59 Best 「dark」 Books of 2024| Books Explorer
- Tender Is the Flesh
- Tools Of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers
- The Wasp Factory: A Novel
- The Loop
- I'm Thinking of Ending Things: A Novel
- Harvest Home: A Novel
- The White Tiger: A Novel
- Boy Parts
- The Other Black Girl: A Novel
- Let the Right One In
Working at the local processing plant, Marcos is in the business of slaughtering humans—though no one calls them that anymore.His wife has left him, his father is sinking into dementia, and Marcos tries not to think too hard about how he makes a living. After all, it happened so quickly. First, it was reported that an infectious virus has made all animal meat poisonous to humans. Then governments initiated the “Transition.” Now, eating human meat—“special meat”—is legal. Marcos tries to stick to numbers, consignments, processing.Then one day he’s given a gift: a live specimen of the finest quality. Though he’s aware that any form of personal contact is forbidden on pain of death, little by little he starts to treat her like a human being. And soon, he becomes tortured by what has been lost—and what might still be saved.
The latest groundbreaking tome from Tim Ferriss, the #1 New York Times best-selling author of The 4-Hour Workweek.From the author:“For the last two years, I’ve interviewed more than 200 world-class performers for my podcast, The Tim Ferriss Show. The guests range from super celebs (Jamie Foxx, Arnold Schwarzenegger, etc.) and athletes (icons of powerlifting, gymnastics, surfing, etc.) to legendary Special Operations commanders and black-market biochemists. For most of my guests, it’s the first time they’ve agreed to a two-to-three-hour interview. This unusual depth has helped make The Tim Ferriss Show the first business/interview podcast to pass 100 million downloads.“This book contains the distilled tools, tactics, and ‘inside baseball’ you won’t find anywhere else. It also includes new tips from past guests, and life lessons from new ‘guests’ you haven’t met.“What makes the show different is a relentless focus on actionable details. This is reflected in the questions. For example: What do these people do in the first sixty minutes of each morning? What do their workout routines look like, and why? What books have they gifted most to other people? What are the biggest wastes of time for novices in their field? What supplements do they take on a daily basis?“I don’t view myself as an interviewer. I view myself as an experimenter. If I can’t test something and replicate results in the messy reality of everyday life, I’m not interested.“Everything within these pages has been vetted, explored, and applied to my own life in some fashion. I’ve used dozens of the tactics and philosophies in high-stakes negotiations, high-risk environments, or large business dealings. The lessons have made me millions of dollars and saved me years of wasted effort and frustration.“I created this book, my ultimate notebook of high-leverage tools, for myself. It’s changed my life, and I hope the same for you.”
The polarizing literary debut by Scottish author Ian Banks, The Wasp Factory is the bizarre, imaginative, disturbing, and darkly comic look into the mind of a child psychopath.Meet Frank Cauldhame. Just sixteen, and unconventional to say the least:Two years after I killed Blyth I murdered my young brother Paul, for quite different and more fundamental reasons than I'd disposed of Blyth, and then a year after that I did for my young cousin Esmerelda, more or less on a whim.That's my score to date. Three. I haven't killed anybody for years, and don't intend to ever again.It was just a stage I was going through.
The year's most brutal, cinematic thrill ride is also one of its most critically acclaimed novels. Dazed and Confused meets 28 Days Later in this "wickedly entertaining," (Kirkus Reviews) "volcano of a book" (Nathan Ballingrud, author of Wounds) as a lonely young woman teams up with a group of fellow outcasts to survive the night in a town overcome by a science experiment gone wrong.A Best Book of the Month for Den of Geek, Omnivoracious, Mystery & Suspense, and Tor.A Goodreads' 2020 Readers Choice Nominee for Best Horror, and one of the Best Books of 2020 for The Lineup, Booked, and Unsettling Reads.Turner Falls is a small tourist town nestled in the hills of central Oregon. When a terrifying outbreak rapidly develops, this idyllic town becomes the epicenter of an epidemic of violence.The Loop is a "wild and wonderfully scary novel" (Richard Chizmar, author of Gwendy's Magic Feather) that offers a "hilarious and horrifying" (Brian Keene, author of The Rising) look at what one team of misfits can accomplish as they fight to live through the night."[A] harrowing thrill ride of the first order and an uncompromising page-turner, easily securing its spot as one of the best novels of 2020." - Rue Morgue (featured "Dante's Pick" Review)"Like the best of Crichton or Benchley, it is a great beach read, but it is infused with the neon blood of a brave new writer... [A] kind of literary roller coaster. It will take you to thrilling highs and terrifying lows..." - Los Angeles Review of Books"The Loop is the gore-soaked, anxiety-inducing, diabolically funny Richard Linklater/David Cronenberg mashup you never knew you wanted but can't - or at least shouldn't - live without." - The Big Thrill"Unputdownable...Fans of The Twilight Zone, The X-Files, and Stranger Things will be especially thrilled." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)"A satisfyingly dark satire of, well, everything...[a] heart-pounding and deeply unsettling tale." - Booklist"The Loop is a remarkably propulsive novel, cinematic in the best way, with perfectly tuned tension and excellent character choices...a headlong, straightforward pleasure." - Locus"The Loop is the Cronenberg film we never got." - Nathan Ballingrud, author of North American Lake Monsters and Wounds
NOW A NETFLIX ORIGINAL FILM DIRECTED BY CHARLIE KAUFMANAN NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR 2016“I’m Thinking of Ending Things is one of the best debut novels I’ve ever read. Iain Reid has crafted a tight, ferocious little book, with a persistent tenor of suspense that tightens and mounts toward its visionary, harrowing final pages” (Scott Heim, award-winning author of Mysterious Skin and We Disappear).I’m thinking of ending things. Once this thought arrives, it stays. It sticks. It lingers. It’s always there. Always.Jake once said, “Sometimes a thought is closer to truth, to reality, than an action. You can say anything, you can do anything, but you can’t fake a thought.”And here’s what I’m thinking: I don’t want to be here.In this “dark and compelling…unputdownable” (Booklist, starred review) literary thriller, debut novelist Iain Reid explores the depths of the human psyche, questioning consciousness, free will, the value of relationships, fear, and the limitations of solitude. Reminiscent of Jose Saramago’s early work, Michel Faber’s cult classic Under the Skin, and Lionel Shriver’s We Need to Talk about Kevin, I’m Thinking of Ending Things is an edgy, haunting debut. Tense, gripping, and atmospheric, this novel “packs a big psychological punch with a twisty story line and an ending that will leave readers breathless” (Library Journal, starred review).
