>TQWhat is your favourite 80s horror paperback?
>>25517283The House Across the Way by Brian McNaughton
>>25517283It's hard to choose between The Elementals by Michael McDowell, In a Lonely Place by Karl Edward Wagner, and Books of Blood by Clive Barker.
>>25517462Books of Blood is a excellent choice. For me it's cabal.
This was extremely good
>>25517522I haven't read Cabal yet; only Books of Blood and The Hellbound Heart (and they're both great). I do want to read Cabal at some point, and I've got a copy of The Damnation Game I want to read sometime this year.
>>25517667
Not misinterpreting OP as "favorite horror novel" like everyone else, I got this at a used book store for a buck and found it quite charming
Splatterpunk/Extreme Horror is disgusting and I lump the same sort of people who read it with those who only read "romantasy" garbage, but with worse things on their hard drives
People think I'm just being a contrarian faggotlord, but really, ITMOM is a terrible Carpenter flick, and his greatest achievement remains Prince of Darkness.
>>25518199But what about horror books, though?
>>25518199Prince of Darkness sucks. but don't take my word for it!
>>25517283>In the mouth of madness>Down in the darkness>No more tomorrow>Down in the hollow
Bleh!
>>25517558I started Sleeping Beauties today. It's good so far. You can really tell which parts were written by Stephen and what ones were by Owen. I'm getting back into King lately after taking a long sabbatical but I heard Revival was one of his better newer ones.
I just finished Intimations of Death (1910), by Felix Timmermans. It's originally written in (Belgian) Dutch, and it's recently been translated and published by Valancourt, which is sick.It's a small collection of tales regarding death, and it is very similar to the style and atmosphere of Poe, with nature and buildings reflecting the mental state of the protagonist, etc. It's a great short read, and I definitely recommend it!
Bump in the night
>>25517283I hope you know a real ITMOM book was released last Halloween, anon. And yes, it's good.
Any recommendations for weird atmospheric horror like Annihilation, Short Stay in Hell, or There Is No Antimemetics Division?
Is Robert Aickman any good? Where do I start with him?
>>25525715Algernon Blackwood's stories, or Malpertuis by Jean Ray.For something more recent, A Collapse of Horses by Brian Evenson.>>25525930I haven't read him yet, but it's generally agreed upon that Cold Hand in Mine is the best collection to start with. They're slow, atmospheric, subtle horror stories; a bit like Walter de la Mare, but more modern.
Shall be reading House of Leaves in October with a book club.
The Fungus by Harry Adam Knight.
>>25527960What about it?
Time for crab
>>25518031Ok but nobody asked about splatter punk.
>>25528732These need to be turned into a full cast audio production.
Graph bump!
>>25529955Rolling
Has anyone else read Unutterable Horror by ST Joshi?
>>25528732DNF the first one.How one can make a story about giant fucking crabs interesting is beyond me. It's pretty short, too.I know there's a new edition with extra material. I wonder if it improves the story flow.
>>25530938I haven't heard much about the Straub collection, but it seems really interesting!>>25530970I haven't. What's your opinion of it? Can you post more/the rest of the Campbell section? I'm very interested in what he's got to say about him.
>>25531020I thought it was good, I usually go in and out of it to check on authors I’m thinking of studying. And it’s good to see how they figure into the history of horror lit.
>>25531060
>>25531062
>>25531065
>>25531067
>>25531069
>>25531072
>>25531074Thanks a lot, sick read. I've read Alone with the Horrors, and have copies of Incarnate, Midnight Sun, and Ancient Images that I'm planning on reading. Good to hear he's pretty positive about all three!
>>25529955That's a lot of short story compilations.
>>25531692I've read about 23 of them so far.
I've been watching interviews with contemporary writers that I like, people like Barron, Evenson, Balingrud etc, those you might call established genre figures. It's all for some webcam camera / mic combo podcasts, none breaking few thousand views. Oftentimes they're all together in a call, yapping for a few hours, so there's interesting stuff out there. It got me thinking about how unprofitable this all horror writing thing is even for those you know about. You have people like Evenson work a cozy job at University, Barron taking on working nights at a hotel despite being compared to Ligotti (likely supported by his brother) etc. I asked algorithm to compile a list of earnings of major genre figures and I don't know how reliable its estimates are, but per year, gross, none of those writers have a chance of breaking 100k, and most estimates put them in 30-50k range. Seems that literary horror is a genre on its last legs commercially despite movies experiencing a surge in popular interest.
Probably just Books of Blood like some other anons. 1-3 specifically, I didn't think 4-6 were as good as the first set. I'm reading some of the Vampire Hunter D books from the 80s right now, but they're objectively not very good.>>25518031Yeah, I've tried "extreme horror" once or twice and have just been disgusted at the quality. I assume there aren't many actually good authors who are willing to spend the time writing something too gross for real publishers to pick up.>>25528732372 Pages We'll Never Get Back did a series on the first book a summer or two ago. Recommend that podcast if you've never heard of it.
>>25518199>>25518291Both movies are great
>>25531985That's just literature in general, it's not unique to horror.People can't read now, it's sad but true.>>25531931What have been you're favorites?
>>25533595These are the ones I've read. I've read a decent amount of Kafka stories, and for Le Fanu I've read In a Glass Darkly. (I've also read like 6 Poe stories)My absolute favourite is North American Lake Monsters by Nathan Ballingrud. An absolutely phenomenal collection of dark/bleak psychological stories with a hint of supernatural. It mainly focuses on how people (are unable to) deal/cope with supernatural things and the fallout of that. One of my favourite horror books in general. (I've also read Wounds, but I wasn't that into the fantasy horror aspect of that collection. "The Visible Filth" is fantastic though, an easy standout of that collection - but maybe that's just because it feels strongly like a NALM story.)Some other ones I thought are very strong collections:> M.R. James - Collected Ghost Stories (He's the ghost story goat, highly recommend if you're interested in it)> Robert W. Chambers - The King in Yellow (It's only 4 stories, but they're all very strong)> Robert Louis Stevenson - Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Other Stories (I read the Alma Classics version, fantastic prose)> Clive Barker - Books of Blood (Definitely check out volume 1-3, very varied stories, consistently great)> Angela Carter - The Bloody Chamber (Beautiful prose, not a bad story in that collection, basically the original horror rewrites of fairy tales)> Karl Edward Wagner - In a Lonely Place (Thank god this got reprinted a few years ago. Very varied and strong stories)> Ray Russell - Haunted Castles (Incredible modern gothic collection. Every story is written in prose of the time it's set in. Blew me away)
>>25532591>I'm reading some of the Vampire Hunter D books from the 80s right now, but they're objectively not very good.Kikuchi is a textbook example of a bad writer with big ideas.
