Here are 100 books that Tales of Horror and the Supernatural fans have personally recommended if you like
Tales of Horror and the Supernatural.
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When I was a child, my father and older brother read Walt Disney’s Uncle Scrooge comic books. I received them as hand-me-downs and was enchanted by the astonishing adventures of Uncle Scrooge McDuck and his nephews. These illustrated tales of lost civilizations touched a special chord in me that transcended mere enjoyment. Later, I learned that Scrooge’s creator was Carl Barks, a comic artist who was heavily inspired by H. Rider Haggard. It is now clear that Carl Barks inculcated in me, when I was eight years old, my Victorian/Edwardian adventure literary tastes. But it was twenty years later that my literary tastes finally became dedicated to turn-of-the-19th-century literary styles and themes.
When I was 28 I chanced upon H. Rider Haggard’s book when it was republished by Ballantine’s iconic Adult Fantasy Series. The story is about Leonard Outram, who, in an attempt to restore his family's fortune, commits to a perilous journey to Africa, where he discovers a lost city and is tempted by its treasures.
This was my first encounter with Haggard, and it affected me deeply; there was a mysterious something permeating that novel that I found refreshing and illuminating. It seemed to me that the story did not come alive due to characterizations or plot developments so much as it did to turnings of fate. I collected all 68 of his books. Thereafter, 80 percent of all my own writing has emulated Rider Haggard.
The People of the Mist is a classic lost race fantasy novel written by H. Rider Haggard. It is the tale of a British adventurer seeking wealth in the wilds of Africa, finding romance, and discovering a lost race and its monstrous god.
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
When I was a child, my father and older brother read Walt Disney’s Uncle Scrooge comic books. I received them as hand-me-downs and was enchanted by the astonishing adventures of Uncle Scrooge McDuck and his nephews. These illustrated tales of lost civilizations touched a special chord in me that transcended mere enjoyment. Later, I learned that Scrooge’s creator was Carl Barks, a comic artist who was heavily inspired by H. Rider Haggard. It is now clear that Carl Barks inculcated in me, when I was eight years old, my Victorian/Edwardian adventure literary tastes. But it was twenty years later that my literary tastes finally became dedicated to turn-of-the-19th-century literary styles and themes.
When I read the novel, I was amazed because it was difficult for me to get my head around the idea that the tale was virtually perfect and that it was created by a mere human being.
The story follows David Fairchild, a young antiquary studying ancient manuscripts at Cambridge. Central to the novel is the obscure Cambridge library, where the mysterious Westchurch manuscripts are preserved and sequestered away from the world at large.
I found this book both wildly entertaining and wildly thought-provoking about the mechanics of the universe, the persistence of spirits, and the drama inherent in cosmic astronomy. Thereafter, I recommended the book for 40 years. This epigraph describes the book perfectly: There was logic and coherence enough in the whole affair to persuade me that what I'd stumbled onto—of all the preposterous perils of scholarship!—was a haunted manuscript.
American scholar and lettered medievalist, David Fairchild, swings a plum sabbatical at Cambridge University, where he is given full access to a rare manuscript written by a mad monk of shameful repute—Geoffrey Gervaise. The Westchurch Manuscript has lain neglected in the University vaults for centuries . . . or has it? A shadowy nefarious cabal has had an interest in the manuscript for a very long time and sharpens its claws anytime anyone probes its secrets. Expecting a pleasant year pursuing his passion for medieval literature, Fairchild quickly finds himself entangled in the centuries old curse that surrounds the manuscript…
When I was a child, my father and older brother read Walt Disney’s Uncle Scrooge comic books. I received them as hand-me-downs and was enchanted by the astonishing adventures of Uncle Scrooge McDuck and his nephews. These illustrated tales of lost civilizations touched a special chord in me that transcended mere enjoyment. Later, I learned that Scrooge’s creator was Carl Barks, a comic artist who was heavily inspired by H. Rider Haggard. It is now clear that Carl Barks inculcated in me, when I was eight years old, my Victorian/Edwardian adventure literary tastes. But it was twenty years later that my literary tastes finally became dedicated to turn-of-the-19th-century literary styles and themes.