A family flees the crime-ridden city—and finds something worse—in “a brilliantly imagined horror story” by the New York Times–bestselling author (The Boston Globe).After watching his asthmatic daughter suffer in the foul city air, Theodore Constantine decides to get back to the land. When he and his wife search New England for the perfect nineteenth-century home, they find no township more charming, no countryside more idyllic than the farming village of Cornwall Coombe. Here they begin a new life: simple, pure, close to nature—and ultimately more terrifying than Manhattan’s darkest alley.When the Constantines win the friendship of the town matriarch, the mysterious Widow Fortune, they are invited to join the ancient festival of Harvest Home, a ceremony whose quaintness disguises dark intentions. In this bucolic hamlet, where bootleggers work by moonlight and all of the villagers seem to share the same last name, the past is more present than outsiders can fathom—and something far more sinister than the annual harvest is about to rise out of the earth.Credited as the inspiration for Stephen King’s Children of the Corn, Thomas Tryon’s chilling novel was ahead of its time when first published, and continues to provoke abject terror in readers.
NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTUREThe stunning Booker Prize–winning novel from the author of Amnesty and Selection Day that critics have likened to Richard Wright’s Native Son, The White Tiger follows a darkly comic Bangalore driver through the poverty and corruption of modern India’s caste society. “This is the authentic voice of the Third World, like you've never heard it before” (John Burdett, Bangkok 8).The white tiger of this novel is Balram Halwai, a poor Indian villager whose great ambition leads him to the zenith of Indian business culture, the world of the Bangalore entrepreneur. On the occasion of the president of China’s impending trip to Bangalore, Balram writes a letter to him describing his transformation and his experience as driver and servant to a wealthy Indian family, which he thinks exemplifies the contradictions and complications of Indian society.Recalling The Death of Vishnu and Bangkok 8 in ambition, scope, The White Tiger is narrative genius with a mischief and personality all its own. Amoral, irreverent, deeply endearing, and utterly contemporary, this novel is an international publishing sensation—and a startling, provocative debut.
Now a Hulu Original SeriesINSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERA Good Morning America and Read with Marie Claire Book Club Pick and a People Best Book of SummerNamed a Most Anticipated Book of 2021 by Time, The Washington Post, Harper’s Bazaar, Entertainment Weekly, Marie Claire, Bustle, BuzzFeed, Parade, Goodreads, Fortune, and BBCNamed a Best Book of 2021 by Time, The Washington Post, Esquire, Vogue, Entertainment Weekly, The Boston Globe, Harper’s Bazaar, and NPRUrgent, propulsive, and sharp as a knife, The Other Black Girl is an electric debut about the tension that unfurls when two young Black women meet against the starkly white backdrop of New York City book publishing.Twenty-six-year-old editorial assistant Nella Rogers is tired of being the only Black employee at Wagner Books. Fed up with the isolation and microaggressions, she’s thrilled when Harlem-born and bred Hazel starts working in the cubicle beside hers. They’ve only just started comparing natural hair care regimens, though, when a string of uncomfortable events elevates Hazel to Office Darling, and Nella is left in the dust.Then the notes begin to appear on Nella’s desk: LEAVE WAGNER. NOW.It’s hard to believe Hazel is behind these hostile messages. But as Nella starts to spiral and obsess over the sinister forces at play, she soon realizes that there’s a lot more at stake than just her career.A whip-smart and dynamic thriller and sly social commentary that is perfect for anyone who has ever felt manipulated, threatened, or overlooked in the workplace, The Other Black Girl will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very last twist.
John Ajvide Lindqvist’s international bestseller Let the Right One In is “a brilliant take on the vampire myth, and a roaring good story” (New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong), the basis for the multi-film festival award-winning Swedish film, the U.S. adaptation Let Me In directed by Matt Reeves (The Batman), and the Showtime TV series.It is autumn 1981 when inconceivable horror comes to Blackeberg, a suburb in Sweden. The body of a teenager is found, emptied of blood, the murder rumored to be part of a ritual killing. Twelve-year-old Oskar is personally hoping that revenge has come at long last―revenge for the bullying he endures at school, day after day.But the murder is not the most important thing on his mind. A new girl has moved in next door―a girl who has never seen a Rubik’s Cube before, but who can solve it at once. There is something wrong with her, though, something odd. And she only comes out at night. . .
Now a major motion picture by Lynne Ramsay, starring Tilda Swinton and John C. Reilly, Lionel Shriver’s resonant story of a mother’s unsettling quest to understand her teenage son’s deadly violence, her own ambivalence toward motherhood, and the explosive link between them reverberates with the haunting power of high hopes shattered by dark realities.Like Shriver’s charged and incisive later novels, including So Much for That and The Post-Birthday World, We Need to Talk About Kevin is a piercing, unforgettable, and penetrating exploration of violence, family ties, and responsibility, a book that the Boston Globe describes as “sometimes searing . . . [and] impossible to put down.”
One of the finest and best-selling horror novels of the 1970s returns at last to chill a new generation of readersIn the isolated farming community of Harlowe, New Hampshire, where life has changed little over the past several decades, John Moore and his wife Mim work the land that has been in his family for generations. But from the moment the charismatic Perly Dinsmore arrives in town and starts soliciting donations for his auctions, things begin slowly and insidiously to change in Harlowe. As the auctioneer carries out his terrible, inscrutable plan, the Moores and their neighbors will find themselves gradually but inexorably stripped of their freedom, their possessions, and perhaps even their lives ...A chilling masterpiece of terror whose sense of creeping menace and dread increases page by page, Joan Samson's The Auctioneer (1975) is a rediscovered classic of 20th-century fiction. With echoes of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" and Stephen King's Needful Things, Samson's novel returns to print at last in this long-awaited new edition, which features an introduction by Grady Hendrix (Horrorstör, Paperbacks from Hell) and an afterword by the author's husband."Buy this book ... there is no way to stop reading it, once you've started!" - Baltimore Sun"A well-made piece of dynamite ... For all their talk, the author seems to be saying, men will permit their souls to be carried away bit by bit and auctioned off to the highest bidder. Samson has written a suspenseful, engrossing novel with the most gripping and violent ending we've encountered for some time." - Newsday"A frightening novel . . . a powerful book from a powerful writer." - The Grand Rapids Press"A novel you may never forget . . . a tight classic." - San Diego Tribune"Brilliant, compelling . . . Add a powerful twist at the end and you have a total novel that takes hold of the reader on Page One and never lets go until the finish. This just could prove to be one of the top thrillers of the year." - Dayton News
A teenage girl is held captive and brutally tortured by neighborhood children. Based on a true story, this shocking novel reveals the depravity of which we are all capable.This novel contains graphic content and is recommended for regular readers of horror novels.