Considering reading The Haunting of Hill House very soon. The Haunting (1999) was probably the first real horror film I ever saw and I remember being impressed w/ it: just dl'd it actually. It only took 6 hours! Also thinking of reading MR James' stories too.Anyways I'm glad this general has been revived & that spooky season is gearing up agin, esp when it's still warm outside (during the day anyway).>>25523691Pet Sematary scared the fuck out of me when I was 17.>>25527783Extremely based. Don't let 4chan dissuade you, it's a great book.
>>25517283>What is your favourite 80s horror paperback?It's got to be this tb h.
Another graph bump!
>>25529955Lmao I made this years ago and I definitely need to update it. Also need to use a better way to chart it.
>>25530970I have read and disliked it. Wasn’t a fan of it being less history and more Joshi giving a run down of what he thinks of each author and their work. Also, I know it’s such a broad topic that even just looking at English language horror literature is going to be long, but it sucks he decided to skip the Southern Gothics.
>>25531985Yeah sadly it’s incredibly difficult to be any type of writer and do it full-time.Evenson got a tenured professor job at fucking Brown University but he was still doing commercial work writing Dead Space novels and movie novelizations (I’ve actually heard they aren’t that bad). Barron is sadly in a bad spot due to his health and lack of a college degree. The best you can hope for is hopefully getting a university professorship and even that’s hard without being a noteworthy writer and usually you have to have an MFA.
>>25535944I would love to help you update it, if you'd like. Have you got any ideas of which collections to add/remove?
>>25536041Sadly I have little free time to work on a new one right now. I’d recommend choosing editions that are easily available on places like Anna’s Archive and libgen.
>>25536349So mainly updating the current collections? I'd love to hear about any ones you're thinking of adding (and I've got some ideas as well).
>>25535949It's because he doesn't like King, isn't it?
>>25536968I just want to go through and make sure the collections are available on Anna’s Archive and libgen. Other than that I have no idea. Again, don’t have much free time to do it over right now.
>>25537545No, he actually doesn’t like a lot of horror authors, like more than you think. I’m by no means a King fan, but I don’t think it’s a good history book when you spend most of the time complaining about their work instead explaining why they became a big author.
What about horror do you like? What are your favorite horror novels?
S.T. Joshi hates everything. That's kinda his thing.
>>25537635>why they became a big authorGood contacts in the industry.
Books I'm considering reading for spooky season:>The Haunting of Hill House>MR James' collected ghost stories>'Salem's Lot
>>25537791>The Haunting of Hill HouseYuck. Don't bother.
>>25537791All three are great books.>>25537638Some of my top favourite horror books are:Jean Ray - MalpertuisNathan Ballingrud - North American Lake MonstersStephen King - The ShiningThomas Harris - The Silence of the LambsStefan Grabinski - The Dark DomainAnne Rivers Siddons - The House Next DoorPatrick Süskind - Perfume (if that counts)
>>25537791Salem's Lot is so good. Read it on flights and trains last October and it was comfy and creepy at the same time.
I want a horror novel similar to industrial music or something that artists of that scene would read.
>>25538369The Cipher by Kathe Koja.
>>25537794Why, lad?
>>25537819I would absolutely call Perfume a horror novel.>>25538229Good to hear. I decided to pick up a copy while in Value Village and I realized it really is not that thick of a book (which is what my previous impression of it was). I just can't w/ King's doorstoppers, never been able to finish a single one of them. Never been able to get into The Dark Tower either for some reason. I've read Carrie; Pet Sematary; The Shining; and Misery (all of those I read as a teenager w/ the exception of Misery which I must have read as a young adult). That's all I've read (to completion) by King. I know 'Salem's Lot is an autumnal classick however so yeah I figure I'll give it a go in October.I do smth called "hybrid reading" now which is basically juggling both reading the book & listening to the audiobook as the feeling takes me. I've found doing this massively speeds up finishing difficult or boring books, in my experience. So yeah, I may be pleasantly surprised anyways. The copy of SL I've got is a kino vintage mass market paperback copy anyways :V
Been a King fan a good portion of my life but never read Koontz before so I grabbed a bunch of his novels today since they were pretty cheap. Any of these a good place to start with him? I get most of his novels are standalone and he doesn't have a huge, grandiose connected mythology in the way that King or Lovecraft do but I'm willing to keep an open mind. The ones I picked up are:Strange HighwaysVelocityWhispersThe Servants of TwilightThe Voice of the Night How'd more proficient Koontz readers here rank the works I grabbed from an S rating to an F rating
>>2554087Only read the novels written by a balding and moustache wearing Dean R. Koontz (notice the R). If they're written by a pedophile looking Dean Koontz, they're probably trash.
Any book recommendations that scared you enough to make it difficult to continue reading? I don't care for Stephen King and I'd prefer less supernatural.
>>25517462>world war zBro.
>i may be a brutal mob enforcer but at least i'm not racist!>if the kidnapped lovely, beautiful and intelligent black girl's retarded dumb priviliged white cunt whore std-ridden lying roomate was kidnapped instead, i bet people would care! (two instances of this sentiment so far, maybe more poignant social commentary is coming)this shit is gay as fuck, i was counting on something much less lame after reading the croning, which i liked
>>25542631Lmao imagine being mad about that
>>25542670what do you mean? idk maybe you're gen alpha but non-whites spent decades and decades complaining about how they're portrayed in media, and then when they were portrayed well they started complaining there wasn't enough of them in it. disliking the way your ethnicity's portrayed really shouldn't be a novel concept to an adult with access to the internet.
is elias witherow worth reading?
>>25542934I don't know about other works, but I've heard some mixed/bad stuff about Black Farm.
>>25537791MR James is great, get yourself a long wool coat, a scarf and go read it in a park/cemetery on a cloudy cool day for total immersion
Has anyone read The Monk?
>>25542631Filtered
>>25544426Yes! It's honestly great. The B-plot in the middle can be a bit meandering, but god damn this book goes hard at times, especially for a book from 1796.
