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Books and Authors

When I was a kid, I read science fiction and got lost in new worlds and strange happenings. Then I grew up, got a job and pretty much stopped reading. I read the occasional Stephen King or Peter Straub book, but nothing you could consider regular reading.

A couple of years back, I picked up a Dean Koontz book and struggled my way through it (I read very slowly) and haven't looked back since. Strange thing is, I now read almost exclusively horror books.

As a kid, anything with a horror tag scared me half to death - I couldn't even stand to watch Vincent Price horrors without getting frightened - a fact my brother took full advantage of! As an adult, I seem to have gone the other way and read horror books and watch horror DVDs with almost no sense of fear. Weird how that happens.

Authors

So, who do I read? Well, this is my regular reading list (in no particular order):

There are others that I can only confess to having read once; though I own a number of their books - just haven't got to them yet.

The last author on the list would be Susan Sizemore. I have no idea what her books are going to be like; I've bought two but haven't go to them yet.

Best Book

Offering a selection for 'best book' always has to be a personal thing and is likely to be a decision that no one agrees with. Given the caliber of the authors I usually read, picking one book is difficult, but I feel I have to go with the one book that I read as a youngster and desperately wanted to re-read as an adult. That's The Long Walk by Stephen King.

Anytime you're out and your feet hurt, think of this book!

Most Irritating

So, what's irritated me the most in Horror books. Well, Stephen King gets the prize again. Having ploughed through the entire series of Dark Tower novels, we arrived at the final chapter of the final installment only to be met by some pompous crap about it's not about the ending it's about the journey. His comments about the kind of people who want an ending irritated the hell out of me and made me determined never to buy another Stephen King book again (I failed on that one!).

Just to rub it in, he goes and gives the book a wonderful ending!

Now and Next

Right now, I'm working my way through the entire James Herbert collection (I bought them all) and am loving it. While many horror books tone down the action, James Herbert seems happy to describe the action in detail. It adds greatly to the story line and makes the story feel more realistic.

In between James Herbert, I've been reading books from all of the other authors on my most read list. There is no particular order to the books I read and which book comes next largely depends on what's sitting at the top of the to be read pile.

I buy a lot of books, but being a slow reader, I tend to buy more than I can read. That's where I am right now - loads of books to read and I'm just too slow to get through them. So, I've made a decision to only buy books from my most read authors list and to work through the others until I filter down my book pile. I doubt I'll stick to that decision - I like buying books.

Update: July, 2008

I promoted Charlie Huston and Bentley Little on the book list. I ran through the second Joe Pitt book (loved it) and finally dug out the Bentley Little books I've had stuck at the bottom of a bag for months.

Can't believe how enjoyable Bentley Little's book was and can't understand why I haven't read any more of them. He's definitely been prompted in to the 'frequent reads' list. His style is so much more ' James Herbert ' that I remembered from the first book.

April 2010

Ok, I know, I'm not updating this site all that regularly. That's not to say I'm not reading a lot of books because I am. There have just been a few distractions. Being made redundant, finding a new job, all meant getting used to a whole different way of working and a web ite was not exactly a priority!

Anyway, while I was away I got through a load of Dean Koonts, Stephen King, Charlaine Harris and Kelly Armstrong. Right now, I'm working my way through Bentley Little and am, yet again, stunned by the realish he injects in to his books. I've grown to believe that very few 'horror' books are all that scary. Bentley Little puts the horror back in to horror books.

I'm reading Death Instinct right now and the descriptions of the murders really do add that extra little shiver down the spine.