Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

American Psycho

by Bret Easton Ellis

The controversial novel about a handsome serial killer who moves among the young and trendy in 1980s New York.

Meet Frank Cauldhame. Just sixteen, and unconventional to say the least: Two years after I killed Blyth I murdered my young brother Paul, for quite different and more fundamental reasons than I'd disposed of Blyth, and then a year after that I did for my young cousin Esmerelda, more or less on a whim. That's my score to date. Three. I haven't killed anybody for years, and don't intend to ever again. It was... (more)

Cruddy: A Novel

by Lynda Barry

On a September night in 1971, a few days after getting busted for dropping acid, a sixteen-year-old curls up in the corner of her ratty bedroom and begins to write. Now the truth can finally be revealed about the mysterious day long ago when the authorities found a child, calmly walking in the boiling desert, covered with blood. The girl is Roberta Rohbeson, and her rant against a world bounded by "the... (more)

We Have Always Lived in the Castle: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) (Penguin Classics Deluxe Editio)

We Have Always Lived in the Castle: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) (Penguin Classics Deluxe Editio)

by Eduard Kodua, Shirley Jackson

Taking readers deep into a labyrinth of dark neurosis, We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a deliciously unsettling novel about a perverse, isolated, and possibly murderous family and the struggle that ensues when a cousin arrives at their estate.

The Haunting of Hill House (Penguin Classics)

The Haunting of Hill House (Penguin Classics)

by Shirley Jackson

The classic supernatural thriller by an author who helped define the genre First published in 1959, Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House has been hailed as a perfect work of unnerving terror. It is the story of four seekers who arrive at a notoriously unfriendly pile called Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of a "haunting"; Theodora, his lighthearted... (more)

The Love Curse of the Rumbaughs

by Jack Gantos

On an unseasonably warm Easter Sunday, a young girl named Ivy discovers a chilling secret in the basement of the Rumbaugh pharmacy across the street from the hotel where she lives with her mother. The discovery reveals a disturbing side to the eccentric lives of family friends Abner and Adolph Rumbaugh, known throughout their small western Pennsylvania town simply as the Twins. It seems that Ab and Dolph have been... (more)

Twisted

by Jay Bonansinga

Publishing a novel about a giant hurricane hitting New Orleans eleven months after the very real Hurricane Katrina is a dicey undertaking. But Bonansinga pulls it off with grace and reverence for the Crescent City—especially since, according to the novel's foreword, he turned in the first draft one month before Katrina hit. The chills don't stop with the novel's prescience. In his second leading role, stoic... (more)

We're in Trouble

by Christopher Coake

Each of the seven stories in this extraordinary debut collection dramatizes a deep love staring at the face of death- an encounter that elicits either the best or the worst in these vividly drawn characters. In "We're in Trouble," a woman is asked to end her dying husband's suffering. In "Abandon," a troubled young man must risk jail to do right by the only woman he has ever loved. And "In the Event" shows a... (more)

Adams Fall

by Sean Desmond

It's an especially bleak and gray October at the College, and the brooding protagonist of Adams Fall finds himself under the classic strains of first semester senior year-a thesis to write, grad schools and fellowships to apply for, a future to ponder, and a girlfriend to elude. A full, but manageable load for any bright-eyed, self-starting English honors student.But our protagonist resides in Adams House's... (more)

Frozen

by Jay Bonansinga

Sick

by Jay R. Bonansinga

When a mysterious growth on exotic dancer Sarah's mind is discovered to actually be the growing seed of an evil force, Sarah and a team of medical scientists set out to destroy it before discovering that the cure is twice as deadly.

The Turn of the Screw

by Henry James

The narrator is a young governess, sent off to a country house to take charge of two orphaned children. She finds a pleasant house and a comfortable housekeeper, while the children are beautiful and charming. But she soon begins to feel the presence of intense evil.

The Turn of the Screw

by Henry James

THE TURN OF THE SCREW is the greatest and most subtle of all English-language ghost stories. H.P. Lovecraft praised its "truly potent air of sinister menace" and "mounting tide of fright" and subsequent critics have argued long and hard over the central "problem" of the story: if the motifs of the traditional ghost story, in the hands of a master, are used to probe the deepest depths of the human psyche, do the... (more)

Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Troll)Robert Louis Stevenson

Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Troll)

by Robert Louis Stevenson

This book is intended for Prizes won etc.

Story of O

by Pauline Reage

The classic erotic novel, THE STORY OF O relates the love of a beautiful Parisian fashion photographer for Rene. As part of that intense love, she demands debasement and severe sexual and pychological tests. It is a unique work not to be missed.

by James Herbert

He was a stringy mongrel, wandering the streets of the city, driven by a ravenous hunger and hunting a quarry he could not define. But he was something more. Somewhere in the depths of his consciousness was a memory clawing its way to the surface, tormenting him. The memory of what he had once been—a man.

The Turn of the Screw

by Henry James

An innocent, impressionable young governess takes over the education of two delightful children, Flora and Miles, at an isolated country estate. She becomes convinced that the children's former governess and a valet once employed on the estate—both now dead—have returned and are trying to gain control of the children's souls. Her hysteria builds toa terrifying and tragic climax. James's novella demonstrates the... (more)

H. P. Lovecraft: Tales

by H. P. Lovecraft

Starred Review. Two of H.P. Lovecraft's Fungi from Yuggoth sonnets appeared in the Library of America's American Poetry: The Twentieth Century, Vol. I (2000). Now Lovecraft (1890–1937), the most important U.S. horror writer since Edgar Allan Poe and a big influence on nearly every major figure in the genre after his day, has been honored with a volume of his own in this prestigious series. Drawing from scholar... (more)

The Stepford Wives

by Ira Levin

The internationally bestselling novel by the author of A Kiss Before Dying, The Boys from Brazil, and Rosemary's Baby With an Introduction by Peter Straub For Joanna, her husband, Walter, and their children, the move to beautiful Stepford seems almost too good to be true. It is. For behind the town's idyllic facade lies a terrible secret -- a secret so shattering that no one who encounters it will ever be... (more)

Shadowland

by Peter Straub

The #1 New York Times bestselling author's all-time horror classic Now with a new introduction by Peter Straub Few modern horror novels have been able to stand the test of time like Shadowland . Now, with a new introduction from Peter Straub, this classic becomes a collectible for his insatiable fans-and for new readers who have just discovered Straub through the bestselling Black House , co-written with... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: psychological horror

by Bret Easton Ellis

by Iain Banks

by Lynda Barry

by Eduard Kodua, Shirley Jackson

by Shirley Jackson

by Jack Gantos

by Jay Bonansinga

by Christopher Coake

by Sean Desmond

by Jay Bonansinga

by Jay R. Bonansinga

by Henry James

by Henry James

by Robert Louis Stevenson

by Pauline Reage

by James Herbert

by Henry James

by H. P. Lovecraft

by Ira Levin

by Peter Straub