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Tag Archives: Review

Fairy Tale – Stephen King

Dead Inside – Chandler Morrison

The Lies of Locke Lamora – Scott Lynch

Uzumaki – Junji Ito

Devil’s Creek – Todd Kiesling

Between Two Fires – Christopher Buehlman

Falling Angel – William Hjortsberg

The Hellbound Heart – Clive Barker

The Doors of Perception – Aldous Huxley

The Invention of Sound – Chuck Palahniuk

Those Across the River – Christopher Buehlman

The Fisherman – John Langan

Mexican Gothic – Silvia Moreno Garcia

Let’s go play at the Adams’ – Mendal Johnson

The Only Good Indians – Stephen Graham Jones

The Reddening – Adam Nevill

The Wide, Carnivorous Sky – John Langan

The Breakout Novelist – Donald Maas

Best Horror of the Year vol. 11 – Ellen Datlow

The Deep – Alma Katsu

Orphan X series – Gregg Hurwitz

The Nevernight Chronicles Trilogy – Jay Kristoff

The 3 Body Problem – Cixin Liu

House of Leaves – Mark Danielewski

Making Evil – Dr. Julia Shaw

The Wise Man’s Fear – Pat Rothfuss

Mongrels – Stephen Graham Jones

The Deep – Nick Cutter

The Gulag Archipelago – Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Flowers for Algernon – Daniel Keyes

The Hunger – Alma Katsu

The Name of the Wind – Pat Rothfuss

Wake in Fright – Kenneth Cooke

The Little Stranger – Sarah Waters

The Ritual – Adam Nevill

The Labyrinth of the Spirits – Carlos Ruiz Zafon

The First 5 Pages – Noah Lukeman

October Country – Ray Bradbury

Some Will Not Sleep – Adam Nevill

Interview with a Vampire – Anne Rice

Summer of Night – Dan Simmons

The Troop – Nick Cutter

The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath

The Damnation Game – Clive Barker

Writing the Breakout Novel – Donald Maas

Prisoner of Heaven – Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Bird Box – Josh Malerman

Hellbent – Gregg Hurwitz

Mistborn #1 – Brandon Sanderson

The Emotional Craft of Fiction – Donald Maas

The Rape of Nanking – Iris Chang

Nowhere Man – Gregg Hurwitz

Orphan X – Gregg Hurwitz

Dracula – Bram Stoker

Kitchen Confidential – Anthony Bourdain

Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov

The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood

Where Nightmares Come From – (Various)

NOS4R2 – Joe Hill

The Nightrunners – Joe Landsdale

Dune – Frank Herbert

Musashi – Eiji Yoshikawa

Junky – William S. Burroughs

Midnight Sun – Ramsey Campbell

The Martian – Andy Weir

Panzram – Journal of Murder

Angel’s Game – Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Watcher in the Shadows – Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Permutation City – Greg Egan

The Uses of Enchantment – Bruno Bettleheim

Mrs. Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children – Ransom Riggs

The View from the Cheap Seats – Neil Gaiman

The Passage – Justin Cronin

Letters to Lucilius – Seneca

Trigger Warning – Neil Gaiman

Danse Macabre – Stephen King

Watership Down – Richard Adams

Night Music – John Connolly

Every single one of these books changed my writing significantly for the better, each in a different way, and I’ve read some of them several times. That’s saying something by the way, since as a rule I never read a book more than once – there are too many good ones out there.

I should probably caution you to take your time reading these, if you’re planning to go through the list. The best way to do it, I think, would be to work your way down from #1, and as you finish each book spend at least a few months practicing and applying the things you learn. Otherwise you run the risk of taking in too much information and forgetting half of it before you get a chance to internalise it.

