Forbes 20 Greatest Horror Books of All Time

The horror genre has some amazing books that will make it hard for you to fall asleep at night. But we still read them knowing we will be terrified. And luckily for us, Forbes has curates a list of the 20 greatest horror books of all time. Keep reading to find out what made their list and what we thought about it!

There are so many genres to read and I like to read most of them. That does make it hard to get to all the classics in my favorite genres but slowly but surely, I read them eventually. After looking at this list, I can say I have read some of these novels but surprised at how many I haven’t yet read.

The horror genre is one that I don’t read often because I am usually reading classics, fantasy novels, mystery novels, or sci-fi novels. And that isn’t even including novels I end up reading from NetGalley. It also doesn’t help that I read books at random. But I will be adding some of these books to my to-read list for this year.

Forbes 20 Greatest Horror Books of All Time

• The Shining by Stephen King
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
• Pet Sematary by Stephen King
• The House Across the Lake By Caroline Kepnes
• Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
• White Is for Witching By Helen Oyeyemi
• Coraline by Neil Gaiman
• The Ruins by Scott Smith
• Those Across the River by Christopher Buehlman
• Roald Dahl’s Book of Ghost Stories By Roald Dahl
• Beloved by Toni Morrison
• Doing Harm By Kelly Parson
• The Only Good Indians By Stephen Graham Jones
• Road of Bones By Christopher Golden
• Nothing But Blackened Teeth By Cassandra Khaw
• The Night Eaters: She Eats the Night By Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda
• Lord of the Flies by William Golding  
• Let the Right One In By John Ajvide Lindqvist
• The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
• We Have Always Lived in the Castle By Shirley Jackson

The Shining by Stephen King topped the list and that should not surprise many people. It is a classic horror novel and rightfully so. In second place was Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and while I don’t think it is scary, it is still a heralded classic that is a great read.

In third place might be one of my favorite books from the past three years. Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons is a horror and thriller novel at the same time and you won’t be able to put it down. It won’t scare you but you will be terrified by the implications of it.

Other standouts on the list for me are Coraline by Neil Gaiman, Beloved by Toni Morrison, and Lord of the Flies By William Golding. Gaiman is one of the greatest writers when it comes to fantasy novels and Coraline is a beautiful novel that showcases just how talented Gaiman is.

I do love seeing Lord of the Flies on this list because that novel is a horror novel when you think about it. It is labeled as psychological fiction and can terrify you if you read this novel as a kid.

These are Forbes 20 greatest horror novels of all time and what a list it is. There are many timeless classics but also a bunch of surprise novels here. The Shining is a hard novel to top and we also see the classic horror novel The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson on the list. Overall, this was a great list and many of these are must read novels even if you don’t enjoy horror novels.  

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