>>25534940Is there an actual Alien/Xenomorph story in this or is that thing in the top right just some vague lookalike?
>>25545916>Is there an actual Alien/Xenomorph story in thisIn the Vaults of Yoh-Vombis inspired the face-suckers. That's about it I think.
>>25543565Fuck yeah.>>25542250>scared you enough to make it difficult to continue readingHasn't happened to me since I was a teenager, unfortunately.
>>25537791>No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against the hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.Hill House is great. This guy >>25537794 is a tastelet.
>>25544426I started it a few days ago and really enjoying it. Honestly, didn't expect it to make me laugh as much as it has.
>>25546194Based. I re-watched the 1999 film a few days ago for the first time since I was a kid. I get why it has bad reviews because it's not that great of a movie, and it probably seemed better/more impressive as a kid, but it was kino nonetheless. Also Owen Wilson seemed really out of place, casting-wise ahaha. >>25546315Nice, good to hear.
>>25542631>i may be a brutal mob enforcer but at least i'm not racist!I mean he’s half-Samoan, it would be kind of weird if he was racist.Also, you forgot to mention one of the villains is a gang of super violent Native Americans.
Should I read the short story collection don t look now by daphne du maurier for halloween season?
>>25546408I mean, why not? Do you have other horror books you were thinking of reading instead?
>>25517283>>25517462I love Brian EvensonAnyone got similar recs for short, weird horror stories? They don’t even necessarily need to be horror, just short and weird stories
>>25546800Have you read the short fiction of Ligotti, Barron, or Langan?Also, what are your favourite Evenson books? I've read A Collapse of Horses and Song for the Unraveling of the World, both of which were a bit uneven but definitely had some strong stories, and Last Days, the first half of which is pretty good, and the later added second half felt a lot weaker and unnecessary.
>>25546816I’ve done some Ligotti. I read Teatro Grottesco, My Work is Not Yet Done, and Songs of a Dead Dreamer. I remember loving a few stories but finding a lot of them to be slogs. I loved My Work is Not Yet Done though. I don’t know Barron and I didn’t really love the one story collection I read from Langan.
>>25525930I loved Cold Hand in Mine. Picrel was my soundtrack while listening to it and the association that created in my brain has honestly improved both the book and the album to me.
>>25529955roll
>>25546842>I didn’t really love the one story collection I read from Langan.Which one was it?
>>25546955Corpsemouth. It was a while ago I just remember finding it a little underwhelming. Not sure I finished it.
>>25546957I never finished it either, very hit or miss.
>>25546842For Barron, I think Occultation is a great collection to start with.I haven't read Corpsemouth, only Wide, Carnivorous Sky, and that was also a bit uneven ("Technicolor" is fantastic though).(Also, what are your favourite Evenson books? I'd love to hear more from an Evenson fan)
Highly recommend this.
>>25547318I've been meaning to check this out, a lot of people have spoken pretty highly of this collection.
Would you call Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro horror? I think in a sense I would.
>>25547057I'll add Occultation to my list. My favorite Brian Evenson book is A Collapse of Horses. I think the stories in it are just the best overall. Here's a good taste of it.https://theamericanreader.com/a-collapse-of-horses/
>>25547842Horror is a ghetto genre. everything too ugly for daylight ends up here, and so horror borders every other category of lit. Yeah, dystopian books are horror adjacent.
>>25517283Sutter kane was a horrorcore rap song back in the day. Now i know where it comes from. Nice.
>>25547888It's not "horror" because it's dystopian, you dolt.
>>25547842Ramsey Campbell said that Never Let Me Go is "one of the great horror novels of this century", that's gotta count for something.
Bought myself a copy of Interview With the Vampire. Arrives on Sunday.
>>25517283Nightblood by T Chris Martindale got recommended to me and it was a great little Halloween read. Absolutely perfect vibes, fun schlocky story and the characters aren't annoying at all.
>>25548305>>25547888Its dystopian but the horror is the actual plot, not just the setting.My wife who studied English lit in undergrad agreed that it could be classified as horror.
>>25537791Something Wicked This Way ComesThe Casebook of Carnacki the Ghost-FinderThe Wasp Factory
I enjoyed Antisocieties by Michael Cisco
>>25517356I loved Throne of Bones
I've got a couple of the Aickman-edited Fontana Great Ghost Stories volumes on hand for October. usually a good selection of stories based on the ones I've read in the past and it's just neat getting Aickman's introductions and curation
Gou Tanabe's The Dunwich Horror comes out next month. Why did Dark Horse decide this time to release it as a hardcover, deluxe edition only? There's no paperback option, which pisses me off. Even if they split it into two volumes like At the Mountains of Madness I would be fine with that. Speaking of At the Mountains of Madness by the way, I saw recently that HorrorBabble FINALLY released a recording of it. I've only read it once and it's about time I do a re-read, but it's pretty damn dense even for Lovecraft so listening to it on audio will make it easier, esp if it's Ian Gordon (the voice of HorrorBabble) narrates it, because I really like his narration skills.
>>25547318What did you like about it?
graph bump!
>>25551083The infantile autistic side of me loves WWZ but I’m not sure it’s horror really. Maybe the one story about the otaku trapped in the high rise is
Mariana Enriquez worth reading or not?
>>25551400I've got a copy of it, but I still need to read it.>>25551511I've read The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, which was good but not great. A bit up and down, as collections tend to do. I have head a lot of good things about Things We Lost in the Fire (seen as her best collection), and Our Share of Night.
>>25551511> MarianaI'm going to go out on a limb and say... No.
Newfag reader here. Just finished reading Between Two Fires and The Hellbound Heart. Going to use the graphics in here for more recommendations but has anyone legit been scared by horror literature, or do most people just enjoy the vibe?
>>25551983Personally, I enjoy the vibe. But I also tend toward that type of horror.A Short Stay in Hell is good, if you like vibe horror.
>>25551983The Shining scared me in high school ngl
Highly recommend Butcher of Nazareth, especially if you ever went to church or just know some general history around Jesus and the missing pieces of his life.
