Book picks similar to
Horror: The 100 Best Books by Stephen Jones
horror
non-fiction
reference
books-about-books
The Book of Lists: Horror
Amy Wallace - 2008
Chock-full of creepy information from the netherworlds of movies, TV, literature, video games, comic books, and graphic novels, The Book of Lists: Horror offers a blood-feast of forbidden knowledge that horror fans are hungry to devour, including:
Stephen King's Ten Favorite Horror Novels or Short Stories—learn what scares the master!
Top Six Grossing Horror Movies of All Time in the United States— which big shocks translated into big bucks?
Top Ten Horror-Themed Rock 'n' Roll Songs—maybe it is devil's music' after all!
And much, much more!
Drawing on its authors' extensive knowledge and contributions from the (living) legends and greatest names in the horror and dark fantasy genres, The Book of Lists: Horror is a scream—an irresistible compendium of all things mysterious, terrifying, and gory . . . and so entertaining, it's scary!
The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2011
Dave Eggers - 2011
For each volume, the very best pieces are selected by a leading writer in the field, making the Best American series the most respected and most popular of its kind. "The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2011" includes Daniel Alarcon, Clare Beams, Sloane Crosley, Anthony Doerr, Neil Gaiman, Mohammed Hanif, Mac McClelland, Michael Paterniti, Olivier Schrauwen, Gary Shteyngart, and others"
The Books That Changed My Life: Reflections by 100 Authors, Actors, Musicians, and Other Remarkable People
Bethanne Patrick - 2016
Regan Arts has teamed up with the literary charity 826National, which will receive a portion of the book’s proceeds to provide students ages 6–18 with opportunities to explore their creativity and improve their writing skills.Contributors include Al Roker, Carl Hiaasen, Dave Eggers, Emma Straub, Eric Idle, Fay Weldon, Fran Lebowitz, Gillian Flynn, Gregory Maguire, Jeff Kinney, Jim Shepard, Laura Lippmann, Lev Grossman, Liev Schreiber, Margaret Atwood, Mayim Bialik, Nelson DeMille, Rosanne Cash, Susan Orlean, Tim Gunn, and Tommy Hilfiger, among others.
New Maps of Hell: A Survey of Science Fiction
Kingsley Amis - 1960
Based on Amis' series of six lectures on science fiction in 1959, New Maps of Hell, discussion emphasizes the satirical and dystopian elements in science fiction rather than being primarily about technology.
A Temple of Texts
William H. Gass - 2006
These twenty-five essays speak to the nature and value of writing and to the books that result from a deep commitment to the word. Here is Gass on Rilke and Gertrude Stein; on friends such as Stanley Elkin, Robert Coover, and William Gaddis; and on a company of “healthy dissidents,” among them Rabelais, Elias Canetti, John Hawkes, and Gabriel García Márquez. In the title essay, Gass offers an annotated list of the fifty books that have most influenced his thinking and his work and writes about his first reaction to reading each. Among the books: Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (“A lightning bolt,” Gass writes. “Philosophy was not dead after all. Philosophical ambitions were not extinguished. Philosophical beauty had not fled prose.”) . . . Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist (“A man after my own heart. He is capable of the simplest lyrical stroke, as bold and direct as a line by Matisse, but he can be complex in a manner that could cast Nabokov in the shade . . . Shakespeare may have been smarter, but he did not know as much.”) . . . Gustave Flaubert’s letters (“Here I learned—and learned—and learned.”) And after reading Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, Gass writes “I began to eat books like an alien worm.”In the concluding essay, “Evil,” Gass enlarges upon the themes of artistic quality and cultural values that are central to the books he has considered, many of which seek to reveal the worst in people while admiring what they do best.As Gass writes, “The true alchemists do not change lead into gold, they change the world into words.”A Temple of Texts is Gass at his most alchemical.
The Common Reader
Virginia Woolf - 1925
This collection has more than twenty-five selections, including such important statements as "Modern Fiction" and "The Modern Essay."
Read Hard: Five Years of Great Writing from the Believer
Heidi Julavits - 2009
The book combines all the erudition and wit readers have come to expect from its pages: Jonathan Lethem on Nathanael West, William T. Vollmann on W. G. Sebald, Ben Ehrenreich on Brian Evenson, Paul La Farge on Dungeons & Dragons, and much, much more. It’s an essential anthology, collecting the best in creative nonfiction, the best in literary journalism, and the best writing in English from the beginning of the twenty-first century, from one of the smartest, weirdest, and funniest magazines in the country.
Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture
Ytasha L. Womack - 2013
From the sci-fi literature of Samuel Delany, Octavia Butler, and N. K. Jemisin to the musical cosmos of Sun Ra, George Clinton, and the Black Eyed Peas’ will.i.am, to the visual and multimedia artists inspired by African Dogon myths and Egyptian deities, the book’s topics range from the “alien” experience of blacks in America to the “wake up” cry that peppers sci-fi literature, sermons, and activism. With a twofold aim to entertain and enlighten, Afrofuturists strive to break down racial, ethnic, and social limitations to empower and free individuals to be themselves.
