Salem's Lot is getting increasingly creepy.

Obviously due to subject matter it's unremittingly grim. Lurid cover might seem slightly cheap but it's a fantastic book if you can put up with the truly depressing nature of the whole thing. Three camps set up purely for the purpose of wiping out the Polish Jews - approximately 2 million, 1.2 million in 1942 alone, mostly dead within an hour of arrival at the camps, unless they were tasked with the unpleasant job(s) of disposing/burning of corpses (for which they'd be shot afterwards so as to remove any potential future testimonies), removing gold teeth from the dead or sorting through the mountains of personal possessions stolen from the victims and sent back to Germany. The accounts of escapes and such like provide occasional chinks of light but it's pretty bleak overall. not that you'd expect much else from the subject matter.

It's a purely factual account though, everything meticulously checked by the author as much as records and interviews could allow (the number of survivors was very small) and obviously the results of years of painful research.

I read when I was about 15 for GCSE history and decided to buy the kindle version as I'd forgotten the details, although the unrelentingly depressing nature of the books content stayed with me. I can't do it justice actually, I'm not eloquent enough. It's a great book though, not one you'd want to delve into on a regular basis all the same.

True, though the most terrifying was actually Pet Sematary, which I used to read by torchlight under the duvet in a clandestine attempt to avoid detection, accompanied by a paper bag of cola/pineapple cubes.

There's plenty to choose from, that's for sure.

There's a really bad film of Pet Sematary out there somewhere.  That's what comes of giving away film rights for $1.

@Igor

The film version's inadvertently hilarious. Although that kid's still creepy. I also remember the book scaring the shit outta me, around the age of 14 or so. 

Particularly: 

Aye, he's lovely.

Guessing you all read this a long time ago. But I'm reading it now. It's good.

TheDJR wrote:

@stormy Dunno if you realise but Erikson's first book in the Kharkanas trilogy is out at the end of this month. Forge of Darkness.

Aye, I've got it on preorder at Amazon. They're doing it for a good price if you haven't got it on order yourself.

ChattinWithChet wrote:

It's a book which is better in hindsight. In a sense it seems to be the book he was building towards, completely unrestrained. I see it as Bukowski ripping humankind down to the basest of levels, daring other writers to come anywhere near him.

I finished it last night. I don't know if it reduces humanity down, but it does reduce Bukowski to an unflattering level. One of the bothers is the lack of outright self-loathing, or accurate self-directed anger. A lot of it is arousing, vicious, and honest. But I find a lot of his speaking about how one should write to get in the way of it feeling as if it is a pure product of a fellow without humanity. I very much liked the page or so near the conclusion when he does a little of this. Could have done with more. Don't know if I liked it yet.

It's not exactly a book to like. He writes honestly about his pathetic existence without being proud of anything except his writing. In which he is correct - his prose may be unequalled by anybody.

Tore through Billy Lynn in two days. It's not Catch 22 although it is saying a lot of humorous things about the Iraq war.

Got quite dark in places, whole novel takes place over four hours and I really liked it. Good times.

ChattinWithChet wrote:

P'raps. I'll get into the next one when I get back home. He's an exciting writer, but there are a good few writers working in the same kind of style that I'd hold in high regard. Am going to start Naked Lunch tonight. Are you a fan of Hunter Thompson?

Yeah, I enjoy Thompson and Burroughs although Burroughs can be hard work.

Reading through Unfinished Tales and am now done reading the Children of Hurin portion. Good stuff but has to be the darkest tale Tolkien ever wrote.

What do people think of Michael Chabon by the way? I've read Cavalier & Clay and Yiddish Policeman's Union and found myself really getting into them.

There's been some great recommendations throughout this thread, particularly with regards to mentality and philosophy, so I've decided I'm going to read this on my holiday:

Never read it - would like to.