>>25552003Yea exact same here. Pet Sematary gave me the biggest fright w/ the exhumation scene I think but the part in The Shining w/ Danny & the dead woman in the washroom was genuinely terrifying.>>25551983>>25552000I genuinely wish horror still scared me. Sometimes I will get spooked if I'm sitting outside in the dark listening to an audiobook for example, but I haven't gotten to the point where I have to put the book down since I was a teenager. Also I really need to read A Short Stay in Hell!!!
>>25552000damn the synopsis sounds cool as hell. I'll have to pick that up sometime
>>25552006I like supporting small authors but its description on Goodreads starts with "Goodreads #1 horror book to read 2026“ and the first review is a 5* by the author so I get bad vibes. Sell it to me.
I've got Interview With the Vampire coming on Sunday. I am excite. Hopefully I'm done The Haunting of Hill House by then. It's pretty good so far.
>>25541821I had a look around the same shop where I got the other Koontz books and I found Phantoms so I'm starting with that one that. It's da bomb so far.I also got Imajica today too. >>25551772>>25551511Smoking in Bed aas a fun read but nothing really remarkable in there that stands out to me. Heard her vampire novel is okay.
>>25551083Suggestion for the chart. I'd add in Ann Quin specifically for her novel Berg since it's about a murderer.
>>25552113Former soldier who was hired to slay Jewish firstborns is slowly going mad and has visions from Satan that he needs to redeem himself and slay Jesus. You meet some familiar characters from the Bible and learn of their untold fates. Idk how else to sell it but it's very bleak and it was short. It didn't seem too edgy or anti religion at all, it was more about how grief and denial can drive you insane.
>>25552151Nice! Both are great reads.
>>25552677That does sound cool.
>>25552151A girl at my work is reading this
>>25554521Which one?
>>25554530Oh sorry I didn’t read ur whole post lol. Interview with a Vampire
>>25554563Anon I'm p. sure it's Interview With THE Vampire xD
>>25554563>Girl reading Anne RiceThat's as common as breathing
Been reading The White People and Other Weird Stories by Arthur Machen. Just finished The White People and it was great but I wish it was longer. I was really getting into it and then it suddenly ended.
>>25555544It's my favourite short horror story. I think it's a great look into the world of a young girl who thinks all the things she experiences are completely normal, and you get just enough of a glimpse into her life to have the ending work perfectly; you can vaguely imagine what else happened without the story explicitly telling you.
I'm trying to get into Horror and Mystery. Ideally together.Any standout examples that combine them well?
>>25556200The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo trilogy is really good. Also I guess the Hannibal Lecter books?
Any link for the epub of Divine Farce?I won't pay for a book in 2026
>>25556200A lot of Lovecraft is also mystery; any collection of his will do. Others I've enjoyed a lot are:>Robert Louis Stevenson - Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde>Jean Ray - Malpertuis>Thomas Harris - Red Dragon // The Silence of the Lambs>Michael McDowell - The Elementals>Kathe Koja - The CipherIf you want some classic detective horror, you could check out Algernon Blackwood's John Silence stories, and William Hope Hodgson's Carnacki the Ghost Finder stories.
Where to start with Clive Barker's Clive Barker?
>>25557452Definitely start with Books of Blood, one of the best horror collections in general (especially volume 1-3). You could also go for The Hellbound Heart if you feel like something smaller first.
>>25538599Hell yeah funhole friend
>>25556255>>25556850The Hannibal Lecter books (at least the first two which I read) aren't really mystery books or a "whodunit", you follow the villain as well and know their identity early on, while the protagonists are trying to figure out who they throughout, they're more like horror thrillers.
>>25555544>>25555587It's good but I don't think it's THAT great.
>>25556621Anna and zlib, mongoloid
Finally decided to knuckle under and read the last Laundry book. They'd been a little hither and thither the whole way through but I liked the idea of them, even if I usually just enjoyed the start of the book instead of the action. But that final one reads like Stephen King after he got party-vanned writing the dark tower. No real wrap ups, no changes, no reveals, just "ree, politics I don't like is happening, fine, everyone is on board with the evil totalitarian regime now!" and so many dangling threads from prior books that it looks like I'd tried to sew something.I wonder if he didn't want to write any more and wrote something that reads like fanfiction about the Mandate. It feels like it's not even part of the same story, as though he deliberately ignored all the set ups and decided 'lol, red herrings'.
>>25556621>I won't pay for a book in 2026There are more reasons than ever to buy physical these days. Pressing reasons, in fact.
>>25523793>And yes, it's good.The back cover blurb has grammar mistakes and most reviews say it is filled with basic spelling and grammar errors.
I grabbed The Terror by Dan Simmons. I enjoyed the miniseries. Should I expect something similar from the book or do the two diverge a lot?
>>25560020I dunno bro I couldn't get into Hyperion. I think Dan Simmons might be kind of overrated.
>>25560020They are very much alike, there are a couple characters the show omitted and the book ending is a little bit different/more mystical. If you liked the show then you will enjoy the book.
Finished Carrie somehow I never got round to reading it when I was originally getting into King as a teenager. I kind of hated everyone in this book but that's what makes it work for me.
>>25551511If you like Bolano you will like her
Any horror novels with lolis?
>>25560592As in, with young girls?
>>25517283If anyone wants that 80s paperback feel, but wants something a little more contemporary, Keith Rosson is the GOAT for that
>>25560625nta but yes
>>25560592Firestarter, The exorcist
>>25559943And yet you can't name them?
>>25552006>>25552113It's not even on anything slum listed three years on, which is.. interesting.
>>25559943Good goy, support the industry that spits on you and barely pays its authors. The rich Jew owners and the harpies in thousands of make-work positions need your money to keep subverting your interests and producing homogenous slop.
>>25562387I just don't want Big Brother surreptitiously changing my ebooks thru clandestine means. The gov't can't reach into my home and censor or change my physical books. Plus books are just kino.
>>25563434What ebook reader lets Big Brother access and change your books?
I think I found Dean Koontz' burner reddit account or someone related to him. just pops in on every koontz post to defense him.
>>25517462>In a Lonely Place by Karl Edward WagnerI think about this one often. the stories stuck with me. I remember he throws in some inflicting sentences that have impact. Like the usage of the word 'lych' from the In The Pines story and Sticks. Or that final sentence in .22 short. I'm probably going to read this again and skip the BDSM King in Yellow story.
>>25517462I read swan song and it was really gay
>>25564312>KoontzNever trust a man in a wig.
>>25564395I tried Stinger. It was so full of fluff; boring.
