Book picks similar to
The Razorblades in my Head by Donnie Goodman
horror
short-stories
fiction
adult
Come Closer
Sara Gran - 2003
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. Is she possessed by a demon, or is she simply insane? Described as “a new kind of psychological thriller” by George Pelecanos and “this year's scariest novel” by Time Out New York, Come Closer has become a modern classic “with a kick that will stay with the reader for days afterward” (The Dallas Morning News).
A Lush and Seething Hell: Two Tales of Cosmic Horror
John Hornor Jacobs - 2019
P. Lovecraft, The Sea Dreams It Is the Sky examines life in a South American dictatorship. Centered on the journal of a poet-in-exile and his failed attempts at translating a maddening text, it is told by a young woman trying to come to grips with a country that nearly devoured itself.In My Heart Struck Sorrow, a librarian discovers a recording from the Deep South—which may be the musical stylings of the Devil himself.Breathtaking and haunting, A Lush and Seething Hell is a terrifying and exhilarating journey into the darkness, an odyssey into the deepest reaches of ourselves that compels us to confront secrets best left hidden.
Some Will Not Sleep: Selected Horrors
Adam Nevill - 2016
In the big white house on the hill angels are said to appear. A forgotten tenant in an isolated building becomes addicted to milk. A strange goddess is worshipped by a home-invading disciple. The least remembered gods still haunt the oldest forests. Cannibalism occurs in high society at the end of the world. The sainted undead follow their prophet to the Great Dead Sea. A confused and vengeful presence occupies the home of a first-time buyer . . . In ghastly harmony with the nightmarish visions of the award-winning writer's novels, these stories blend a lifelong appreciation of horror culture with the grotesque fascinations and childlike terrors that are the author's own. Adam Nevill's best early horror stories are collected here for the first time.
Cold Hand in Mine: Strange Stories
Robert Aickman - 1974
The story Pages from a Young Girl's Journal won Aickman the World Fantasy Award in 1975. It was originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 1973 before appearing in this collection.Cold Hand in Mine stands as one of Aickman's best collections and contains eight stories that show off his powers as a 'strange story' writer to the full, being more ambiguous than standard ghost stories. Throughout the stories the reader is introduced to a variety of characters, from a man who spends the night in a Hospice to a German aristocrat and a woman who sees an image of her own soul. There is also a nod to the conventional vampire story (Pages from a Young Girl's Journal) but all the stories remain unconventional and inconclusive, which perhaps makes them all the more startling and intriguing.• The Swords • The Real Road to the Church • Niemandswasser • Pages from a Young Girl's Journal• The Hospice • The Same Dog • Meeting Mr. Millar • The Clock Watcher
The October Country
Ray Bradbury - 1955
Both sides of Bradbury's vaunted childhood nostalgia are also on display, in the celebratory "Uncle Einar," and haunting "The Lake," the latter a fine elegy to childhood loss. This edition features a new introduction by Bradbury, an invaluable essay on writing, wherein the author tells of his "Theater of Morning Voices," and, by inference, encourages you to listen to the same murmurings in yourself. And has any writer anywhere ever made such good use of exclamation marks!? (Illustrated by Joe Mugnaini.)Contents:·
The Dwarf
· ss Fantastic Jan/Feb ’54 ·
The Next in Line
· nv Dark Carnival, Arkham House: Sauk City, WI, 1947 ·
The Watchful Poker Chip of H. Matisse
· ss Beyond Fantasy Fiction Mar ’54 · Skeleton · ss Weird Tales Sep ’45 ·
The Jar
· ss Weird Tales Nov ’44 ·
The Lake
· ss Weird Tales May ’44 ·
The Emissary
· ss Dark Carnival, Arkham House: Sauk City, WI, 1947 · Touched with Fire [“Shopping for Death”] · ss Maclean’s Jun 1 ’54 ·
The Small Assassin
· ss Dime Mystery Magazine Nov ’46 ·
The Crowd
· ss Weird Tales May ’43 ·
Jack-in-the-Box
· ss Dark Carnival, Arkham House: Sauk City, WI, 1947 ·
The Scythe
· ss Weird Tales Jul ’43 ·
Uncle Einar
· ss Dark Carnival, Arkham House: Sauk City, WI, 1947 ·
The Wind
· ss Weird Tales Mar ’43 ·
The Man Upstairs
· ss Harper’s Mar ’47 ·
There Was an Old Woman
· ss Weird Tales Jul ’44 ·
The Cistern
· ss Mademoiselle May ’47 · Homecoming · ss Mademoiselle Oct ’46 ·
The Wonderful Death of Dudley Stone
· ss Charm Jul ’54
Ghostly: A Collection of Ghost Stories
Audrey Niffenegger - 2015
James to Neil Gaiman, H.H. Munro to Audrey Niffenegger herself, Ghostly reveals the evolution of the ghost story genre with tales going back to the eighteenth century and into the modern era, ranging across styles from Gothic Horror to Victorian, stories about haunting--haunted children, animals, houses. Every story is introduced by Audrey Niffenegger, an acclaimed master of the craft, with some words on its background and why she chose to include it. Audrey's own story is "A Secret Life With Cats." Perfect for the classic and contemporary ghost story aficionado, this is a delightful volume, beautifully illustrated by Audrey, who is a graphic artist with great vision. Ghostly showcases the best of the best in the field, including Edith Wharton, P.G. Wodehouse, A.S. Byatt, Ray Bradbury, and so many more.