I flat-out love Michael Crichton’s 1980 jungle-adventure novel Congo, which uses for inspiration H. Rider Haggard’s 1885 breakout adventure King Solomon’s Mines, the protagonist of which is hunter/trader Allan Quatermain. King Solomon’s Mines was about seeking diamonds in central Africa, as is Congo.
The main character in the book is Karen Ross who is asked by her high-tech company to learn why the previous diamond-seeking expedition vanished. Beyond that, the book perfectly exemplifies the technical thriller Crichton invented in the 1960s with Andromeda Strain, written on two levels at once, the action and adventure layer meshing seamlessly with the layer explaining the world’s most up-to-the-minute sophisticated technology.
Note that the last sentence of Congo reads: “The projected intersection point now marked a field of black quatermain lava with an average depth of eight hundred meters.” The name “Quatermain” is sufficiently close to the geological term “quaternary”…
The search for diamonds, a crucial scientific breakthrough and a mythical ruined city set off this adventure into the heart of the Congolese jungle.
The American expedition is led by Karen Ross, desperate to find her husband and recover the data he found before he disappeared. But there are other teams trying to get there first, and the way is strewn with life-threatening dangers -- plane crashes, civil wars and a dormant volcano awoken by dormant explosives.
In the tradition of Arthur Conan Doyle and H. Rider Haggard, Congo is a novel of high adventure from the master of the…
The Year Mrs. Cooper Got Out More
by
Meredith Marple,
The coastal tourist town of Great Wharf, Maine, boasts a crime rate so low you might suspect someone’s lying.
Nevertheless, jobless empty nester Mallory Cooper has become increasingly reclusive and fearful. Careful to keep the red wine handy and loath to leave the house, Mallory misses her happier self—and so…
When I was a child, my father and older brother read Walt Disney’s Uncle Scrooge comic books. I received them as hand-me-downs and was enchanted by the astonishing adventures of Uncle Scrooge McDuck and his nephews. These illustrated tales of lost civilizations touched a special chord in me that transcended mere enjoyment. Later, I learned that Scrooge’s creator was Carl Barks, a comic artist who was heavily inspired by H. Rider Haggard. It is now clear that Carl Barks inculcated in me, when I was eight years old, my Victorian/Edwardian adventure literary tastes. But it was twenty years later that my literary tastes finally became dedicated to turn-of-the-19th-century literary styles and themes.
To my mind, this is the finest of all Christmas stories. Written by Seabury Quinn in 1938, it successfully combines two supremely different sorts of Christmas stories. One style is religious and involves the Nativity and the infant Jesus. The other type, of course, is tales of Santa Claus, often explaining his origin.
I cannot recall any fiction that combines these two motifs, a type of story that is sadly missing from our culture except for this book, which blends the true meaning of Christmas with the Santa Claus narrative and does it to perfection.
Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol, for almost two centuries, has been the touchstone Christmas tale, successfully engendering joy and rebirth in countless readers and viewers. Yet, nowhere in that short novel is Jesus or his birth mentioned, no iconic Nativity moments or words mentioned at all. Quinn quite simply brought together the Nativity and…
Drawing upon the original Christian legends that coalesced over centuries into the familiar, jolly form of Saint Nicholas, pulp fiction pioneer Seabury Quinn weaves a spellbinding new origin for this most beloved of children’s icons in his classic novella Roads.“I have not tried to paint the portrait of a man, but merely to present a personality and hazard a guess as to the motivation that makes Santa Claus the wondrous figure he is — a figure who more than any other exemplifies the beauty of selflessness.” — Seabury Quinn
While volunteering in a psychotic disorder unit at a Montreal psychiatric hospital, I witnessed firsthand the extraordinary lives of people hospitalized for their symptoms. As their stories accumulated, I felt compelled to record them. What emerged was a stark indictment of society’s failure to see the human being behind experiences such as hearing voices, delusions, and hallucinations. Compounding this injustice is the persistent, misguided belief that psychosis and violence are intrinsically linked—they are not. My work became a mission: to reveal the humanity behind the diagnosis and to challenge the stigma, opening minds to the creativity, beauty, and love that exist in every person who has endured the profound exclusion of mental illness.