>>25564312>How's your mother ?Yup, definitely Koontz
Its finally October. What are you guys reading this month?
>>25564312how much $$$ has Koontz made
>>25564601Currently reading Russian 19th Century Gothic Tales, and after that I'm going to read An Autumn Story by Tommaso Landolfi and The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux.
>>25563480All of them mate. Even offline.
>>25564601Gonna read: The Haunting of Hill House (more than halfway thru this now, it started out pleasant but rather dull but now is getting more & more spooky/exciting) A Short Stay in HellButcher of Nazareth 'Salem's Lot
>>25565144
>>25564601Planning on:Castle of Ontranto Various Clark Ashton Smith worksPTSD Radio
>>25565865Which CAS collection(s) have you got planned?
Black River Orchard, page 24>''the local school board has screwed over LGBT kids, they removed books by black authors, homelessness is up!''oh boy...
>>25566126That's the state of current horror fiction unfortunately. Stephen King ruined it
>>25566126>>25566274Boo hoo hoo
>>25565928I got the penguin one The Dark Eidolin and the old fantasy masterworks that had more of his stories and poems not sure if it has everything but it looks like a solid list
>>25566126>Black River Orchard, page 24why would you read anything by that guy. He looks like a fucking basedjak lmao
Just read it. What should I think about it, /lit/?
>>25566126The horror...!
>>25566436I need to start reading his work as well, he's a pretty big gap in the older horror authors I've read.
>>25540875Whispers and Voice of the Night are pretty good of the bunch you have. I really would not compare the two authors considering Koontz is a bit more grounded compared to supernatural beings.>>25544426Recently finished and highly enjoyed it. Great settings abound and Matilda's character had her hooks in me the whole time.Picked this on a whim, hope it's decent.
Finished Stolen Tongues this week. I feel like I should not have read the author's word at the start. Going in knowing that I was essentially reading what was originally a reddit post really affected the way I looked at some things. That being said, not an awful book.
>>25564601Between two Fires. About halfway through and it really makes me never want to visit France.Probably Bourne after.
i'm reading Demon Sneed by Dean Koontz
>>25565584Don't underestimate the glowies.
I ordered A Short Stay in Hell & Butcher of Nazareth but had to cancel them. Not because I don't want them but because I thought I was getting my GST return yesterday but instead it's Monday, so I'll be ordering them then. Might see if I can pick them up from Indigo instead actually.
>estimated pick-up date for Butcher of Nazareth: December 29, 2026Lol?
>>25568831Just get them eBook... You can morally even pirate short stay, the author is a Mormon.
>>25569673I want the physical BOOKS though, man :///
>>25569853I've been addicted to my ereader, I've even been adding books I physically own to it because it's just better to read.
>>25570071I've been emptying my apartment to look like a brutalist cave getting rid of anything and everything I don't need. Kitchen is one big pot and one pan, several plastic cups and a broiler. Living room is one couch that turns it into a bed come morning. Reading room is the final room of my place and it's completely empty save for an IKEA recliner and a kindle on a polished slab I dragged four miles in a cart after shaving off the rustbolts. I do clutter the bathroom because I need the medicine and shavingkit supply.
>>25570477>polished slabI hope you found it on the nearest cemetery.
this is supposed to be our month but im not feeling much of a horror vibe in the catalog bros
>>25570071I had a Kindle from 2019-2024. It eventually crapped out on me and I went back to buying books after that.>>25570604No? There have been several threads in which I was tempted to say "/hfg/ is that way" sort of thing.
>>25569853Print your ebooks
I hate vampire stories. I can't handle the blood.
Placing the events of The Haunting of Hill House in high summer did a lot of favours for the book, imo.
What the fuck was his problem?
>>25570627What a faggot
I'm on my third John Saul book where an older demon steals the life force of younger people. Gonna DNF it, bros..
>>25571440'Ated small 'eads. Simple as.
Managed to get physical copies of Arthur Conan Doyle's Gothic Tales, and Jules Verne's The Carpathian Castle. Don't know if I'm going to read them this year (I've already got a number of books planned), but very happy to have gotten them.
who's on you're horror mount rushmore?
>>25572183Poe Lovecraft 2 other guys probably
>>25572362Probably Stephen King and Clive Barker?
>>25572183stephen kingv.c. andrewsdean koontzjohn saul
>>25572419Yeah probably. You could maybe swap Barker for one of the Lovecraft adjacents or maybe a one off horror novel writer like Mary Shelley Frankenstein or Braum Stroker Dracula.
>>25571506I wish I could control it, unfortunately I have a physical reaction no matter what I do or what headspace I'm in. It's not good, I can't get my blood drawn and I have no idea what state my health is in.
>>25572613Is it also a fear of needles/pain? Because you can just look away during the blood drawing, that's how I do it. Having someone come with you also helps for me.
>>25572613I get like that with fetuses. ever since going to a science museum as a kid, there was a room with a bunch of fetuses in jars and gave me an intense physical reaction. had to vomit in the bathroom. so now whenever there's horror stories or medical dramas with babies I get super sick
Any books for this feel?
>>25572183LovecraftLigottiMary ShelleyJunji Ito
Finished between two fires. Really liked it, despite it being nearly 600 pages it never seemed to drag, and I enjoyed the use of Christian mythology as fantasy back drop. Moving on to Haunting of House Hill now, since it's spooky season. Maybe Borne next, or the Butcher of Nazareth I got recommended either on here or sffg.
>>25574271I just finished Haunting of Hill House. It's pretty good but it's more atmospheric than actually spooky or scary (don't get me wrong though it definitely creeped me out at times). It doesn't have that big, disturbing reveal at the end like the movie did though, instead it's much more vague and much, much more cerebral than that. There are some very nice, summery passages too. Read it late at night for maximum effect.
I fear I need make the jump to Weird fiction https://www.nypl.org/books-more/recommendations/horror-2026/adults
>>25575595>trusting normie media awards/recsWell there's your problem. Weird Lit is pretty cool, though. It's less horror than pure weird, but I've gotta plug Cleave the Sparrow, which is indie published and a really weird ketamine trip. Kinda like having a Meth Addict with a degree in metaphysics as a street corner preacher.
>>25575595there's a second never whistle at night? awesome.
Amazon tells me my copies of A Short Stay in Hell & The Butcher of Nazareth are 6 stops away.