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • Set in eighteenth-century France, the classic novel that provokes a terrifying examination of what happens when one man’s indulgence in his greatest passion—his sense of smell—leads to murder.In the slums of eighteenth-century France, the infant Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born with one sublime gift—an absolute sense of smell. As a boy, he lives to decipher the odors of Paris, and apprentices himself to a prominent perfumer who teaches him the ancient art of mixing precious oils and herbs. But Grenouille’s genius is such that he is not satisfied to stop there, and he becomes obsessed with capturing the smells of objects such as brass doorknobs and fresh-cut wood. Then one day he catches a hint of a scent that will drive him on an ever-more-terrifying quest to create the “ultimate perfume”—the scent of a beautiful young virgin. Told with dazzling narrative brilliance, Perfume is a hauntingly powerful tale of murder and sensual depravity.Translated from the German by John E. Woods.
'Witty, stylish and ferociously absorbing' Observer\\nJean-Baptiste Grenouille is abandoned on the filthy streets of eighteenth-century Paris as a baby, but grows up to discover he has an extraordinary gift: a sense of smell more powerful than any other human's. Gradually he learns how to exploit this gift in the art of creating the most sublime perfumes in France. Yet there is one scent he cannot capture: the scent of an innocent young virgin. In order to perfect his experiments, he must have this final ingredient, at any cost. A cult international bestseller, Perfume is a bewitching, darkly humorous fable of desire, obsession and death.
A new translation of Sade’s most notorious, shocking, and influential novel. Winner of the 2017 Scott Moncrieff PrizeThis distressing but hugely important text has influenced countless individuals throughout history: Flaubert and Baudelaire both read Sade; the surrealists were obsessed with him; film-makers like Pasolini saw parallels with twentieth-century history in his writings; and feminists such as Andrea Dworkin and Angela Carter clashed over him. This new translation brings Sade's provocative novel into Penguin Classics for the first time, and will reignite the debate around this most controversial of writers.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
"Deeply, deeply disturbing, hard to put down, not recommended reading after dark." --Stephen KingA tense and gripping reimagining of one of America's most haunting human disasters: the Donner Party with a supernatural twist.Evil is invisible, and it is everywhere. That is the only way to explain the series of misfortunes that have plagued the wagon train known as the Donner Party. Depleted rations, bitter quarrels, and the mysterious death of a little boy have driven the isolated travelers to the brink of madness. Though they dream of what awaits them in the West, long-buried secrets begin to emerge, and dissent among them escalates to the point of murder and chaos, unknowingly propelling them into one of the deadliest and most disastrous Western adventures in American history.As members of the group begin to disappear, the survivors start to wonder if there really is something disturbing, and hungry, waiting for them in the mountains...and whether the evil that has unfolded around them may have in fact been growing within them all along. Effortlessly combining the supernatural and the historical, The Hunger is an eerie, thrilling look at the volatility of human nature, pushed to its breaking point.
“Trumbo sets this story down almost without pause or punctuation and with a fury accounting to eloquence.”—The New York TimesThis was no ordinary war. This was a war to make the world safe for democracy. And if democracy was made safe, then nothing else mattered—not the millions of dead bodies, nor the thousands of ruined lives. . . . This is no ordinary novel. This is a novel that never takes the easy way out: it is shocking, violent, terrifying, horrible, uncompromising, brutal, remorseless and gruesome . . . but so is war.
NOW AN HBO® LIMITED SERIES STARRING AMY ADAMS, NOMINATED FOR EIGHT EMMY AWARDS, INCLUDING OUTSTANDING LIMITED SERIESFROM THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF GONE GIRLFresh from a brief stay at a psych hospital, reporter Camille Preaker faces a troubling assignment: she must return to her tiny hometown to cover the murders of two preteen girls. For years, Camille has hardly spoken to her neurotic, hypochondriac mother or to the half-sister she barely knows: a beautiful thirteen-year-old with an eerie grip on the town. Now, installed in her old bedroom in her family's Victorian mansion, Camille finds herself identifying with the young victims—a bit too strongly. Dogged by her own demons, she must unravel the psychological puzzle of her own past if she wants to get the story—and survive this homecoming.Praise for Sharp Objects“Nasty, addictive reading.”—Chicago Tribune“Skillful and disturbing.”—Washington Post“Darkly original . . . [a] riveting tale.”—People
One of Ray Bradbury’s best-known and most popular novels, Something Wicked This Way Comes, now featuring a new introduction and material about its longstanding influence on culture and genre.For those who still dream and remember, for those yet to experience the hypnotic power of its dark poetry, step inside. The show is about to begin. Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show has come to Green Town, Illinois, to destroy every life touched by its strange and sinister mystery. The carnival rolls in sometime after midnight, ushering in Halloween a week early. A calliope’s shrill siren song beckons to all with a seductive promise of dreams and youth regained. Two boys will discover the secret of its smoke, mazes, and mirrors; two friends who will soon know all too well the heavy cost of wishes…and the stuff of nightmares.Few novels have endured in the heart and memory as has Ray Bradbury’s unparalleled literary masterpiece Something Wicked This Way Comes. Scary and suspenseful, it is a timeless classic in the American canon.
Soon To Be A Netflix Film Directed By Charlie Kaufman. Jake And His Girlfriend Are On A Drive To Visit His Parents At Their Remote Farm. After Dinner At The Family Home, Things Begin To Get Worryingly Strange. And When He Leaves Her Stranded In A Snowstorm At An Abandoned High School Later That Night, What Follows Is A Chilling Exploration Of Psychological Frailty And The Limitations Of Reality. Iain Reid’s Intense, Suspenseful Debut Novel Will Have Readers’ Nerves Jangling. A Series Of Tiny Clues Sprinkled Through The Relentlessly Paced Narrative Culminate In A Haunting Twist On The Final Page. Reminiscent Of Michael Faber’s Under The Skin, Stephen King’s Misery And The Novels Of José Saramago, I’m Thinking Of Ending Things Is An Astonishing And Highly Original Literary Thriller That Grabs You From The Start—and Never Lets Go.
The first four stories are loosely connected by three main devices:A fictional play in book form entitled The King in YellowA mysterious and malevolent supernatural entity known as The King in YellowAn eerie symbol called The Yellow SignThese stories are macabre in tone, centering, in keeping with the other tales, on characters that are often artists or decadents. The first and fourth stories, "The Repairer of Reputations" and "The Yellow Sign", are set in an imagined future 1920s America, whereas the second and third stories, "The Mask" and "In the Court of the Dragon", are set in Paris. These stories are haunted by the theme: "Have you found the Yellow Sign?"The weird and macabre character gradually fades away during the remaining stories, and the last three are written in the romantic fiction style common to Chambers' later work. They are all linked to the preceding stories by their Parisian setting and artistic protagonists.