  1. The Elements of Style – Strunk & White
  2. On Writing – Stephen King
  3. Stein On Writing – Sol Stein
  4. On Writing Well – William Zinsser
  5. The War of Art – Steven Pressfield
  6. The First 5 Pages – Noah Lukeman
  7. No One Wants To Read Your Shit – Shaun Coyne
  8. The :Emotional Craft of Fiction – Donald Maas
  9. The Hero With a Thousand Faces – Joseph Campbell
  10. Zen in the Art of Writing – Ray Bradbury
  1. It – Stephen King
  2. Drood – Dan Simmons
  3. Summer of Night – Dan Simmons
  4. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy – J.R.R Tolkien
  5. Harry Potter series – J.K. Rowling
  6. The Dark Tower series – Stephen King
  7. Coraline – Neil Gaiman
  8. Carrie – Stephen King
  9. The Terror – Dan Simmons
  10. Flashback – Dan Simmons
  11. Tommyknockers – Stephen King
  12. Needful Things – Stephen King
  13. The Fisherman – John Langan
  14. Live by Night – Dennis Lehane
  15. Shutter Island – Dennis Lehane
  16. The Damnation Game – Clive Barker
  17. The Hellbound Heart – Clive Barker
  18. First Law Series – Joe Abercrombie
  19. Game of Thrones series – George R.R. Martin
  20. Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stephenson
  21. The Witches – Roald Dahl
  22. Orphan X Series – Gregg Hurwitz
  23. Danny the Champion of the World – Roald Dahl
  24. The Silence of the Lambs – Robert Harris
  25. The Great God Pan – Arthur Machen
  26. The Ruins – Scott Smith
  27. Devil’s Creek – Todd Kiesling
  28. Gates of Fire – Steven Pressfield
  29. The Last Kingdom series – Bernard Cornwell
  30. The Things They Carried – Tim O’ Brian
  31. Let the Right One In – Joh Ajvide Lindqvist
  32. Books of Blood – Clive Barker
  33. Rum Diary – Hunter S. Thompson
  34. Carrion Comfort – Dan Simmons
  35. Uzumaki – Junji Ito
  36. Fight Club – Chuck Palahniuk
  37. The Beach – Alex Garland
  38. Between Two Fires – Christopher Buehlman
  39. A Time to Kill – John Grisham
  40. Salem’s Lot – Stephen King
  41. Pirate Latitudes – Michael Chrichton
  42. Eaters of the Dead – Michael Chrichton
  43. Falling Angel – William Hjortsberg
  44. The Stand – Stephen King
  45. Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
  46. Call of the Wild – Jack London
  47. Lord of the Flies – William Golding
  48. Animal Farm – George Orwell
  49. 1984 – George Orwell
  50. The Chronicles of Narnia – C.S. Lewis
  51. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
  52. The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway
  53. The Big Sleep – Raymond Chandler
  54. The Hunger Games Trilogy – Suzanne Collins
  55. Perfume – Patrick Suskind
  56. Joyland – Stephen King
  57. Audition – Ryu Murakami
  58. Mexican Gothic – Silvia Moreno Garcia
  59. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
  60. King Solomon’s Mines – H. Rider Haggard
  61. She – H. Rider Haggard
  62. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea – Jules Verne
  63. The Life of Pi – Yann Martel
  64. Preacher (Graphic Novel) – Garth Ennis
  65. Interview with a Vampire – Anne Rice
  66. The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
  67. Siddhartha – Herman Hesse
  68. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
  69. The Firm – John Grisham
  70. Dead Inside – Chandler Morrison
  71. The Help – Katherine Stockett
  72. Hearts in Atlantis – Stephen King
  73. The Shining – Stephen King
  74. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark – Alvin Shwartz and Stephen Gammell
  75. Pet Sematary – Stephen King
  76. The Eyes of the Dragon – Stephen King
  77. Some Will Not Sleep – Adam Nevill
  78. Bird Box – Josh Malerman
  79. The Name of the Wind – Patrick Rothfuss
  80. NOS4R2 – Joe Hill
  81. The Princess Bride – William Goldman
  82. The Road – Cormac McCarthy
  83. Sirens of Titan – Kurt Vonnegut
  84. Marina – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
  85. Those Across the River – Christopher Buehlman
  86. Hasty for the Dark – Adam Nevill
  87. The Ritual – Adam Nevill
  88. Lets go play at the Adams’ – Mendal W. Johnson
  89. The Blacktongue Thief – Christopher Buehlman
  90. The Thief of Always – Clive Barker
  91. The Hobbit – J.R.R Tolkien
  92. 20th Century Ghosts – Joe Hill
  93. Heart Shaped Box – Joe Hill
  94. Ghost Story – Peter Straub
  95. Rant – Chuck Palahniuk
  96. I, Robot – Isaac Asimov
  97. Minority Report – Phillip K. Dick
  98. Dune – Frank Herbert
  99. Mongrels – Stephen Graham Jones
  100. Something Wicked This Way Comes – Ray Bradbury