Amazonjeet delivered.
>>25560009Yeah I saw the reviews. I think most mistakes have been fixed by now, but I'm ESL soooo.I caught like 4 grammar/spelling mistakes in it.The problem is that the real author is also the publisher and he doesn't use an editor. He's just a dude who loves horror.But it's a good adaptation, really. And a lot more gory.I read another book by this guy (his name is Christian Francis, btw) and it was filled to the brim with grammar mistakes, however.
Bump
What are your favorite spooky short stories?
>>25517462>In a Lonely Place by Karl Edward WagnerJust finished this. The lesbian rape story kinda came out of nowhere.
>>25579463"The White People" by Arthur Machen is my #1. A handful of other great ones are:>E.T.A. Hoffmann - "The Mins of Falun">Nikolai Gogol - "St. John's Eve">Edgar Allan Poe - "The Tell-Tale Heart">Sheridan Le Fanu - "Mr. Justice Harbottle">William Hope Hodgson - "The Voice in the Night">Algernon Blackwood - "The Wendigo">M.R. James - "The Mezzotint" and "'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad'">H.P. Lovecraft - "The Rats in the Walls">Stefan Grabinski - "The Glance">Ray Russell - "Sardonicus">Stephen King - "Quitters, Inc.">Angela Carter - "The Lady of the House of Love">Karl Edward Wagner - "The River of Night's Dreaming">Clive Barker - "Dread">Ramsey Campbell - "The Man in the Underpass">Thomas Ligotti - "Purity">John Langan - "Technicolor">Brian Evenson - "Cult">Nathan Ballingrud - "Sunbleached">Laird Barron - "The Imago Sequence"
>>25517283Craving a horror story right now. Read most of the classic stuff and all the decent King works. Is there anything good that’s modern?
>>25566126This is the biggest roadblock to getting into horror for me, seems like it’s entirely made up of faggots more obsessed with normalizing mental illness than horror
>>25579733Chuck Wendig is a turbo-faggot, a special kind of retard and people should just ignore him entirely.>>25579712The fisherman by John Langan was pretty good.
>>25579620>The River of Night's Dreamingthis is the BDSM king in yellow one.
>>25575976yeah they just released that second one. >>25575595>>25575712>https://www.penguin.co.uk/series/WEIRDFIC/weird-fictionpenguin just did a reprint series of a few classics with vintage style covers. there's an scattershot anthology but also>the king in yellow (robert w chambers)>the house on the borderland (william hope hodgson)>claimed! (gertrude barrows bennett)>ancient sorceries (algernon blackwood)there are quite a lot of anthologies of weird fiction out right now. i have these already:>women's weird: strange stories by women, 1890-1940>women's weird 2: more strange stories by women, 1891-1937>weird women: classic supernatural fiction by groundbreaking female writers, 1852-1923>monster, she wrote: the women who pioneered horror and speculative fiction>the women of weird tales: stories by everil worrell, eli colter, mary elizabeth counselman, and greye la spina (this same publisher also did nightmare flower by elizabeth engstrom and the dead hours of night by lisa tuttle, both short story collections)>british weird: selected short fiction, 1893-1937the british library has a huge selection of tales from the weird themed collections. they're usually pretty cheap.>https://shop.bl.uk/collections/tales-of-the-weirdthere's a ton of compendiums of weird tales focused on various geographic areas in metallic hardback right now too.modern weird fiction has had a boom the past decade, especially with international authors publishing in english, but quite a lot of it seems to have explicit political subplots if you're sensitive to that.
Finished Haunting of Hill House. I wasn't terribly impressed. It escalated slowly and had a fairly unexciting climax. The prose was pretty good and the atmosphere was almost there, but it just didn't really grab me.
>>25579804>latest book is straight ripoff of "I was a national park ranger" creepypastaWow, I can tell he's a faggot just from that
>>25579937you might like jackson's "we have always lived in the castle" better, or maybe one of her collections of short stories. i've always found hill house to be the weakest of all her works. even henry james' "the turn of the screw" is better.
>>25579943imagine being so obnoxious that even redditors shit on you
>>25580093I forgot he was a big part of that whole thing. I don't think it was wrong - internet archive having a bunch of direct downloads to copyrighted work was always going to have a target - but he certainly wasn't directly hurt by it in any meaningful way.
Does Bizzaro fit here? It's sorta horror and weird lit's edgy, half-retarded incest baby.
>>25579943not really any worse than the r/nosleep posters who compiled their posts into books, honestly. >>25580093well maybe this part is
Forgot I have a copy of this. Should I read it?
>>25580146if you want. i'd pair it with "skin" by kathe koja to keep the good times going or expand into "perfume: the story of a murderer" by patrick suskind, maybe "the wasp factory" by iain banks. depending on how you feel about the levels of depravity you can split between "the collector" by john fowles or "american psycho" and "less than zero" both by bret easton ellis. poppy is about those levels of quality or below, give or take.
>>25580126Taking someone else's work, polishing and selling it is absolutely less respectable than packaging and selling your own
>>25580106probably not, but why not split the difference? yours reminds me of old philosoraptor and raptor jesus memes.
>>25580166well yeah in the most literal sense but if we're referring to the actual concept of creepypasta the entire purpose of that is NOT to claim intellectual property. it becomes cunt-ish to craft a work based on an internet theme like that and then apply ip to that claiming it as your own. i already agreed he seems like a piece of shit; i love the internet archive and already had a laugh earlier that out of his entire bibliography only one book has its own wikipedia page. if we were to apply "original content do not steal" rules to internet horror then the current landscape of horror would look quite different. there have been fantastic elevations and reinterpretations of online horror and a million and one shitty cash-ins. i consider the massive shift from r/nosleep's level of somewhat interactive/collaborative horror - itself already a reflection of the earlier work on /x/ which led to things like the scp project - to pure self-promotion (with all the over-inflated egos and sycophancy that entails) to be as repulsive as everyone else doing it. andy weir isn't any less obnoxious to me, and i sincerely hope every subpar hack out that that participated in suits against online archives enjoys losing any modicum of respectability they may have had to people preferring to jack off to ai-generated content about anime werewolves or whatever the fuck.
>>25580146Defintiely. It's a great horror book and it's beautifully written.
>>25580146If you're gay, yes.