"Amongst the Top 50 Horror Books of All Time" - CosmopolitanThree dark and disturbing horror stories from an astonishing new voice, including the viral-sensation tale of obsession, Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke. For fans of Kathe Koja, Clive Barker and Stephen Graham Jones. Winner of the Splatterpunk Award for Best Novella.A whirlpool of darkness churns at the heart of a macabre ballet between two lonely young women in an internet chat room in the early 2000s—a darkness that threatens to forever transform them once they finally succumb to their most horrific desires.A couple isolate themselves on a remote island in an attempt to recover from their teenage son’s death, when a mysterious young man knocks on their door during a storm…And a man confronts his neighbour when he discovers a strange object in his back yard, only to be drawn into an ever-more dangerous game.Three devastating, beautifully written horror stories from one of the genre’s most cutting-edge voices.What have you done today to deserve your eyes?
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A searing, post-apocalyptic novel about a father and son's fight to survive, this "tale of survival and the miracle of goodness only adds to McCarthy's stature as a living master. It's gripping, frightening and, ultimately, beautiful" (San Francisco Chronicle). • From the bestselling author of The PassengerA father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don't know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.The Roadis the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, "each the other's world entire," are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.Look for Cormac McCarthy's latest bestselling novels, The Passenger and Stella Maris.
**The international bestseller and the book behind the film and play Let Me In**'The new Stephen King' The TimesOskar and Eli. In very different ways, they were both victims. Which is why, against the odds, they became friends. And how they came to depend on one another, for life itself.Oskar is a 12-year-old boy living with his mother on a dreary housing estate at the city's edge. He dreams about his absentee father, gets bullied at school, and wets himself when he's frightened.Eli is the young girl who moves in next door. She doesn't go to school and never leaves the flat by day. She is a 200-year-old vampire, forever frozen in childhood, and condemned to live on a diet of fresh blood.John Ajvide Lindqvist's novel is a unique and brilliant fusion of social novel and vampire legend, a deeply moving fable about rejection, friendship and loyalty.
NATIONAL BESTSELLERSoon to be a major motion picture"Jon Swift + Witches of Eastwick + Kelly 'Get In Trouble' Link + Mean Girls + Creative Writing Degree Hell! No punches pulled, no hilarities dodged, no meme unmangled! O Bunny you are sooo genius!" —Margaret Atwood, via Twitter"A wild, audacious and ultimately unforgettable novel." —Michael Schaub, Los Angeles Times"Awad is a stone-cold genius." —Ann Bauer, The Washington PostThe Vegetarian meets Heathers in this darkly funny, seductively strange novel from the acclaimed author of 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl and Rouge"We were just these innocent girls in the night trying to make something beautiful. We nearly died. We very nearly did, didn't we?"Samantha Heather Mackey couldn't be more of an outsider in her small, highly selective MFA program at New England's Warren University. A scholarship student who prefers the company of her dark imagination to that of most people, she is utterly repelled by the rest of her fiction writing cohort--a clique of unbearably twee rich girls who call each other "Bunny," and seem to move and speak as one.But everything changes when Samantha receives an invitation to the Bunnies' fabled "Smut Salon," and finds herself inexplicably drawn to their front door--ditching her only friend, Ava, in the process. As Samantha plunges deeper and deeper into the Bunnies' sinister yet saccharine world, beginning to take part in the ritualistic off-campus "Workshop" where they conjure their monstrous creations, the edges of reality begin to blur. Soon, her friendships with Ava and the Bunnies will be brought into deadly collision.The spellbinding new novel from one of our most fearless chroniclers of the female experience, Bunny is a down-the-rabbit-hole tale of loneliness and belonging, friendship and desire, and the fantastic and terrible power of the imagination.Named a Best Book of 2019 by TIME, Vogue, Electric Literature, and The New York Public Library
\nImagine, for a moment, the worst crimes against humanity. Picture the cruelest affronts to decency. Conjure your darkest nightmares... and then realize it could all be so much worse. When civilization crumbles in one terrifying moment; when people are gleefully breaking into unthinkable acts of violence all around you; when everyone you love has died screaming in agony: What do you do? There is no help. There is no hope. There is no escape. There are only the Crossed. Garth Ennis has pulled out all the stops to write the most depraved and twisted book of his career, one that also may be his most poignant human drama! Crossed is Ennis' horrifically visceral exploration of the pure evil that humans are truly capable of indulging and collected here are all ten heart-stopping chapters. This gut-wrenching vision is brought to vivid (and more than a little disturbing) life by his partner in crime Jacen Burrows.\n
Sarah Crowe left Atlanta—and the remnants of a tumultuous relationship—to live in an old house in rural Rhode Island. Within its walls she discovers an unfinished manuscript written by the house’s former tenant—an anthropologist obsessed with the ancient oak growing on a desolate corner of the property.Tied to local legends of supernatural magic, as well as documented accidents and murders, the gnarled tree takes root in Sarah’s imagination, prompting her to write her own account of its unsavory history.And as the oak continues to possess her dreams and nearly almost all her waking thoughts, Sarah risks her health and her sanity to unearth a revelation planted centuries ago…
‘Few could sustain the glance of his eye, at once fiery and penetrating’Savaged by critics for its supposed profanity and obscenity, and bought in large numbers by readers eager to see whether it lived up to its lurid reputation, The Monk became a succès de scandale when it was published in 1796 – not least because its author was a member of parliament and only twenty years old. It recounts the diabolical decline of Ambrosio, a Capuchin superior, who succumbs first to temptations offered by a young girl who has entered his monastery disguised as a boy, and continues his descent with increasingly depraved acts of sorcery, murder, incest and torture. Combining sensationalism with acute psychological insight, this masterpiece of Gothic fiction is a powerful exploration of how violent and erotic impulses can break through the barriers of social and moral restraint.This edition is based on the first edition of 1796, which appeared before Lewis’s revisions to avoid charges of blasphemy. In his introduction, Christopher MacLachlan discusses the novel’s place within the Gothic genre, and its themes of sexual desire and the abuse of power.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
The Vegetarian meets Heathers in this darkly funny, seductively strange novel about a lonely graduate student drawn into a clique of rich girls.\n'We were just these innocent girls in the night trying to make something beautiful. We nearly died. We very nearly did, didn't we?'\nSamantha Heather Mackey couldn't be more of an outsider in her small, highly selective MFA program at New England's Warren University. A scholarship student who prefers the company of her dark imagination to that of most people, she is utterly repelled by the rest of her fiction writing cohort – a clique of unbearably twee rich girls who call each other 'Bunny', and are often found entangled in a group hug so tight they become one.\nBut everything changes when Samantha receives an invitation to the Bunnies' fabled 'Smut Salon', and finds herself inexplicably drawn to their front door – ditching her only friend, Ava, in the process. As Samantha plunges deeper and deeper into the sinister yet saccharine world of the Bunnies, the edges of reality begin to blur, and her friendships with Ava and the Bunnies are brought into deadly collision.\nA spellbinding, down-the-rabbit-hole tale of loneliness and belonging, creativity and agency, and friendship and desire, Bunny is the dazzlingly original second book from the author of 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl.