Shadows Beneath: The Writing Excuses Anthology
Brandon Sanderson - 2014
On the deadly island of Patji, where predators can sense the thoughts of their prey, a lone trapper discovers that the island is not the only thing out to kill him.Mary Robinette Kowal’s “A Fire in the Heavens” is a powerful tale of a refugee seeking to the near-mythical homeland her oppressed people left centuries ago. When Katin discovers the role the “eternal moon” occupies in the Center Kingdom, and the nature of the society under its constant light, she may find enemies and friends in unexpected places.Dan Wells’s “I.E.Demon” features an Afghanistan field test of a piece of technology that is supposed to handle improvised explosive devices. Or so the engineers have told the EOD team that will be testing it; exactly what it does and how it does it are need-to-know, and the grunts don’t need to know. Until suddenly the need arises.Howard Tayler’s “An Honest Death” stars the security team for the CEO of a biotech firm about to release the cure for old age. When an intruder appears and then vanishes from the CEO’s office, the bodyguards must discover why he is lying to them about his reason for pressing the panic button.For years the hosts of Writing Excuses have been offering tips on brainstorming, drafting, workshopping, and revision, and now they offer an exhaustive look at the entire process. Not only does Shadows Beneath have four beautifully illustrated fantastic works of fiction, but it also includes transcripts of brainstorming and workshopping sessions, early drafts of the stories, essays about the stories’ creation, and details of all the edits made between the first and final drafts.Come for the stories by award-winning authors; stay for the peek behind the creative curtain.
100 Hair-Raising Little Horror Stories
Al SarrantonioE.F. Benson - 1993
F. Benson, H. P. Lovecraft, Fritz Leiber, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Stephen Crane, Charles Dickens, Robert Barr, and many others who know well how to manipulate a reader's emotions. From Washington Irving comes "The Adventure of My Grandfather" and from Saki, "The Cobweb." Bill Pronzini plays a horrifying game of "Peekaboo," while Frances Garfield portrays "The House at Evening" to alarming effect. This unique and very special collection is like a carnival ride of terror that you'll want to go on again and again.
Tolstoy on Shakespeare: A Critical Essay on Shakespeare
Leo Tolstoy - 1906
He was the most influential member of the aristocratic Tolstoy family. His first publications were three autobiographical novels, Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth (1852-1856). They tell of a rich landowner's son and his slow realization of the differences between him and his peasants. As a fiction writer Tolstoy is widely regarded as one of the greatest of all novelists, particularly noted for his masterpieces War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877). In their scope, breadth and realistic depiction of 19th-century Russian life, the two books stand at the peak of realist fiction. As a moral philosopher Tolstoy was notable for his ideas on nonviolent resistance through works such as The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894). During his life, Tolstoy came to the conclusion that William Shakespeare is a bad dramatist and not a true artist at all. Tolstoy explained his views in a critical essay on Shakespeare written in 1903.
Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them
Francine Prose - 2006
Written with passion, humor, and wisdom, Reading Like a Writer will inspire readers to return to literature with a fresh eye and an eager heart - to take pleasure in the long and magnificent sentences of Philip Roth and the breathtaking paragraphs of Isaac Babel; she is deeply moved by the brilliant characterization in George Eliot's Middlemarch. She looks to John Le Carré for a lesson in how to advance plot through dialogue and to Flannery O'Connor for the cunning use of the telling detail. And, most important, Prose cautions readers to slow down and pay attention to words, the raw material out of which all literature is crafted.
Chicks Dig Time Lords: A Celebration of Doctor Who by the Women Who Love It
Lynne M. ThomasJody Lynn Nye - 2010
These essays will delight male and female readers alike by delving into the extraordinary aspects of being a female Doctor Who enthusiast. Essays include Carole E. Barrowman discussing what it was like to grow up with her brother John (including the fact that he's still afraid of shop-window dummies), columnist Jackie Jenkins providing a Bridget Jones' Diary-style memoir of working on Doctor Who Magazine, novelist Lloyd Rose analyzing Rose's changes between the ninth and tenth Doctors and much more. Other contributors include Elizabeth Bear (Jenny Casey), Lisa Bowerman (Bernice Summerfield), Mary Robinette Kowal (Shades of Milk and Honey), Jody Lynn Nye (Mythology series), Kate Orman (Seeing I), and Catherynne M. Valente (The Orphan's Tales). Also featured is a comic from the Torchwood Babiez creators, plus interviews with Doctor Who companions India Fisher (Charley) and Sophie Aldred (Ace).
Cultural Amnesia: Necessary Memories from History and the Arts
Clive James - 2007
Do I Dare Disturb the Universe?
Madeleine L'Engle - 2012
This e-book contains the text of her famous speech as well as her introduction to the twenty-fifth anniversary of A Wrinkle in Time, original reviews, and a facsimile of a chapter from the original manuscript with Madeleine’s notations.