Oh my! I am sooo happy to have stumbled across this book. Its contents have created a mouthwatering new TBR list that will potentially keep me going for years (OK, maybe a year or several months)!
The book is a lovingly curated collection of the best underrated horror books to have been written in the last few decades. The book itself is a thing of beauty in the way it is laid out and illustrated. Written by Sadie Hartmann (aka Mother Horror on social media), of Night Worms Publishing and Dark Heart, it categorises and sub-categorises the books by horror type and provides publication details, a synopsis, and some notes on themes, tone and style. There are Author Spotlights in each section which lists their own books and some of their personal reading recommendations.
I’ve only read a handful of the 101 titles listed between its covers and have been wanting to read several more, but largely these are all books that I have not read. To unashamedly steal the Goodreads categories:
Currently Reading: Zone One by Colson Whitehead
Read: Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, The Silence by Tim Lebbon and The Loop by Jeremy Robert Johnson,
Want to read: The Bone Weaver’s Orchard by Sarah Read, Bird Box by Josh Malerman, Tender is the Flesh by Augustina Bazterrica and I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid.
That leaves 93 new books for me to add to my list and start getting my teeth into.
But the featured Author Spotlights list their own books and their personal horror recommendations, adding even more to the list as these are not counted in the 101 main titles.
Of them, I have read (and loved) all of Paul Tremblay’s novels; A Head Full of Ghosts, The Pallbearers Club, Disappearance at Devil’s Rock, The Cabin at the End of the World and Survivor Song. I haven’t read any of his recommendations, but The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson has long been a Want to Read. Another featured author, Christopher Buehlman (who I have not read), also includes this in his recommendations. I’m going to have to prioritise this one.
I’ve read several of Stephen Graham Jones books, The Only Good Indians, My Heart is a Chainsaw and Don’t Fear the Ripper and one of his recommendations, It by Stephen King.
Josh Malerman is someone I definitely need to get into. Bird Box is already on my list and I have already read and loved two of his recommendations, The Exorcist by Willima Peter Blatty and Perfume by Patrick Suskind
I loved The Hunger by Alma Katsu and The Only Good Indians is one of her recommendations.
Tananarive Due, is an author I have never read but I have read two of her recommendations, Beloved by Toni Morrison and again, The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones.
Similarly, I have not read Ania Ahlborn but have read all three of her recommendations, Misery by Stephen king, Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin and Lord of the Flies by William Golding.
Finally, I have never read any V Castro, Adam Nevill or Grady Hendrix or any of their recommendations with the exception of Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
All in all, the Author Spotlights add another 81 books to the list!
Oh, how I love a list. It feeds the OCD part of me (that you might have observed within my ramblings above) in a disturbingly satisfying way. But I also love a reason to push me out of my reading comfort zone and explore new authors and genres. Horror per se is not a new genre for me, but some types of horror are. The books I have read mostly fall into Hartmann’s Human Monsters and Natural Order categories, and there are some categories that I haven’t even dipped my toe into such as Paranormal and Supernatural. So many books to read. So little time! I’d better get started!
But, before I go, a parting word on Short Story Collections. There is whole section of the book devoted to these. In fact, Hartmann states that she believes short fiction is one of the best formats for horror. I’m ashamed to say then that I tend to shy away from these as I prefer to get my teeth stuck into a full-length novel. For me, the longer the better! But maybe I’ll give some of these a go. After I’ve read the 174 new books on my TBR list that is ……….
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