enough to make me clip Depends coupons?

[Sandi]

Sounds like we have similar taste in horror.

I recently listened to The Night Strangers by Chris Bohjalian and thought it was very scary. The narration really made it.

The Ridge by Michael Koryta was a pretty creepy audiobook too.

What the Night Knows by Dean Koontz and Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill were very scary in print. I don't know how they are in audio. Sometimes, the narrators of horror audiobooks get overly dramatic and ruin it.

[Paul]

I'm funny with horror, I don't read a lot now and again get bitten buy the bug. Some of my faves over the years are:






I did enjoy Heart Shaped Box, but think the second half needed editing down quite a lot.

[Tamahome]

I really liked , but I wouldn't call it scary.

[Tacuazin]

Have you tried Fevre Dream?

[Dinre]

Thanks for the suggestions, folks.
I'm halfway into Sandi's suggestion of The Ridge now with Night Strangers coming soon behind. So far, The Ridge's narration is really adding to the creepy atmosphere.
Paul's recommendations seem a little harder to find (excepting It).
Horns sounds like fun for when I'm done with my horror kick.
Fevre Dream I'm looking into, but I can't seem to find an audio book for it.

I'm still open for more suggestions if anyone has them.

[Nevan]

I'm a big fan of H.P. Lovecraft. If you enjoyed Poe, you'll probably have some fun with Lovecraft. His horror is very implicit; you have to do most of the leg-work (or, imagination-work, as it were).

I'd recommend trying 'The Call of Cthulhu,' 'The Mound,' 'The Festival,' and, my all-time-favourite short-story, 'Nyarlathotep.' You should be able to find free e-books with his entire back-catalogue online. If you get into his stories, there's a really solid podcast based on his works. The hosts are knowledgeable, but never condescending, and they always find funny ways to interpret things.

To check off your list:
— He has very little gore.
— His writing is based upon the reader engaging the text and creating the horror for themselves.
— Very little sexuality. (The podcast will explain this omission in better detail than I could here.)
— The writing style, and the brevity of the short stories ensure re-reads.
— The podcast hosts readings, and features audio clips of the stories they're reading, narrated by friends of the show. The narration of Polaris is particularly memorable for me; it's read by a woman with a to-die-for Yorkshire accent.

[Dinre]

An audio podcast of Lovecraft?!? Nevan, you have just utterly destroyed my listening plans for the next several weeks. All 94 episodes are downloading now. I will blame everything on you if my mind is rendered useless by all this audio. I'm already going insane with anticipation as the servers attempt to handle 94 separate download connections... Wait. I think one completed. I gotta go.

[Nevan]

That's exactly how I felt when I discovered the HP Lovecraft Literary Podcast! Of course, I still think they should have called it The HP Lovecast...

I think you'll like the show; they've got a great dynamic that's kind of similar to that of Tom & Veronica (they've been friends for years), and they often get great guests, like S.T. Joshi, the world's foremost Lovecraft scholar. The production values are top-notch, too.

The Polaris episode is probably my favourite. One of them asked a question along the lines of "Why does this guy hate Eskimos so much? He lives in a swamp," and I started laughing out loud in the middle of a grocery store.

[Moroni Granja]

Nice, I'm gonna check it out too! (One at a time, though)

[Stephen]

Dinre wrote: "I have been seriously jonesing for a good horror novel for a while now, and I'm having trouble pinning one down. I am enlisting you, the S&L group, for suggestions.

A little about my preference..."I don't know if others already mentioned this, but I recently finished a book by Stephen King entitled "Danse Macabre" (1987). It is non-fiction, but he talks about the classic works of horror that influenced him as a writer. He also includes a list of his favorites books as an appendix. Even if you are not a fan of his fiction, Stephen King is well informed about this genre. Give it a look, if only to see what books he recommends.

[Dennis]

Since @Nevan mentioned HPPodcraft, I'll also add The Cthulhu Podcast He does a lot of readings of Lovecraft and other horror stories from the same period.

Edit - fixed missing quote