In this incisive and beautifully written essay collection, Esmé Weijun Wang explores her personal experience with schizoaffective disorder, a condition that combines features of schizophrenia and mood disorders. Through a mix of memoir, cultural analysis, and medical research, Wang examines the complexities of mental illness, from diagnosis and hospitalization to stigma and recovery.
Her voice is lyrical and sharp, offering a unique and powerful perspective on what it means to live with a serious mental illness while maintaining a creative and ambitious life. The triumph of this collection of essays is the message of living with what others might call a deficit.
An intimate, moving book written with the immediacy and directness of one who still struggles with the effects of mental and chronic illness, The Collected Schizophrenias cuts right to the core. Schizophrenia is not a single unifying diagnosis, and Esme Weijun Wang writes not just to her fellow members of the "collected schizophrenias" but to those who wish to understand it as well. Opening with the journey toward her diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder, Wang discusses the medical community's own disagreement about labels and procedures for diagnosing those with mental illness, and then follows an arc that examines the manifestations of…
My childhood was marred by change and a search for meaning. Born in the UK to an English mother and Iraqi father, moving to Iraq as a toddler and then back to the UK as a 14-year-old, I was exposed to the dramatic differences in the unwritten rules of how we are meant to behave and experience the world. It was probably inevitable that after training as a doctor, I would eventually end up as a child and adolescent psychiatrist grappling with big questions about life and its struggles. These are the books that opened my mind to re-imagining these dilemmas. I hope they help to open yours, too.
I first read this book in 1987, when I was a fourth-year medical student. This is the book that really sparked my interest in psychiatry.
It opened my eyes to the possibility that even those in the most disturbed state of mind experience meaningful and understandable human dilemmas. It’s as fresh and relevant today as it was when it was first published six decades ago. A deeply humane text that humanizes the most disenfranchised and lost of our human family.
Presenting case studies of schizophrenic patients, Laing aims to make madness and the process of going mad comprehensible. He also offers an existential analysis of personal alienation.
Don’t mess with the hothead—or he might just mess with you. Slater Ibáñez is only interested in two kinds of guys: the ones he wants to punch, and the ones he sleeps with. Things get interesting when they start to overlap. A freelance investigator, Slater trolls the dark side of…
Like many adults, I love a good YA story. YA books take us back to our younger days when we were stronger, faster, and likely better-looking, but also to the confusing transitional time of being a teenager. Mostly, I love reading and writing YA novels because despite being about hard topics–friendship, disease, toppling the patriarchy–they are hopeful. In this confusing, stressful world, we need a little optimism. With that in mind, I offer you five of my favorite YA books that I think adults will love, too.
Did you love Calvin and Hobbes when you were a child? How about as an adult? If so, you will love Martine Leavitt’s Calvin. Calvin, in this novel, is a schizophrenic teen who is convinced that Hobbes is real. He thinks if he can walk across frozen Lake Erie – with the girl he loves, Suzie – and convince Bill Watterson to write one more Calvin cartoon, he will be healed.
This book is a brilliant exploration of mental health and relationships, rooted in characters you already know and love.
Just because you see something doesn't mean it's really there.
Seventeen-year-old Calvin has always known his fate is linked to the comic book character from Calvin & Hobbes.
He was born on the day the last strip was published. His grandpa put a stuffed tiger named Hobbes in his crib. And he even had a best friend named Susie.
Then Calvin’s mom washed Hobbes to death. Susie grew up beautiful and stopped talking to him. And Calvin pretty much forgot about the strip―until now.
Now he is seventeen years old and has been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Hobbes is back, as…
I have always been interested in the metaphysical and in psychology, so I have always gravitated to how the mind creates our perception of reality and how that can be stretched. Coming to this country as a refugee with my family and watching the struggles of my family has given me a keen interest in the human mind, resilience, and mental health. My artwork and writing lends itself towards magical realism and the blurring between reality and the supernatural. I truly believe that things are often not what they seem and I aim to prove it.