THE MIND-BENDING CULT CLASSIC ABOUT A HOUSE THAT’S LARGER ON THE INSIDE THAN ON THE OUTSIDE • A masterpiece of horror and an astonishingly immersive, maze-like reading experience that redefines the boundaries of a novel.''Simultaneously reads like a thriller and like a strange, dreamlike excursion into the subconscious." —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times"Thrillingly alive, sublimely creepy, distressingly scary, breathtakingly intelligent—it renders most other fiction meaningless." —Bret Easton Ellis, bestselling author of American Psycho“This demonically brilliant book is impossible to ignore.” —Jonathan Lethem, award-winning author of Motherless BrooklynOne of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 YearsYears ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth—musicians, tattoo artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline junkies—the book eventually made its way into the hands of older generations, who not only found themselves in those strangely arranged pages but also discovered a way back into the lives of their estranged children.Now made available in book form, complete with the original colored words, vertical footnotes, and second and third appendices, the story remains unchanged. Similarly, the cultural fascination with House of Leaves remains as fervent and as imaginative as ever. The novel has gone on to inspire doctorate-level courses and masters theses, cultural phenomena like the online urban legend of “the backrooms,” and incredible works of art in entirely unrealted mediums from music to video games.Neither Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson nor his companion Karen Green was prepared to face the consequences of the impossibility of their new home, until the day their two little children wandered off and their voices eerily began to return another story—of creature darkness, of an ever-growing abyss behind a closet door, and of that unholy growl which soon enough would tear through their walls and consume all their dreams.
Seven stunning stories of speculative fiction by the author of A Boy and His Dog.In a post-apocalyptic world, four men and one woman are all that remain of the human race, brought to near extinction by an artificial intelligence. Programmed to wage war on behalf of its creators, the AI became self-aware and turned against humanity. The five survivors are prisoners, kept alive and subjected to brutal torture by the hateful and sadistic machine in an endless cycle of violence.This story and six more groundbreaking and inventive tales that probe the depths of mortal experience prove why Grand Master of Science Fiction Harlan Ellison has earned the many accolades to his credit and remains one of the most original voices in American literature.I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream also includes “Big Sam Was My Friend,” “Eyes of Dust,” “World of the Myth,” “Lonelyache,” Hugo Award finalist “Delusion for a Dragon Slayer,” and Hugo and Nebula Award finalist “Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes.”
Shocking banned and the subject of obscenity trials Henry Millers first novel Tropic of Cancer is one of the most scandalous and influential books of the twentieth century new to Penguin Modern Classics with a cover by Tracey Emin Tropic of Cancer redefined the novel Set in Paris in the 1930s it features a starving American writer who lives a bohemian life among prostitutes pimps and artists Banned in the US and the UK for more than thirty years because it was considered pornographic Tropic of Cancer continued to be distributed in France and smuggled into other countries When it was first published in the US in 1961 it led to more than 60 obscenity trials until a historic ruling by the Supreme Court defined it as a work of literature Long hailed as a truly liberating book daring and uncompromising Tropic of Cancer is a cornerstone of modern literature that asks us to reconsider everything we know about art freedom and morality At last an unprintable book that is fit to read Ezra Pound
Natsuki isn't like the other girls. She has a wand and a transformation mirror. She might be a witch, or an alien from another planet. Together with her cousin Yuu, Natsuki spends her summers in the wild mountains of Nagano, dreaming of other worlds. When a terrible sequence of events threatens to part the two children forever, they make a promise: survive, no matter what. Now Natsuki is grown. She lives a quiet life with her asexual husband, surviving as best she can by pretending to be normal. But the demands of Natsuki's family are increasing, her friends wonder why she's still not pregnant, and dark shadows from Natsuki's childhood are pursuing her. Fleeing the suburbs for the mountains of her childhood, Natsuki prepares herself with a reunion with Yuu. Will he still remember their promise? And will he help her keep it?
The award-winning author of the Hexslinger Series “explores the world of film and horror in a way that will leave you reeling” (Jeff VanderMeer, author of the Southern Reach Trilogy).Former film teacher Lois Cairns is struggling to raise her autistic son while freelancing as a critic when, at a screening, she happens upon a sampled piece of silver nitrate silent footage. She is able to connect it to the early work of Mrs. Iris Dunlopp Whitcomb, the spiritualist and collector of fairy tales who mysteriously disappeared from a train compartment in 1918.Hoping to make her own mark on the film world, Lois embarks on a project to prove that Whitcomb was Canada’s first female filmmaker. But her research takes her down a path not of darkness but of light—the blinding and searing light of a fairy tale made flesh, a noontime demon who demands that duty must be paid. As Lois discovers terrifying parallels between her own life and that of Mrs. Whitcomb, she begins to fear not just for herself, but for those closest to her heart.Winner of the Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novel“One of the standout horror novels of 2015 . . . From an author who has already established herself as one of the genre’s most original and innovative voices, Experimental Film is a remarkable achievement.” —Los Angeles Review of Books“Experimental Film represents the next, significant contribution to what is emerging as one of the most interesting and exciting bodies of work currently being produced in the horror field. Every film, Lois Cairns writes, is an experiment. The same might be said of every novel. This one succeeds, wildly.” —Locus“Experimental Film is sensational. When we speak of the best in contemporary horror and weird fiction, we must speak of Gemma Files.” —Laird Barron“[Experimental Film is] truly unnerving. This is a too-often overlooked postmodern gem.” —Esquire, “The 50 Best Horror Books of All Time”
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the New York Times bestselling author of American Psycho and Less Than Zero comes a chilling tale that combines reality, memoir, and fantasy to create a fascinating portrait of this most controversial writer but also a deeply moving novel about love and loss, parents and children, and ultimately forgiveness.“John Cheever writes The Shining.” —Stephen King, Entertainment WeeklyBret Ellis, the narrator of Lunar Park, is the bestselling writer whose first novel Less Than Zero catapulted him to international stardom while he was still in college. In the years that followed he found himself adrift in a world of wealth, drugs, and fame, as well as dealing with the unexpected death of his abusive father.After a decade of decadence a chance for salvation arrives; the chance to reconnect with an actress he was once involved with, and their son. But almost immediately his new life is threatened by a freak sequence of events and a bizarre series of murders that all seem to connect to Ellis’s past. His attempts to save his new world from his own demons makes Lunar Park Ellis’s most suspenseful novel.Look for Bret Easton Ellis’s new novel, The Shards!
