There’s nothing better than curling up at night with a good book, a blanket, and some hot chocolate. If you’re a fan of all things spooky and paranormal (and you probably are, if you’re here), then the best kind of book is a ghost book. or, better yet, a selection of ghost books. the best ghost stories are the ones that give you the creeps, where you feel like you have to look back to make sure there’s nothing there. Here, we’ve rounded up 12 of the best ghost books ever written. Dive in and expand your spooky horizons!
This will be the only story on our list of the 12 best ghost story books that doesn’t include ghosts, but it will leave you shivering in a chair for days and that’s all that matters, right? the only thing we will tell you is that the protagonist gets it into his head that he wants to pierce the skin of his new baby. chaos ensues.
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It has already been made into a movie once and will be released again in 2017. Terrifying adults and teenagers around the world, it tells the story of a clown who lives in the sewers and shows himself through balloons and sinks full of blood. . if you’ve never read the book, you really need to. is the clown a demon? something from another dimension? Stephen King is the master at weaving tales of the paranormal, particularly in the next book on our list.
Another excellent movie, but an even better book. Master storyteller Stephen King weaves a magnificent story of a man and his family who go to live in a hotel in the Rocky Mountains for the winter, where the spirits of the hotel slowly send the man into a rage-induced frenzy.
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Literally one of the best ghost stories in contemporary fiction, Straub’s Breakthrough Ghost Story tells the story of a group of men who come together to swap spooky tales. Unfortunately for them, the creatures from their stories, as well as some demons from their past, attack them as they trade stories. will keep you awake for days.
In a more traditional ghost story, this story from accomplished writer Michelle Paver tells of a group of men in the Arctic in the 1930s. It’s already an incredibly sinister setting, with all the darkness, snow, fog and eerie silence, but what makes it even worse is that when the men try to make sense of the darkness around them, they find something more horrible than they could. you never anticipated.
Next on our list of ghost story books is The Woman in Black. It was a fantastic movie, a little slow, but ultimately a psychological horror that was a fantastically creepy ghost story. the book is a little different. a nursery is closed, with cries and calls for help coming from the swamps around the house, and children from the nearby town are disappearing. Is it the woman in black?
even stephen king says of this book: “the house from hell is the most terrifying haunted house novel ever written. it looms over the rest the way mountains loom over the slopes.” billionaire dr Lionel Barrett decides that he wants to get into and stay in a haunted house so he can prove that there is something after death. The house was owned by a rather perverted man named Emeric Balasco, and there was a lot of negative energy residing there, just waiting for him to come back. barrett will enter.
Keeping the next spot on our list of the best ghost books is a twist. In this story, a governess is hired by a man on the condition that she never, ever contact her employer. Her job is to take care of her nephews, but on her first day of work, her nephew is expelled from school. he debates whether or not to tell his employer about her, but then stranger things begin to happen. spirits appear, but the kids don’t see them, so we’re not sure if these ghosts are real or not.
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if you’re looking for the best ghost story books, house of leaves is a great place to start. it’s another haunted house story, but what it really does well is get inside your head and under your skin. it plants a perfect feeling of claustrophobia in your mind and a creeping sense of dread that doesn’t go away for days.”
The best ghost books, in my opinion, are the ones that fill you with existential fear. Kafka’s fantastic prose on trial does just that. The best scenario for a ghost story is when the main character is forced to spend a life of isolation, relentlessly pursued by unseen forces and spirits, but he doesn’t know why or who these unseen spirits are, or what they want from him. the trial the character faces sends him into a downward spiral of mental despair and we follow him on that journey.
This tome of Clive Barker is full of some pretty dark and disturbing stories. It’s another book that has been hailed by Stephen King, who called it the “future of horror” when it was released. is a collection of short stories, with some bloody tales, some psychologically disturbing, and some extremely creepy. there are also some ghost stories. An excellent book if you are a fan of stories.
joe hill’s first book, heart-shaped box, is a brilliant debut. contemporary horror hasn’t made much of an impact on our list, but this is a fantastic book with a slightly odd premise. it’s a bit like the premise of clown: the protagonist buys a suit, which he then takes over, body and soul. is the suit possessed by a demon or a poltergeist? Does the poltergeist cling to the protagonist? you’ll have to read it to find out.
good ghost stories have to keep you guessing. They don’t have to keep you up all night, but they should stay in the back of your mind for days on end, nagging at your thoughts. that’s why we put together this list of the best ghost story books so you can get scared whenever you want, with some of the best classics of the genre.
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