Maybe I am gullible. Maybe everything I thought I knew was a lie. I don’t know anymore.
This is how this book left me feeling. And I’m not mad at all. But if I ever believed the ravings of a mad-man, I believed Horselover Fat’s. Every last damn word.
There was truly a scary blurring of lines here between what could happen and what actually did happen.
It began with a blinding light, a divine revelation from a mysterious intelligence that called itself VALIS (Vast Active Living Intelligence System). And with that, the fabric of reality was torn apart and laid bare so that anything seemed possible, but nothing seemed quite right.
It was madness, pure and simple. But what if it were true?
One of the reasons I wanted to write about and explore mental health was because I was always fascinated by how the mind works and how it can turn on you without provocation. How and why some people can power through dark times, while others struggle is a topic that, within the African American community, isn't frequently discussed. Often the advice given to someone about how to get through depression or anxiety is to pray or just dig deep and power through. It is the idea that because our ancestors suffered so much, those of us living in "easier" times should have nothing to be sad about that seems to prevent us from asking for help or getting therapy.
Lily’s mom has schizophrenia and Lily is terrified that she might get it too. Lily gets personally involved in a story at her newspaper internship about an abandoned elephant calf. Feeling a kinship with the elephant, Lily goes through extraordinary lengths to make sure the calf finds a safe home, while at the same time, realizing that she has begun to show signs of mental illness. Fischer combines mental illness, family, friendship, and animal welfare into a riveting, thought-provoking book. I loved how she showed the reader how a character can live with the early stages of schizophrenia without losing her sense of self and purpose.
"Nancy Richardson Fischer deserves high praise for her well-researched and endearing novel. Her imagination, craft, and effort has resulted in her writing a piece of fiction that is worthy of winning a prize. This really is an outstanding piece of fiction that cannot be recommended enough.” –New York Journal of Books
A Parade Most Anticipated Book of Fall 2018! A YA Books Central Buzzworthy Books of Fall 2018! A Publishers Lunch Fall Buzz Book!
Don’t miss one of the most heartwarming young adult novels of the year. Perfect for fans of Water for Elephants, Wonder and All the Bright Places,…
When my older sister died, I felt a pressing need to tell her story. Rachel was a strong, courageous woman, who endured decades in a psychiatric system that failed her. She was a survivor, but the stigma of severe mental illness made her an outcast from most of society. Even so, her enduring passion for poetry inspired me to write about her. I sought out other people’s stories. I enrolled in workshops and therapy. I devoured books and blogs by survivors, advocates, and family members. Everything I read pointed to a troubling rift between the dominant medical model and more humane, less damaging ones. This list represents a slice of my learning.
Before my sister became so ill, people used to say we looked alike. But ours was just a resemblance. In this novel, Dominick looks exactly like his brother, who has schizophrenia. Dominick encounters his identical twin every time he looks in a mirror. And he is terrified.
I first read this book 25 years ago and inhaled every one of the intertwined subplots in its 900 + pages. Recently, I re-read the “story within the story,” a memoir by Dominick’s grandfather. I became fascinated by his story about the Sicilian market where one chicken transforms into two whole ones—a bit of magical realism about twinning, schizophrenia, and hope. I too excavated old family documents to understand why my sibling suffered so much.
#1 New York Times Bestseller and Oprah Book Club selection
"Thoughtful . . . heart-wrenching . . . . An exercise in soul-baring storytelling—with the soul belonging to 20th-century America itself. It's hard to read and to stop reading, and impossible to forget." — USA Today
Dominick Birdsey, a forty-year-old housepainter living in Three Rivers, Connecticut, finds his subdued life greatly disturbed when his identical twin brother Thomas, a paranoid schizophrenic, commits a shocking act of self-mutilation. Dominick is forced to care for his brother as well as confront dark secrets and pain he has buried deep within himself—a journey…
