Daver's Five Best Scariest Books

And of course, another confession. I am a reader. Ok, that's an understatement of fact. I love books. In fact, my house looks more like a half-strewn library at times, and if I didn't fear the risk losing my career I would probably read all day and night long. If I had a hundred dollar bill for every page of all the books I own, I would have a good start on paying back the debt that the Wall Street brokers & mortgage companies got in the bail-out (ok, maybe just Goldman Sachs or Freddie Mac).

In honor of Halloween, I will try to narrow down my top 5 favorite scariest books...again, this is a challenge because there are so many good stories out there!

5. A Good Man is Hard to Find (by Flannery O'Connor).

 A short story about a road trip to Florida with grandma. Written in the 1950's, it's still a good read!

4. The Stand, by Stephen King.

It's flu season...you should read it now. The unabridged version is best, but it's Tolstoy-like in length. Good read!

3. The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

Ever have an unsettling feeling while visiting strange little towns where the people act a little odd, and things seem just a little off? 

2. Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne

One of my all-time favorites by Hawthorne.

1. The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis

Nice letters written between senior demon, Screwtape, to his nephew, a "temptor", named Wormwood. The letters are about the many ways to bring about the damnation of a British man, known only as, "the patient." Gives a great fictional account of how demons might dialogue about how to best entice a man into sin. A great Christian apologist and an academic (most notably at Oxford), Lewis' works are exceptional. I could write several pages on my fondness for C.S. Lewis' writings. 

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Ok, so there are many other books that should be considered as well, including the many works of Edgar Allen Poe (The Raven, The Tell-Tale Heart, etc.), H.P. Lovecraft, Thomas Harris' Hannibal Lecter stories (especially Hannibal), and It, by Stephen King (and most of his other works as well). I used to love the short stories in the Alfred Hitchcock books. Nathaniel Hawthorne's other works are excellent, but probably a bit heady. There are many more that I'm sure I've forgotten about that I can't seem to recall at the moment. Feel free to add you favorites.