Why am I passionate about this?
Growing up in New England, my mother had a set of books that she kept in the living room, more for display than anything else. It was The Works of Edgar Allen Poe. I read them and instantly became hooked on horror. In the seventh grade, I entertained my friends at a sleepover by telling them the mysterious clanking noise (created by the baseboard heater) was the ghost of a woman who had once lived in the farmhouse, forced to cannibalize her ten children during a particularly bad winter. And I’ve been enjoying scaring people ever since.
J.'s book list on horror that will make you cancel your travel plans
Why did J. love this book?
You don’t have to travel far for very bad things to happen to you, as the main characters in this book discover when they ignore local warnings about fishing in a nearby creek. I consider this a masterwork in any genre, and I’m actually re-reading it right now, even though it kinda broke me the first time.
It’s a Lovecraftian, cosmic horror story that also creates a kind of allegory for grief. Having lost my parents in my late twenties, it felt like a fantastical yet unnervingly accurate reflection of the experience.
6 authors picked The Fisherman as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
In upstate New York, in the woods around Woodstock, Dutchman's Creek flows out of the Ashokan Reservoir. Steep-banked, fast-moving, it offers the promise of fine fishing, and of something more, a possibility too fantastic to be true. When Abe and Dan, two widowers who have found solace in each other's company and a shared passion for fishing, hear rumors of the Creek, and what might be found there, the remedy to both their losses, they dismiss it as just another fish story. Soon, though, the men find themselves drawn into a tale as deep and old as the Reservoir. It's…