Recently, I have joined a book club that reads more than one book a month, and these books follow a theme. In September, we read books that had been translated into English. They were all fantastic reads, by the way :) This month, in honor of fall and my favorite holiday (Halloween) we have chosen to re-visit some of the timeless horror novels. We have chosen to read Pet Semetary by Stephen King, The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty, Swan Song by Robert McCammon, and a personal choice between Darkfall or Intensity by Dean Koontz.
To be honest, I have never read any of these books, and only recently have I seen the movie versions of "The Exorcist" & "Pet Semetary". (To go off on a tangent, "The Exorcist" scared me so bad that I slept with the light on and my phone gripped tightly in my sweaty fist just in case I had to make an police call at 4am.) Working in a bookstore, I see numerous copies of different King and Koontz books leave the store but personally I have only ever read some of Koontz' work.
Our reasoning behind selecting these books, and not others, are just personal reasons. I wanted to read The Exorcist to see if the book is more frightening than the movie, which I think it will be and I will spend many a night with the lights on. A fellow book club member recommended Swan Song, stating it was her favorite McCammon book and that it still gives her the creeps, even though she has read it numerous times. Pet Semetary was a mutual choice, given that King is a master of horror tales and the fact that raising the dead for selfish reasons is scary. (Again, on a tangent, the little boy (Gage) in the movie version is so terrifying, to me, that I get the chills just thinking about his creepy face :)
Swing by the store during the month of October to check out our Horror section, and our Fall/Halloween display. See if you can't find a book that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up!