Dazzling . . . In this extremely creepy book, Hayder’s third, the diabolically gifted British author spins a fascinating mystery from the legacy of Japanese atrocities during World War II.”Entertainment WeeklyA haunting, lyrical, disturbing, important, suspenseful, wonderfully written and beautiful book. You will love reading it, and you will not soon forget the experience.”Harlan CobenGrey has a lot to prove and even more to hide. A young Englishwoman obsessed with a past she cannot understand, she has come to Tokyo following rumors of a rare piece of film footage shot during the notorious Nanking Massacre in 1937, which has been lost for decades. But the only man who can help, a survivor of the massacre and now a visiting professor at a prestigious Tokyo university, will have nothing to do with her. Increasingly desperate in an alien city, Grey accepts a job as a hostess in an upmarket nightspot catering to Japanese businessmen and wealthy yakuza, where one gangsteran old man in a wheelchair surrounded by a terrifying entourage, rumored to rely on a powerful elixir for his continued healthmight be the key to the answers Grey seeks. Taut and gritty, with the redolent atmosphere of Ian Rankin and the spine-tingling characters of Thomas Harris, The Devil of Nanking is a tour de force that confirms Mo Hayder as a thriller writer of the first order.Wrenching . . . A beautifully controlled thriller about culture clash . . . Scary.”Douglas Wolk, The New York Times Book ReviewThere is a terrible beauty to both narratives as they unfold toward an agonizing but inevitable conclusion, with the two stories dovetailing exquisitely . . . The Devil of Nanking just may be one of the best books of the year.”Tom and Enid Schantz, The Denver Post
"Sulphuric Acid" tells the story of a reality TV death camp, which has become the nation's obsession - an amoral spectacle played out through the media. It is a blackly funny and shocking satire on the modern predilection for reality television and celebrity, in which the audience at home develops a taste for blood.
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • In this modern classic, the acclaimed author of The Shards explores the incomprehensible depths of madness and captures the insanity of violence in our time or any other."A seminal book.” —The Washington PostOne of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 YearsPatrick Bateman moves among the young and trendy in 1980s Manhattan. Young, handsome, and well educated, Bateman earns his fortune on Wall Street by day while spending his nights in ways we cannot begin to fathom. Expressing his true self through torture and murder, Bateman prefigures an apocalyptic horror that no society could bear to confront.“A masterful satire and a ferocious, hilarious, ambitious, inspiring piece of writing.... An important book.” —Katherine Dunn, bestselling author of Geek LoveLook for Bret Easton Ellis’s latest novel, The Shards!
One of NPR's Best Books of 2016, winner of the Shirley Jackson Award, the British Fantasy Award, the This is Horror Award for Novella of the Year, and a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, World Fantasy, and Bram Stoker AwardsPeople move to New York looking for magic and nothing will convince them it isn't there.Charles Thomas Tester hustles to put food on the table, keep the roof over his father's head, from Harlem to Flushing Meadows to Red Hook. He knows what magic a suit can cast, the invisibility a guitar case can provide, and the curse written on his skin that attracts the eye of wealthy white folks and their cops. But when he delivers an occult tome to a reclusive sorceress in the heart of Queens, Tom opens a door to a deeper realm of magic, and earns the attention of things best left sleeping.A storm that might swallow the world is building in Brooklyn. Will Black Tom live to see it break?"LaValle's novella of sorcery and skullduggery in Jazz Age New York is a magnificent example of what weird fiction can and should do."― Laird Barron, author of The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All"[LaValle] reinvents outmoded literary conventions, particularly the ghettos of genre and ethnicity that long divided serious literature from popular fiction."― Praise for The Devil in Silver from Elizabeth Hand, author of Radiant Days“LaValle cleverly subverts Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos by imbuing a black man with the power to summon the Old Ones, and creates genuine chills with his evocation of the monstrous Sleeping King, an echo of Lovecraft’s Dagon… [The Ballad of Black Tom] has a satisfying slingshot ending.” – Elizabeth Hand for Fantasy & ScienceFiction
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ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 BEST MYSTERY AND THRILLER BOOKS OF ALL TIME • Winner of Japan's Grand Prix for Crime Fiction • Edgar Award Finalist • Nothing in Japanese literature prepares us for the stark, tension-filled, plot-driven realism of Natsuo Kirino’s award-winning literary mystery Out.This mesmerizing novel tells the story of a brutal murder in the staid Tokyo suburbs, as a young mother who works the night shift making boxed lunches strangles her abusive husband and then seeks the help of her coworkers to dispose of the body and cover up her crime. The coolly intelligent Masako emerges as the plot’s ringleader, but quickly discovers that this killing is merely the beginning, as it leads to a terrifying foray into the violent underbelly of Japanese society.At once a masterpiece of literary suspense and pitch-black comedy of gender warfare, Out is also a moving evocation of the pressures and prejudices that drive women to extreme deeds, and the friendships that bolster them in the aftermath.
“A book that demands to be read in a single sitting, and through the cracks between one’s fingers. There has never been a horror story quite like this. Josh Malerman truly delivers.” — Hugh Howey, New York Times bestselling author of WoolWritten with the narrative tension of The Road and the exquisite terror of classic Stephen King, Bird Box is a propulsive, edge-of-your-seat horror thriller, set in an apocalyptic near-future world—a masterpiece of suspense from the brilliantly imaginative Josh Malerman.Something is out there . . .Something terrifying that must not be seen. One glimpse and a person is driven to deadly violence. No one knows what it is or where it came from.Five years after it began, a handful of scattered survivors remain, including Malorie and her two young children. Living in an abandoned house near the river, she has dreamed of fleeing to a place where they might be safe. Now, that the boy and girl are four, it is time to go. But the journey ahead will be terrifying: twenty miles downriver in a rowboat—blindfolded—with nothing to rely on but her wits and the children’s trained ears. One wrong choice and they will die. And something is following them. But is it man, animal, or monster?Engulfed in darkness, surrounded by sounds both familiar and frightening, Malorie embarks on a harrowing odyssey—a trip that takes her into an unseen world and back into the past, to the companions who once saved her. Under the guidance of the stalwart Tom, a motely group of strangers banded together against the unseen terror, creating order from the chaos. But when supplies ran low, they were forced to venture outside—and confront the ultimate question: in a world gone mad, who can really be trusted?Interweaving past and present, Malerman’s breathtaking debut is a horrific and gripping snapshot of a world unraveled that will have you racing to the final page.