>The driver was young, white, looked to her like some incel school shooter type
>stolen tongues>haunting of hill house>penpal>incidents around the houseThese are the horror books I finished in the last couple of weeks. All of these, with maybe the exception of Stolen Tongues, are pretty well regarded and often pop up in people's recommendations. Still, I was disappointed with all of these (with the exception of Stolen Tongues because I had 0 expectations for that one to begin with). None of them is bad, but none of them left me in awe or made me feel like I had just finished a truly great book. Starting to feel like maybe I shouldn't be reading horror literature if I want to feel like that. Either that or maybe I just got unlucky with my picks so far.
>>25581809What sort of garbage are you reading, a reddit post?
>>25581835The more recent books you've listed are all overhyped mediocre books. Maybe try some of the bigger recent works, like:>John Ajvide Lindqvist - Let the Right One In>John Langan - The FishermanSamanta Schweblin - Fever Dream>Stephen Graham Jones - The Buffalo Hunter Hunter>Tananarive Due - The Reformatory>Mariana Enriquez - Our Share of NightOr if you want recent short story collections:>Nathan Ballingrud - North American Lake Monsters>Laird Barron - Occultation and Other Stories>Brian Evenson - A Collapse of HorsesIf you want older collections:>Stephen King - Night Shift, or Skeleton Crew>Clive Barker - Books of Blood>Ramsey Campbell - Alone With the Horrors
>>25581835Aren't all of those creepypastas?
Hi gothbros and gothsis, i can't find any ebook copy of Ann Radcliffe's The Italian in german.The only existing one is the book on demand version which uses " " instead of guillemets, and it's damn irritating me alot.I tried libgen (says it's german but text is english) and annas ( has the disgusting book on demand version only)any advice or help is appreciated. thx
>>25582068Use an llm to parse it
>>25581924Haunting was published in 1959...
>>25581900Let the Right One In is so good. I read it years ago in high school.
>>25517283Do you read Sutter Cane?
>>25581835i've only heard of hill house and penpal out of those. i found hill house to be quite boring for most of it and refuse to pay for reddit posts on principle. what is it you're looking for in horror lit, specifically? if you explore other horror media like films or games, what is it that you find that you enjoy or unsettles you? i've always considered horror to be one of the most "your mileage may vary" genres out there. i dislike splatterpunk because i find gore fundamentally boring, but for gorehounds that's exactly the appeal. i like psychological unease that others may find tedious or pretentious. other people really enjoy getting into specific formats like haunted house or stories of the demonic, still more find that formulaic nature to be exactly what they avoid.>>25581900short story collections are a fantastic entry into horror and this anon has title recommendations that span the genre. what defines a "truly great book" for you? i think valancourt books has published excellent works, whether in their catalogues of classics, gothic/romantic, victorian/edwardian, horror/sci fi, or vintage, but i would argue that their titles lean towards the pulpy or atmospheric. this is the page of horror titles, obviously you navigate to the other sections from here.>https://www.valancourtbooks.com/horror.htmlhowever i'd also argue that atlas and wakefield press both have a preponderance of books i would call "truly great", even as their niche intersects heavily with surrealist/dadaist/transgressive/avant-garde/pataphysical. i don't think those are strictly divorced from horror, especially not when considering weird fiction.>https://atlaspress.co.uk/shop/>https://wakefieldpress.com/collections/all-booksout of these last two, i enjoyed bruno corra's "sam dunn is dead", hans henny jahnn's "the living are few, the dead many", marcel brion's "waystations of the deep night", marcel schwob's "the king in the golden mask" and his "the book of monelle", paul willems' "the cathedral of mist", unica zurn's "the trumpets of jericho", leon bloy's "disagreeable tales", and jean ferry's "the conductor and other tales".
>>25582660Seconding Valancourt and Wakefield! I haven't heard of Atlas Press, looking into that now.Valancourt has a lot of great titles: Roland Topor's The Tenant, Michael McDowell's The Elementals, Karl Edward Wagner's In a Lonely Place, Stefan Grabinski's Orchard of the Dead, Lisa Tuttle's A Nest of Nightmares, Felix Timmermans' Intimations of Death, to name a few.Can you tell me what you thought of Bloy's collection? Also, have you read Malpertuis by Jean Ray? The former I'm interested in, and the latter greatly impressed me. (I'm >>25581900 btw)
>>25581839 >>25566126
>>25549173why can't I find a version of this book in .epub that doesn't have a chapter all fucked up?
>>25581835Penpal is a creepypasta A creepypasta from reddit sub r no sleepDid you really pay money to buy a published reddit post?I don't know what circles you travel in to have the impression that a reddit post is a highly regarded book but you need to seriously relook at it. How did they even trick you into that?
>>25584696Pay the happy merchant for a physical copy, pleb.
>>25564371>skipping the best story
>>25584844Sticks is the best story. Or the Voodoo one. Or In The Pines
>>25584807>t.
>>25584853You will read PDFs on your phone and be happy.
>>25584848Sticks is the second best, followed by Beyond Any Measure. More Sinned Against is good, but was a later addition and I think the voodoo ending was at odds with what was otherwise a really grounded story.
>>25583202i have not read “malpertuis”, no. i’m adding that to my list; it looks interesting. i just grabbed a used copy of john constable’s stage adaptation of the “gormenghast” series and this is reminding me of it for some reason. i enjoyed “disagreeable tales” but i think i should have waited a bit to read it. i had just come off of arthur schnitzler’s “dream story”, the oxford classic english translations of french decadent tales and a collection of “fairy tales for the disillusioned” (ie more french decadent stories), and comte de lautreamont’s “les chants de maldoror”. there comes a point when you’re spending your free time reading about the same depravity you experience during the rest of your life and you have to hit a limit to be able to function. what did you enjoy about “malpertuis”? i’m alright with spoilers.i enjoyed michael mcdowell's "the elementals" when i read it a few years ago. i have his "gilded needles" and "katie" as well but haven't gotten around to them. i can’t recall, did valancourt republish robert marasco’s “burnt offerings”? i remember reading that around the same time with tom tryon’s “harvest home”, stephen graham jones’ “mapping the interior” and silvia moreno-garcia’s “mexican gothic” too. it’s strange to me that those last two have been so popular as authors in the years since - jones’ “the only good indians” felt like slogging through “infinite jest” with its basketball/tennis segments and the dialogue in “mexican gothic” was egregiously anachronistic after coming off several older gothic novels. i hope her “silver nitrate” and “velvet was the night” show moreno-garcia growing as an author but given the apparent target audience for the rest of her novels i doubt it.as an aside, em carroll’s “through the woods”, “when i arrived at the castle”, and fabien vehlmann’s “beautiful darkness” are wonderful this time of year. i’ve been meaning to pick up gou tanabe’s versions of lovecraft stories as well, primarily “at the mountains of madness”. i’m really curious how he’ll handle “the colour out of space”, that nicolas cage film was very disappointing.
