Book cover of Shiver: Junji Ito Selected Stories

Book description

A best-of story selection by the master of horror manga.

This volume includes nine of Junji Ito's best short stories, as selected by the author himself and presented with accompanying notes and commentary. An arm peppered with tiny holes dangles from a sick girl's window... After an idol hangs herself,…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

2 authors picked Shiver as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Shiver is one of those books I'd recommend to people who don't like manga, graphic novels, or comic books. I wouldn't tell them because I would want them to pick the book up, skim through the pages, and see the brilliance for themselves.

Junji Ito's stories are so unique and disturbing. They crawl under your skin and latch onto your muscles. A few burrow through the sinew and bury themselves in your bones.

"Hanging Balloons" is my favorite of the collection. There's nothing like it. And there is no one who has such a deft, while still overt hand at…

Junji Ito is an undisputed master of Japanese horror manga.

This collection is the perfect introduction to Ito’s creepy, gruesome, and yet somehow always grin-inducing artistic and narrative style.

I had previously read several of Ito’s longer graphic novels, including Black Paradox, Uzumaki, Gyo, and Remina. All of these come highly recommended. But Shiver has convinced me that Ito is at his very best in the graphic short story format.

Like Poe, like Lovecraft, Ito shows us how horror lurks just the other side of the ordinary, spreads fast once it trickles in, and destroys us before…

If you love Shiver...

Book cover of These Blue Mountains

These Blue Mountains by Sarah Loudin Thomas,

A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.

German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…

Want books like Shiver?

Our community of 13,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like Shiver.

Browse books like Shiver

Book cover of Blood: The Last Vampire
Book cover of Yon & Mu
Book cover of The Japanese: A History in Twenty Lives

Share your top 3 reads of 2025!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,395

readers submitted
so far, will you?

📚 If you like Shiver, you might also like...

Book cover of Need to Know: World War II and the Rise of American Intelligence

Need to Know by Nicholas Reynolds,

The authoritative but accessible history of the birth of modern American intelligence in World War II that treats not just one but all of the various disciplines: spies, codebreakers, saboteurs.

Told in a relatable style that focuses on actual people, it was a New Yorker "Best of 2022" selection and…

Book cover of Tsunami

Tsunami by LeeAnn Pickrell,

On the morning of December 26, 2004, an undersea earthquake struck off the coast of Sumatra in the Indian Ocean. The resulting tsunami killed an estimated 230,000 people across fourteen countries, from Indonesia to Sri Lanka to Thailand to the Maldives to India and all the way to East Africa.…

5 book lists we think you will like!