Hundredfold Horror

After receiving over 7000 reader nominations, NPR has published its list of 100 Favorite Horror Stories. The choices (novels, individual stories, and anthologies) have been grouped into ten categories–Blood Roots: Foundational Horror; Zombies and Vampires and Werewolves: Oh My; The Fear in Our Stars: Cosmic Horror and Weird Fiction; Horrible Houses: Ghosts and Hauntings; Final Girls: Horror By and About Woman; Horribly Ever After: Fantasy and Fairy Tale Horror; Hell is Other People: Real World Horrors; Short and Sharp: Story anthologies; The Kids Aren’t All Right: Creepy Kids; and Scar Your Children: Horror for Beginners. The judges (Stephen Graham Jones, Ruthanna Emrys, Tananarive Due, and Grady Hendrix) wax a tad political in their selections/commentary–(modern revisions of) Lovecraft’s racism seems to be a recurrent theme–but overall the accompanying summaries to each text are quite enjoyable to read. So whether you are looking to revisit a classic or to discover lesser-known scare fare, you can now be guided by an ultimate syllabus of horror. Quot libros, quam breve tempus, as some guy named Stephen King likes to say.

 

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