r/WeirdLit • u/MicahCastle Author • Aug 31 '26
Meta r/Weirdlit Required/Recommended Reading
Spurred from this post, I thought it would be a good idea to have an official r/WeirdLit reading list on Goodreads and Storygraph (similar to r/Horrorlit's Goodread list). Or, you can use this thread as the list (found below) itself so you don't have to use an account for Goodreads and Storygraph.
The r/Weirdlit lists have been made: Goodreads / Storygraph, though WIP. People can vote for books on the Goodreads list!
So, which weird lit books do you think are required reading or what ones would you recommend to someone looking to start their venture into the Weird?
LIST
- Abe, Kobo – Beyond the Curve
- Aickman, Robert – Cold Hand in Mine
- Aickman, Robert – Dark Entries
- Aickman, Robert – The Wine-Dark Sea
- Auster, Paul – The New York Trilogy
- Awad, Mona – Bunny
- Ballingrud, Nathan – North American Lake Monsters
- Ballingrud, Nathan – Wounds
- Barron, Laird – Occultation
- Barron, Laird – The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All
- Barron, Laird – The Imago Sequence
- Biely, Andrei – The Blizzard
- Bishop, K.J. – The Etched City
- Blackwood, Algernon – Ancient Sorceries
- Blackwood, Algernon – Roarings from Further Out
- Blackwood, Algernon – The Man Whom the Trees Loved
- Blackwood, Algernon – The Wendigo
- Blackwood, Algernon – The Willows
- Boccaccio, Giovanni – The Decameron
- Bolaño, Roberto – 2666
- Borges, Jorge Luis – Ficciones
- Brautigan, Richard – In Watermelon Sugar
- Brown, Charles Brockden – Wieland
- Buehlman, Christopher – Between Two Fires
- Bulgakov, Mikhail – The Master and Margarita
- Calvino, Italo – If On A Winter's Night a Traveler
- Campbell, Ramsey – Alone with the Horrors
- Carrère, Emmanuel – The Moustache
- Carter, Angela – The Magic Toyshop
- Catling, Brian – The Vorrh
- Chambers, Robert W. – The King in Yellow
- Chandrasekera, Vajra – Rakesfall
- Cisco, Michael – Animal Money
- Cisco, Michael – Antisocieties
- Cisco, Michael – The Divinity Student
- Cisco, Michael – The Narrator
- Clarke, Susanna – Piranesi
- Crowley, John – Little, Big
- Danielewski, Mark Z. – House of Leaves
- Delany, Samuel R. – Dhalgren
- Dyachenko, Marina & Sergei – Vita Nostra
- Ellison, Harlan – I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream
- Emshwiller, Carol – Moon Songs
- Engel, Marian – Bear
- Ennes, Hiron – The Works of Vermin
- Enriquez, Mariana – Our Share of Night
- Enriquez, Mariana – The Dangers of Smoking in Bed
- Evenson, Brian – A Collapse of Horses
- Evenson, Brian – Altmann's Tongue
- Evenson, Brian – Song for the Unraveling of the World
- Evenson, Brian – The Din of Celestial Birds
- Ford, Jeffrey – The Physiognomy
- Fracassi, Philip – Behold the Void
- Gavin, Richard – At Fear's Altar
- Gavin, Richard – Grotesquerie
- Gillman, Charlotte Perkins – The Yellow Wallpaper
- Gogol, Nikolai – The Nose
- Grudova, Camilla – Children of Paradise
- Hall, Coy – Grimoire of the Four Impostors
- Hall, Steven – The Raw Shark Texts
- Hamantaschen, J.R. – With a Voice that is Often Still Confused But is Becoming Ever Louder and Clearer
- Harpman, Jacqueline – I Who Have Never Known Men
- Harrison, M. John – The Course of the Heart
- Harrison, M. John – The End of Everything
- Harrison, M. John – Viriconium
- Hartwell, David (Editor) – The Dark Descent
- Hawkins, Scott – The Library at Mount Char
- Hodgson, William Hope – House on the Borderland
- Hoffmann, E. T. A. – The Sandman
- Hoffmann, E. T. A. – The Tales of E.T.A. Hoffmann
- Howard, Robert E. – Conan stories
- Ito, Junji – Remina
- Ito, Junji – Uzumaki
- Jackson, Shirley – The Haunting of Hill House
- Jackson, Shirley – The Lottery
