Fans pick 100 books like The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings

One of the most disturbing and terrifying books of all time. I was shocked to find out that the author of this book was a Christian, and that is what led me to read this novel. I had heard about how horrific the film was and, despite my penchant for horror, I avoided both the movie and the book, considering them both demonic.

When I finally read the novel, I realized that this insane story reveals a truth regarding faith: to accept God and the reality of who He is, we must also acknowledge and accept the reality of demons and darkness, and vice versa. 

I read this as a teenager, just as I was diving into the horror genre. I already knew at this point that I wanted to be a storyteller. What struck me while reading It was the jumping back and forth between time periods.

I had never read a book structured that way, and it seemed that every chapter ended on a cliffhanger, forcing me to keep reading. There aren’t many books that I would say I had a hard time putting down (I get bored easily), but It was certainly one of them!

Aristotle was the world’s first story expert.

As a story consultant myself, it was incredible to have a man from 2,300 years ago talk to me about story theory! And more than that… everything he says is spot on. 

The real meaning of much of what Aristotle said has been debated for millennia. However, when I used his principles as story dynamics in real stories, they became very clear to me; so, in my own work, I have distilled Aristotle’s principles into a modern three-part interpretation, and I give examples of them working in classical and popular modern stories.

Aristotle’s principles are not only applicable today, but they are still better than almost any other new thinking of the last 100 years. Aristotle is amazing. I love him! 

This book scared the bejeebers out of me when I was just a teen. (Not fair, Steve.) I think it’s a highly underrated King novel, if possible, maybe because the various movie versions flopped. Sure, it’s a horror novel, but I was stricken by the story’s messages about dealing with grief due to the death of a loved one. And it also had the age-old message that we all need to remember: if it seems too good to be true, it absolutely is.

I loved the New England vernacular and characters. I also enjoyed how something as simple as a cat’s death can lead to something infinitely worse. I found it an emotional, tense, and spooky supernatural ride.

Bukowski had a unique perspective on the world, and anyone who has read his work would most definitely agree. This book, which is a collection of some of Bukowski’s greatest pieces in my opinion, has a way of resonating with you on a personal level. Whether it be gaining a newfound perspective on the animals that scurry around our yards, or of a gambler wasting away in a casino on a Monday afternoon, Bukowski has a knack for bringing up the world’s problems in a way that is both depressing and humorous at the same time, while also giving peeks at his wit and charm as well.

Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, by many accounts, is the most accurate and true portrayal of Hell. It has been long speculated whether or not Dante, by means of dreaming or some other metaphysical affair, was truly able to visit Hell—the ways in which he describes the deadly sins of human life proves to be both very emotional and very comprehendible, in a way that can push one to both care more for the way that they choose to live, care more for the ways that they treat others, as well as understand the burdens of life and thus realize that it could, in some way, be worse off than it presently seems. 

A lot of people don’t know that the movie Precious is based off of a novel. Sure... It doesn’t have any ghouls, monsters, descriptive sentences filled with gore and macabre, but if you were like me, and decided to read the book after watching the film…. This movie goes down as probably one of the scariest novels of all time…like V.C. Andrews Flowers in the Attic scary. It’s hard reading novels that involve the abuse of children, but this book literally had me speechless and horrified like the first time I watched an episode of, My 500 Pound Life.

I love this book because when I first read it, I felt I was home.

It was recommended by a friend who recognized in me a leaning toward this type of literature. In the book, Kahlil describes all the different aspects of our lives and how/who we should strive to be in these areas. For instance, we should work in love as our “work” is our service to humanity. Hence, Kahlil’s phrase "Work Is Love Made Visible."

Hofstadter’s Paranoid Style is more a work of historiography than history and attempted to explain the rise of a right-wing “paranoia” to a liberal intellectual audience in the early 1960s. By contrast, Jesse Walker’s book offers a more detailed, engaging, and sympathetic history of U.S. conspiracy theories and the individuals and groups who have made and circulated them. It’s funny and deadpan, with a keen eye for subcultural details and the singular American oddballs that have traveled from the margins to the mainstream. As Walker demonstrates, Qanon is not the first example of a bizarre, syncretic set of beliefs that has attracted a surprisingly large number of adherents.

A fellow New Englander, Tremblay took me by complete surprise with this novel. In the past, I saw horror defined by slashers, gore, and jump scares. This novel helped me understand that modern horror is a bit savvier and more nuanced, with a stronger focus on emotional suffering.

I really connected with the struggling working-class family and sympathized with their decision to let a documentary film crew create a series about their clearly struggling daughter. The film crew intended to market the girl as possessed by a demon, which the family signs off on in order to collect a desperately needed financial boost.

It expertly explores the hardships of the middle class, sibling love, and the societal hush-hush of mental illness. Plus, it’s got some twists and turns to that made my blood run absolutely cold.