About the Author\\nMissouri Williams is a writer and editor who lives in London. Her work has appeared in The Nation, The Baffler, The Believer, Granta, and Five Dials. The Doloriad is her first book.\\n"[The Doloriad] just might be what your rotten little heart deserves." ―J. Robert Lennon, The New York Times Book Review\\nOne of Vulture's Best Books of 2022 (So Far). Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2022 by i-D, Cosmopolitan, Thrillist, Lit Reactor, and Lit Hub, and one of Nylon's March 2022 Books to Add to Your Reading List\\nMacabre, provocative, depraved, and unforgettable, The Doloriad marks the debut of Missouri Williams, a terrifyingly original new voice\\nIn the wake of a mysterious environmental cataclysm that has wiped out the rest of humankind, the Matriarch, her brother, and the family descended from their incest cling to existence on the edges of a deserted city. The Matriarch, ruling with fear and force, dreams of starting humanity over again, though her children are not so certain. Together the family scavenges supplies and attempts to cultivate the poisoned earth. For entertainment, they watch old VHS tapes of a TV show in which a problem-solving medieval saint faces down a sequence of logical and ethical dilemmas. But one day the Matriarch dreams of another group of survivors and sends away one of her daughters, the legless Dolores, as a marriage offering. When Dolores returns the next day, her reappearance triggers the breakdown of the Matriarch’s fragile order, and the control she wields over their sprawling family begins to weaken.\\nTold in extraordinary, intricate prose that moves with a life of its own, and at times striking with the power of physical force, Missouri Williams’s debut novel is a blazingly original document of depravity and salvation. Gothic and strange, moving and disquieting, and often hilarious, The Doloriad stares down, with narrowed eyes, humanity’s unbreakable commitment to life.
Some doors are better left closed—a sophisticated, spine-chilling horror novel from the author of Last DaysIn Barrington House, an upmarket block in London, there is an empty apartment. No one goes in and no one comes out, and it's been that way for 50 years, until the night a watchman hears a disturbance after midnight and is drawn to investigate. What he experiences is enough to change his life forever. Soon after, a young American woman, Apryl, arrives at Barrington House. She's been left an apartment by her mysterious Great Aunt Lillian who died in strange circumstances. Rumors claim Lillian was mad, but her diary suggests she was implicated in a horrific and inexplicable event decades ago. Determined to learn something of this eccentric woman, Apryl begins to unravel the hidden story of Barrington House. She discovers that a transforming, evil force still inhabits the building, and that the doorway to Apartment 16 is a gateway to something altogether more terrifying.
Vampires . . . they ache, they love, they thirst for the forbidden. They are your friends and lovers, and your worst fears.“A major new voice in horror fiction . . . an electric style and no shortage of nerve.”—BooklistAt a club in Missing Mile, N.C., the children of the night gather, dressed in black, look for acceptance. Among them are Ghost, who sees what others do not; Ann, longing for love; and Jason, whose real name is Nothing, newly awakened to an ancient, deathless truth about his father, and himself.Others are coming to Missing Mile tonight. Three beautiful, hip vagabonds—Molochai, Twig, and the seductive Zillah, whose eyes are as green as limes—are on their own lost journey, slaking their ancient thirst for blood, looking for supple young flesh.They find it in Nothing and Ann, leading them on a mad, illicit road trip south to New Orleans. Over miles of dark highway, Ghost pursues, his powers guiding him on a journey to reach his destiny, to save Ann from her new companions, to save Nothing from himself. . . .“An important and original work . . . a gritty, highly literate blend of brutality and sentiment, hope and despair.”—Science Fiction Chronicle
Celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the enduring gothic masterpiece Flowers in the Attic—the unforgettable forbidden love story that earned V.C. Andrews a fiercely devoted fan base and became an international cult classic.At the top of the stairs there are four secrets hidden—blond, innocent, and fighting for their lives…They were a perfect and beautiful family—until a heartbreaking tragedy shattered their happiness. Now, for the sake of an inheritance that will ensure their future, the children must be hidden away out of sight, as if they never existed. They are kept in the attic of their grandmother’s labyrinthine mansion, isolated and alone. As the visits from their seemingly unconcerned mother slowly dwindle, the four children grow ever closer and depend upon one another to survive both this cramped world and their cruel grandmother. A suspenseful and thrilling tale of family, greed, murder, and forbidden love, Flowers in the Attic is the unputdownable first novel of the epic Dollanganger family saga.The Dollanganger series includes: Flowers in the Attic, Petals in the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, Garden of Shadows, Beneath the Attic, and Out of the Attic.
One of Literary Hub's Favorite Books of the Year "Seethingly assured...like all the best horror, [Follow Me to Ground] is an impressive balancing act between judicious withholding and unnerving reveals." --The Guardian A "legitimately frightening" (The New York Times Book Review) debut novel about an otherworldly young woman, her father, and her lover that culminates in a shocking moment of betrayal. "You've never encountered a father-daughter story like Rainsford's slim debut" (Entertainment Weekly). Ada and her father, touched by the power to heal illness, live on the edge of a village where they help sick locals--or "Cures"--by cracking open their damaged bodies or temporarily burying them in the reviving, dangerous Ground nearby. Ada, a being both more and less than human, is mostly uninterested in the Cures, until she meets a man named Samson--and they quickly strike up an affair. Soon, Ada is torn between her old way of life and new possibilities with her lover, and eventually she comes to a decision that will forever change Samson, the town, and the Ground itself. "Visceral in its descriptions...this unworldly story is a well-crafted and eerie exploration of desire...beautifully intoxicating" (Shelf Awareness). In Ada, award-winning author Sue Rainsford has created an utterly bewitching heroine, one who challenges conventional ideas of womanhood and the secrets of the body. "A triumph of imagination and myth-bending...equal parts beauty and horror [Follow Me to Ground is] unlike anything you will read this year" (Téa Obreht).