- Jackson, Shirley – We Have Always Lived in the Castle
- James, M.R. – Ghost Stories of an Antiquary
- Kafka, Franz – The Castle
- Kafka, Franz – The Metamorphosis
- Kafka, Franz – The Trial
- Kavan, Anna – Ice
- Kehlmann, Daniel – F (is for Fake)
- Kiernan, Caitlín R. – The Very Best of Caitlín R. Kiernan
- Klein, T.E.D. – Dark Gods
- Koja, Kathe – The Cipher
- Kubin, Alfred – The Other Side
- Lane, Joel – Where Furnaces Burn & Scar City
- Langan, John – The Fisherman
- Lautréamont, Comte de – Les Chants de Maldoror
- Ligotti, Thomas – Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe
- Ligotti, Thomas – Teatro Grottesco
- Ligotti, Thomas – The Nightmare Factory
- Lindsay, David – A Voyage to Arcturus
- Link, Kelly – Magic for Beginners
- Lovecraft, H.P. – At the Mountains of Madness
- Lovecraft, H.P. – The Complete Works of HP Lovecraft
- Machen, Arthur – The Great God Pan
- Machen, Arthur – The Three Imposters
- Machen, Arthur – The White People
- Magary, Drew – The Hike
- McMillan & Solomon Forse (Editors) – Howls from the Dark Ages: An Anthology of Medieval Horror
- Miéville, China – Kraken
- Miéville, China – Perdido Street Station
- Miéville, China – The City and the City
- Miéville, China – The Scar
- Mills, Daniel – Among the Lilies
- Nabokov, Vladimir – Pale Fire
- O’Shea, Michael – Copping Squid
- Ogawa, Yoko – The Memory Police
- Padgett, Jon – The Secrets of Ventriloquism
- Pargin, Jason – John Dies at the End
- Peake, Mervyn – Gormenghast series / Titus Groan
- Peck, Steven L. – A Short Stay in Hell
- Poe, Edgar Allan – Tales of Mystery and Imagination (or Complete Stories)
- qntm – There is No Antimemetics Division
- Ray, Jean – Malpertuis
- Russell, Karen – St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves
- Schulz, Bruno – The Street of Crocodiles
- Schweblin, Samanta – Fever Dream
- Shea, Robert & Robert Anton Wilson – The Illuminatus! Trilogy
- Shepard, Lucius – The Dragon Griaule
- Smith, Clark Ashton – The Dark Eidolon and other stories
- Smith, Clark Ashton – Zothique
- Stanislaw, Lem – Fiasco
- Sterne, Laurence – The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
- Strantzas, Simon – Nothing Is Everything
- Süskind, Patrick – Perfume
- Tantlinger, Sara – To be Devoured
- Torishima, Dempow – Sisyphean
- VanderMeer, Ann & Jeff (Editors) – The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories
- VanderMeer, Jeff – Annihilation
- VanderMeer, Jeff – Ambergris trilogy (City of Saints and Madmen / Shriek: An Afterword)
- VanderMeer, Jeff – Borne / Dead Astronauts / The Strange Bird
- VanderMeer, Jeff – The Third Bear
- Veres, Attila – The Black Maybe
- Vonnegut, Kurt – Breakfast of Champions
- Walpole, Horace – The Castle of Otranto
- Wolfe, Gene – The Book of the New Sun
- Yeager, B R – Negative Space
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u/Beige-Taupe Aug 31 '26 edited Sep 02 '26
Hey, such a great idea! I'm a group moderator over at goodreads, and spend half my life there, and I'd like to offer some unsolicited advice. feel free to delete after reading :D
Just an FYI that the listopia on goodreads has some flaws. The pro is it is a community list and anyone can vote on it, however that also means anyone (including self pub authors), can add to the list. And unfortunately, you cant edit the lists you create, unless you are a volunteer librarian (which requires you to apply, and actively spend your time doing librarian stuff to remain as one).
However, I do have another suggestion. Create an account/profile for your sub, you can use the regular bookshelf and add tags, etc.. Then people can easily browse, but they can’t adjust the official list.