What is The Monk even about anyways. Don't think I'm gonna get around to it until maybe November.
What was the last blockbuster Stephen King novel? 11/22/63? Under the Dome? The Shining 2?
Is there any horror fiction set in the Middle East?
>>25586228The biggest classic is Vathek, by William Beckford.
>>25584884I read the vampire one you're talking about on the beach in uncomfortable sunlight but I remember it being really cool at the end
>>25584885I enjoyed Malpertuis for a number of reasons: the writing and atmosphere are great, I love the combination of gothic and surreal horror, and the mystery aspect has been done very well, with only half of the puzzle being revealed and the reader having the option to try to figure out more if they want to (you can still enjoy the story without knowing more). The epistolary format really supports the story as well.
I do not care for short story anthologies
>>25586602Boooooooooo. If anything I prefer them.
>>25586602They stick with me way more than novels
>>25586602Speaking of which,what horror short story anthology, which one should I read?
>>25586974Mother Horse Eyes is a great anthology of dark spiritual vignettes that amount to a larger narrative of the whole entirety being controlled by a Lovecraftian power
>>25586974Del Rey has a lot of really good weird fiction anthologies. I've got four or five of them. May I recommend picrel?
>>25517522>aaahh nooooo my hand cut itself of and ran away aaaagghhhhh I'm going insaaaaaaaaaaaaneeeeeeWhy are barkerfags like this?
>>25580168cover reminds me of Pig Destroyer's Terrifyer
>>25587081>>25587311>>25587315>>25587317These editions are comfy to hold and read, but for Lovecraft I'd chose those pocket sized fat booksies, 3 volumes in total, one is called haunter of the dark and has a fat fuck demon on it>>25587862This not so much
>>25584706>pay moneyAnyway, it's in pretty much every list you see around.
>>25582660>i like psychological unease that others may find tedious or pretentious>i found hill house to be quite boringThat seems a tad bit contradictory for me.
I don't know how people can stomach books that are just a collection of otherwise unconnected short stories.
>>25588634your tastes are too refined, mr 4chan poster?
>>25588622i wrote a whole paragraph disputing this in detail and then checked goodreads and saw i gave hill house five stars seven years ago. when you're right, you're right.i was thinking more of the collections "the new uncanny" and "the new abject" when writing that though, especially the story "possum" which matthew holness later made into a full film. or thomas ligotti's "teatro grottesco" or kathe koja's "the cipher".>>25586479oh nice, it's epistolary too? i'll definitely have to check it out now, thanks anon. >>25586603>>25586621yeah, for me the impact of the horror is blunted when it's in a longer format, maybe because it distracts from the tension or adding elements of realism clutter the narrative? i feel the same way about science fiction. you don't focus on characters necessarily, sure, but personally that's part of the appeal for both genres. >>25588634frame narrative, anon. chuck palahniuk does this well in "haunted".
>>25580106>goodreads friend suddenly wants to read jurassichristlol
>>25588620well they'll certainly recommend it endlessly on reddit, that's for sure. i think a lot of it is barely veiled advertising. and isn't "incidents around the house" the basis for that new film "other mommy"? i saw some friends shitting on that last night about "how do you make a film out of a book with no plot" and was confused - the book has a pretty clear plot according to its wiki page? i assumed the entire premise was stolen from "coraline" anyway.most of those lists can be filtered by whether they describe their contents as disturbing, transgressive, unsettling etc. there are quite a lot of well-compiled lists on goodreads. you don't have to use their tracker to pick from them. i know that site skews heavily towards booktok romantasy and ya now but their user lists can still be helpful for finding new titles. i like to check those and lists of new titles coming out in translation or others republished from obscurity, but you can tell when publishers are pushing certain ones pretty hard. those tor.com originals were always pretty fun and tor rebranded as reactor a few years ago. >https://reactormag.com>>25581835this chart way up at the top of the thread is pretty good for what it seems you're looking for. >>25517462 i can't speak to everything on there, but i've enjoyed at least 20 of these books and have 16 or so more sitting in my library waiting to be read.
>>25581900If you've read "Our Share of Night", have you read "The Dangers of Smoking in Bed", "Things We Lost in the Fire", or "A Sunny Place for Shady People" by the same author? Even "Somebody Is Walking On Your Grave". I have Due's "The Reformatory" that I need to read next to "The Between" and "The Good House". Thanks for recommending her. I rarely see anyone give her the credit she's>due.I remember reading one of her short stories in Nightmare Magazine years and years ago, though I can't remember if it was "Summer" or "Migration", both of which they have published.>https://www.nightmare-magazine.com/fiction/summer/>https://www.nightmare-magazine.com/fiction/migration/Migration, probably. I remember being electrified at the time by how different it was to the creepypasta and r/nosleep horror I was used to. Looking it over again it doesn't seem so remarkable, but still in the vein of Octavia Butler's "Kindred", Toni Morrison's "Beloved", or Ntozake Shange's "Sassafrass, Cypress, and Indigo". Maybe that just speaks to how refreshing it felt at the time. I think people are spoiled for choice with horror now. If you look at the quality and volume of what has been published in the past ten years across weird and horror fiction alone, we're arguably in a renaissance, same with horror and sci fi films. Isn't it great to have this as a "problem"? It's like peak TV all over again.
really looking forward to the fake 4chan thread part of this one
I got never whistle at night. It's a native american dark fiction short story anthology. the opening story is about the alaskan kushtaka! my tlingit aunt would always say the kushtaka was gonna get us, kek.
>>25584858I intend to. I find my digital library to be a lot comfier than a physical one.
>>25589090Faggot.
>>25587862If it was the fapping hand, the horror speaks for itself.
>>25588716Its not me, I've has it on my list for a while