The Monster of Elendhaven
Jennifer Giesbrecht - 2019
Wracked by plague, abandoned by the South, stripped of industry and left to die. But not everything dies so easily. A thing without a name stalks the city, a thing shaped like a man, with a dark heart and long pale fingers yearning to wrap around throats. A monster who cannot die. His frail master sends him out on errands, twisting him with magic, crafting a plan too cruel to name, while the monster’s heart grows fonder and colder and more cunning.These monsters of Elendhaven will have their revenge on everyone who wronged the city, even if they have to burn the world to do it.
I Am Legend and Other Stories
Richard Matheson - 1954
Every other man, woman, and child on Earth has become a vampire, and they are all hungry for Neville's blood.By day, he is the hunter, stalking the sleeping undead through the abandoned ruins of civilization. By night, he barricades himself in his home and prays for dawn.How long can one man survive in a world of vampires?I am legend --Buried talents --The near departed --Prey --Witch war --Dance of the dead --Dress of white silk --Mad house --The funeral --From shadowed places --Person to person.
Anoka
Shane Hawk - 2020
Here before you lie several tales involving bone collectors, pagan witches, werewolves, skeletal bison, and cloned children. It is up to you to decipher between fact and fiction as the author has woven historical facts into his narratives. With his debut horror collection, Cheyenne & Arapaho author Shane Hawk explores themes of family, grief, loneliness, and identity through the lens of indigenous life.Early copies of this book were 104 pages.New copies of this book are 140 pages.I increased font and line spacing to give the book enough space for spine text so people can enjoy it on their shelves.Pages aren't important, though, what matters is word count:This work has 21k~ words.
Gone to See the River Man
Kristopher Triana - 2020
Groupies. Stalkers.These people will give anything for the idols they worship, be they rock stars, actors or authors. Or even serial killers.Lori is just such a fanatic. Her obsession is with Edmund Cox, a man of sadistic cruelty who butchered more than twenty women. She’s gone so far as to forge a relationship with him, visiting him in prison and sending him letters on a regular basis. She will do anything to get close to him, so when he gives her a task, she eagerly accepts it.She has no idea of the horror that awaits her.Edmund tells her she must go to his cabin in the woods of Killen and retrieve a key to deliver to a mysterious figure known only as The River Man.In her quest, she brings along her handicapped sister, and they journey through the deep, dark valley, beginning their trip upriver. The trip quickly becomes a surreal nightmare, one that digs up Lori’s personal demons, the ones she feels bonds her to Edmund. The river runs with flesh, the cabin is a vault of horrors, and ghostly blues music echoes through the mountains. Soon they will learn that The River Man is not quite fact or folklore, and definitely not human -- at least, not anymore. And the key is just the beginning of what is required of Lori to prove she’s worthy of a madman’s love.
Gutshot
Amelia Gray - 2015
A medical procedure reveals an object of worship. A carnivorous reptile divides and cauterizes a town. Amelia Gray’s curio cabinet expands in Gutshot, where isolation and coupling are pushed to their dark and outrageous edges. These singular stories live and breathe on their own, pulsating with energy and humanness and a glorious sense of humor. Hers are stories that you will read and reread—raw gems that burrow into your brain, reminders of just how strange and beautiful our world is. These collected stories come to us like a vivisected body, the whole that is all the more elegant and breathtaking for exploring its most grotesque and intimate lightless viscera.
Blanky
Kealan Patrick Burke - 2017
Estranged from his wife, who refuses to be inside the house where the unthinkable happened, and unable to work, he seeks solace in an endless parade of old sitcoms and a bottle of bourbon.Until one night he hears a sound from his daughter's old room, a room now stripped bare of anything that identified it as hers...except for her security blanket, affectionately known as Blanky.Blanky, old and frayed, with its antiquated patchwork of badly sewn rabbits with black button eyes, who appear to be staring at the viewer...Blanky, purchased from a strange old man at an antique stall selling "BABY CLOSE" at a discount.The presence of Blanky in his dead daughter's room heralds nothing short of an unspeakable nightmare that threatens to take away what little light remains in Steve's shattered world.Because his daughter loved Blanky so much, he buried her with it.
The Dark Dark
Samantha Hunt - 2017
An FBI agent falls in love with a robot built for a suicide mission. A young woman unintentionally cheats on her husband when she is transformed, nightly, into a deer. Two strangers become lovers and find themselves somehow responsible for the resurrection of a dog. A woman tries to start her life anew after the loss of a child but cannot help riddling that new life with lies. Thirteen pregnant teenagers develop a strange relationship with the Founding Fathers of American history. A lonely woman’s fertility treatments become the stuff of science fiction.Magic intrudes. Technology betrays and disappoints. Infidelities lead us beyond the usual conflict. Our bodies change, reproduce, decay, and surprise. With her characteristic unguarded gaze and offbeat humor, Hunt has conjured stories that urge an understanding of youth and mortality, magnification and loss, and hold out the hope that we can know one another more deeply or at least stand side by side to observe the mystery of the world.
All the Fabulous Beasts
Priya Sharma - 2018
writer Priya Sharma, All the Fabulous Beasts collects 16 stunning and monstrous tales of love, rebirth, nature, and sexuality. A heady mix of myth and ontology, horror and the modern macabre.
The Bachman Books
Richard Bachman - 1985
Omnibus collection of four early Bachman novels (Rage, The Long Walk, Roadwork, The Running Man) and the essay "Why I Was Bachman"