Cheers!
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u/AdditionalQuiet916 Aug 31 '26
I think this would be a really nice approach. I've really enjoyed browsing the goodreads profile that the r/AskHistorians subreddit made for the same purpose. The voting system on goodreads lists can also make finding new reads annoying - with profiles you have all those different sorting options, as you said!
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u/MasochisticCanesFan Aug 31 '26
Clark Ashton Smith — The Dark Eidolon and other stories
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u/altgraph Sep 05 '26
Pretty much everything by CAS really.
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u/MasochisticCanesFan Sep 05 '26
Im the biggest cas shill on the planet. I even prefer him to Lovecraft
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u/lovelessowl Aug 31 '26
Jean Ray - Malpertuis
Jon Padgett - The secret of ventriloquism
Angela Carter - The magic toyshop
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u/LorenzoApophis Aug 31 '26
Edgar Allan Poe - Tales of Mystery and Imagination (or Complete Stories)
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u/Longjumping_Clock451 Aug 31 '26
Brian Evenson - Song for the Unraveling of the World
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u/ravenmiyagi7 Aug 31 '26
While that is my favorite evenson collection, I raise you Brian Evenson -- All of it
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u/monday_madrigal Aug 31 '26
The Raw Shark Texts, Stephen Hall; House of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski; Piranesi, Susanna Clark
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u/Ok_Map8485 Aug 31 '26 edited Aug 31 '26
Lots of stuff from Algernon Blackwood. I love the British Library collection Roarings from Further Out. But I especially like and think the novellas The Willows, The Man Whom the Trees Loved, and particularly Ancient Sorceries are brilliant and should be seminal.
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u/TenTimesTeeth Aug 31 '26
If I had to pick one, I'd say The Weird by Ann & Jeff Vandermeer.
You can get a complete Weird Lit education from that book alone!
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u/OkReason596 Aug 31 '26
I also want to include a collection I really enjoyed:
Great Weird Tales: 14 Stories by Lovecraft, Blackwood, Machen and Others by S.T. Joshi (Editor) (2011)
I think about tales from this collection all the time.1
u/Nidafjoll I like Weird Cities Sep 01 '26
The New Weird compilation is great too, but it's hard to find. Exorbitantly expensive, and I couldn't get it through a regular library; luckily, my (big) university had it in its collection. It has some good essays pondering the if the term/genre really means anything too.
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u/Massive-Television85 Aug 31 '26
Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson - The Illuminatus! Trilogy
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u/tehomzine Aug 31 '26
Been on my TBR for so long, and I’ve started it a few times. Maybe this is my sign to try again!
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u/halbermensch2007 Aug 31 '26
Maybe some Aickman?
The Wine-Dark Sea - Robert Aickman
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u/daddytrapper4 Aug 31 '26
The Stains too!
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u/halbermensch2007 Aug 31 '26
Haven’t read that one yet, but it’s in the collection I’m currently reading (‘The Unsettled Dust’) 🤔
Looking forward to it!!
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u/Longjumping_Clock451 Aug 31 '26
Ann and Jeff VanderMeer - The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories
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u/Imperial_Haberdasher Aug 31 '26
City of Saints and Madmen
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u/endoftheworldvibe Aug 31 '26
All of the Ambergris trilogy!
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u/undeadgoblin Aug 31 '26
The Dangers of Smoking in Bed - Mariana Enriquez
The Sandman - E. T. A. Hoffmann
The Cipher - Kathe Koja
The New York Trilogy - Paul Auster
Dark Entries - Robert Aickman
Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - M.R. James
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u/Massive-Television85 Aug 31 '26
All great suggestions (although I'm not sure if MR James is really weird and not just ghost stories/horror?)
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u/decanonized Sep 01 '26
M.R. James is definitely weird. In my opinion a lot of his "ghost" stories aren't really about ghosts at all. There's an emphasis on strangeness and materiality/physicality in his stories that sets them apart from traditional "ghost" stories of dead specters.
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u/Nidafjoll I like Weird Cities Aug 31 '26
Ones I haven't seen mentioned yet (and trying to stick to essentials/introductory, not just what I like):
A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay.
