There's books in life that creep just about anyone out; and I gotta say I own a quite a few of them (well, when you take into account that I'm a Stephen King fan, there's more than a few!). But there's more than just the scare factor that can be named as creepy. Sometimes, there's something about a book, where you just can't read it, to make you steer clear of it completely.
In my collection, I have quite a few books that can do that. However, if you asked me which books I can lay my hands on can do it and why, I'd be able to show you about five or six for some of the right reasons and some interesting ones. And that's what we're going to talk about today.
When I was young, Mum bought me a book call 'The European Tale Fram'. It was a big book about a Polar Bear taken from the wild and pulled into captivity. The illustrations are gorgeous, the way it's told is breath-taking and it's in hard cover too. However, it the first thing I mentioned that really put me off - the illustrations. I have tried to read this book a number of times and have found the eyes of the people in the book stare right into my soul... and it's not what a painting does normally in an art exhibition. These eyes are creepily too real. I have never liked it and to this day have never finished reading this book; but I haven't gotten rid of this book either as it's worth a bit of money now.
Another one I've got in my collection and won't sell or give away is 'Ghosts & Boggles'. It's a very old-fashioned book about these two things and it's out of print. Mum and Dad bought it for me to read when I was young and I loved it. Its illustrations were creepy, but they didn't scare me the same way that 'Fram' did. These illustrations are all in black and white and the stories were fantastic. Mum covered it in the plastic that libraries used to use in schools to protect it; and it's still got the plastic on it today and is in the same condition it was in all those years ago when I received it. It's a creepy book but I love it.
Then, you have the creep-you-out, make-you-leave-your-lights-on kinda horror that I've read in the past and still do read that I collect now. I have a book on my shelf by Irish writer, John Connolly called 'Nocturnes'; and it's a signed copy. I have yet to read it but it sits on my shelf waiting for me to pick it up and read it at the right time.
Along with John Connolly's book - actually the shelf above - I have a shelf full of Stephen King novels. However, there's books there I have attempted to read and put them down because they got just too darn creepy! There's 'Night Shift' and 'Just After Sunset'. Both books are full of short stories or novellas and both books go from spooky to downright creep-you-out kind of creepy. I get the feeling that when I read one of Stephen's books that he's sitting next to me whispering the story in my ear and I somehow can't get away from him... strange but true. And this kind of creepy is the kind of thing that is difficult to turn into a movie all because the script-writers and directors miss the point; even if it is a creepy thing.
So, what creepy books do you have in your collection? Are they ones you've read and been spooked by, or do you just collect them because they're there? Until my next post, happy reading!