A collection of powerful stories by one of the masters of Russian literature, illustrating Fyodor Dostoyevsky's thoughts on political philosophy, religion and above all, humanity.From the primitive peasant who kills without understanding that he is destroying a human life, to the anxious antihero of Notes From Underground—a man who both craves and despises affection—this volume and its often-tormented characters showcase Dostoyevsky’s evolving outlook on man’s fate. The compelling works presented here were written at distinct periods in the author’s life, at decisive moments in his groping for a political philosophy and a religious answer. Thomas Mann described Dostoyevsky as “an author whose Christian sympathy is ordinarily devoted to human misery, sin, vice, the depths of lust and crime, rather than to nobility of body and soul”—and Notes From Underground as “an awe-and-terror-inspiring example of this sympathy.”Translated and with an Afterword by Andrew R. MacAndrewWith an Introduction by Ben Marcus
The spellbinding classic that started it all, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author—the inspiration for the hit television series“A magnificent, compulsively readable thriller . . . Rice begins where Bram Stoker and the Hollywood versions leave off and penetrates directly to the true fascination of the myth—the education of the vampire.”—Chicago TribuneHere are the confessions of a vampire. Hypnotic, shocking, and chillingly sensual, this is a novel of mesmerizing beauty and astonishing force—a story of danger and flight, of love and loss, of suspense and resolution, and of the extraordinary power of the senses. It is a novel only Anne Rice could write.
A recurrent, unidentifiable noise in her apartment. A memo to her boss that's replaced by obscene insults. Amanda—a successful architect in a happy marriage—finds her life going off kilter by degrees. She starts smoking again, and one night for no reason, without even the knowledge that she's doing it, she burns her husband with a cigarette. At night she dreams of a beautiful woman with pointed teeth on the shore of a blood-red sea.The new voice in Amanda's head, the one that tells her to steal things and talk to strange men in bars, is strange and frightening, and Amanda struggles to wrest back control of her life. A book on demon possession suggests that the figure on the shore could be the demon Naamah, known to scholars of the Kabbalah as the second wife of Adam, who stole into his dreams and tricked him into fathering her child. Whatever the case, as the violence of her erratic behavior increases, Amanda knows that she must act to put her life right, or see it destroyed.
Haunted is a novel made up of twenty-three horrifying, hilarious, and stomach-churning stories. They’re told by people who have answered an ad for a writer’s retreat and unwittingly joined a “Survivor”-like scenario where the host withholds heat, power, and food. As the storytellers grow more desperate, their tales become more extreme, and they ruthlessly plot to make themselves the hero of the reality show that will surely be made from their plight. This is one of the most disturbing and outrageous books you’ll ever read, one that could only come from the mind of Chuck Palahniuk.
An unparalleled picture of that vibrant but dark intersection where the Old and the New South collide.Thirtysomething Colquitt and Walter Kennedy live in a charming, peaceful suburb of newly bustling Atlanta, Georgia. Life is made up of enjoyable work, long, lazy weekends, and the company of good neighbors. Then, to their shock, construction starts on the vacant lot next door, a wooded hillside they'd believed would always remain undeveloped. Disappointed by their diminished privacy, Colquitt and Walter soon realize something more is wrong with the house next door. Surely the house can’t be haunted, yet it seems to destroy the goodness of every person who comes to live in it, until the entire heart of this friendly neighborhood threatens to be torn apart.
The creeping horror of Paul Tremblay meets Tommy Orange’s There There in a dark novel of revenge, cultural identity, and the cost of breaking from tradition in this latest novel from the Jordan Peele of horror literature, Stephen Graham Jones.Seamlessly blending classic horror and a dramatic narrative with sharp social commentary, The Only Good Indians follows four American Indian men after a disturbing event from their youth puts them in a desperate struggle for their lives. Tracked by an entity bent on revenge, these childhood friends are helpless as the culture and traditions they left behind catch up to them in a violent, vengeful way.
Heart of Darkness (1899) is a short novel by Polish novelist Joseph Conrad, written as a frame narrative, about Charles Marlow's experience as an ivory transporter down the Congo River in Central Africa. The river is "a mighty big river, that you could see on the map, resembling an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country, and its tail lost in the depths of the land". In the course of his travel in central Africa, Marlow becomes obsessed with Mr. Kurtz. The story is a complex exploration of the attitudes people hold on what constitutes a barbarian versus a civilized society and the attitudes on colonialism and racism that were part and parcel of European imperialism. Originally published as a three-part serial story, in Blackwood's Magazine, the novella Heart of Darkness has been variously published and translated into many languages. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Heart of Darkness as the sixty-seventh of the hundred best novels in English of the twentieth century.
The most famous and controversial novel from one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century tells the story of Humbert Humbert’s obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze.“The conjunction of a sense of humor with a sense of horror [results in] satire of a very special kind.”—The New YorkerOne of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 YearsAwe and exhilaration—along with heartbreak and mordant wit—abound in Lolita, which tells the story of the aging Humbert Humbert's obsession for the nymphet Dolores Haze. Lolita is also the story of a hypercivilized European colliding with the cheerful barbarism of postwar America.Most of all, it is a meditation on love—love as outrage and hallucination, madness and transformation.
Now a Netflix movie directed by Mike Flanagan (Oculus, Hush) and starring Carla Gugino and Bruce Greenwood.Master storyteller Stephen King presents this classic, terrifying #1 New York Times bestseller. When a game of seduction between a husband and wife ends in death, the nightmare has only begun…“And now the voice which spoke belonged to no one but herself. Oh my God, it said. Oh my God, I am all alone out here. I am all alone.”Once again, Jessie Burlingame has been talked into submitting to her husband Gerald’s kinky sex games—something that she’s frankly had enough of, and they never held much charm for her to begin with. So much for a “romantic getaway” at their secluded summer home. After Jessie is handcuffed to the bedposts—and Gerald crosses a line with his wife—the day ends with deadly consequences. Now Jessie is utterly trapped in an isolated lakeside house that has become her prison—and comes face-to-face with her deepest, darkest fears and memories. Her only company is that of the various voices filling her mind…as well as the shadows of nightfall that may conceal an imagined or very real threat right there with her…
Created by Kentaro Miura, Berserk is manga mayhem to the extreme - violent, horrifying, and mercilessly funny - and the wellspring for the internationally popular anime series. Not for the squeamish or the easily offended, Berserk asks for no quarter - and offers none!His name is Guts, the Black Swordsman, a feared warrior spoken of only in whispers. Bearer of a gigantic sword, an iron hand, and the scars of countless battles and tortures, his flesh is also indelibly marked with The Brand, an unholy symbol that draws the forces of darkness to him and dooms him as their sacrifice. But Guts won't take his fate lying down; he'll cut a crimson swath of carnage through the ranks of the damned - and anyone else foolish enough to oppose him! Accompanied by Puck the Elf, more an annoyance than a companion, Guts relentlessly follows a dark, bloodstained path that leads only to death...or vengeance.