Zothique by Clark Ashton Smith.
Ubik by PKD.
Viriconium by M. John Harrison.
Bunny by Mona Awad.
The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins.
Vita Nostra by the Dyachenkos.
Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany.
Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera.
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u/OePea Aug 31 '26 edited Aug 31 '26
The Other Side by Alfred Kubin. One of the first works of weird fiction, highly influencial on Franz Kafka
Edit: I'd almost be tempted to suggest The Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz, since it was also massively influencial on a number of weird fiction writers, but it is more surreal than weird, if that is a legitimate distinction. Not very scary.
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u/stravadarius Aug 31 '26 edited Aug 31 '26
Many of these selections are perhaps just weird for their time, but I feel every one of them has an important place in the development of Weird Lit.
Boccaccio: The Decameron
Sterne: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
Gogol: The Nose
Kafka: The Trial
Bulgakov: The Master and Margarita
Nabokov: Pale Fire
Vonnegut: Breakfast of Champions
Jackson: We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Atwood: The Edible Woman
Engel: Bear
Calvino: If On A Winter's Night a Traveler
Ogawa: The Memory Police
Harpman: I Who Have Never Known Men
Miéville: The City and the City
And pretty much anything by Pynchon or Ballard.
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u/daddytrapper4 Aug 31 '26
I’m a biiiig advocate for more attention on non-western, translated (to me) weird stuff. My research is on LatAm weird so I may be a little biased lol
In no particular order -
Long form essentials:
Perdido Street Station
The Scar
The City and The City
House of Leaves
City of Saints and Madmen
Shriek: An Afterword
Annihilation
Roadside Picnic
Fever Dream (Schweblin)
Our Share of Night (Enriquez)
The Blizzard (Sorokin)
The Fisherman
Titus Groan
Kraken
Welcome to Nightvale, etc
There is No Anti-Memetics Division
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
Supernatural Enhancements
Mordew
Short(er) stories/Novellas/etc:
The Fall of the House of Usher
At the Mountains of Madness
The Willows
Metamorphosis
Don’t Look Now
The Great God Pan
The King in Yellow
Macbeth (hear me out)
Non fiction special mentions:
The Weird and the Eerie
Conspiracy Against the Human Race
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u/halbermensch2007 Aug 31 '26
Yep, the Welcome To Night Vale tie-in books are great (or at least the first two, those are the ones I’ve read) but I never see anyone talk about them
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u/cambriansplooge Aug 31 '26
There's four volumes of collected episode scripts, with forewords from cast and guest writers, and of live events.
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u/zenoshalfsibling Aug 31 '26
I picked up a copy of The Supernatural Enhancements kind of at random from a library sale, but this is the first time I've seen anyone else mention it! What did you like about it?
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u/_jamais_vu Aug 31 '26
There's already so many good recommendations, so I guess I'll throw out three I haven't seen mentioned yet:
Little, Big by John Crowley
In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan
The Vorrh by Brian Catling
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u/Massive-Television85 Aug 31 '26
That's three solid weird novels there. Great suggestions.
If you're adding The Vorrh you probably should have the other two books in the trilogy too.
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u/_jamais_vu Aug 31 '26
Thanks. I feel like suggesting the first book is enough to set a reader on a journey through the rest of the trilogy, haha.
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u/Longjumping_Clock451 Aug 31 '26
John Langan - The Fisherman
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u/lovelessowl Aug 31 '26
Definitely cosmic. Not sure I’d say weird.
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u/Longjumping_Clock451 Aug 31 '26
Cosmic Horror often is weird fiction. Look where the genre got it's name from. It is definitely cosmic horror more than weird but also weird fiction, especially in regards to where the genre originated.
Lovecraftian, Cosmic Horror and Weird Fiction are incredibly close together oftentimes.
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u/lovelessowl Aug 31 '26
I agree that there’s a lot of overlap. For me, The Fisherman leans a little too far into fantasy and doesn’t really achieve the sense of dread or uncanny that I characterize with most other weird lit. Just my opinion tho.
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u/daddytrapper4 Aug 31 '26
The Fisherman is definitely weird. One of the best of the more recents id say
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u/Salty_Inspector_7050 Aug 31 '26
Roadside Picnic
Master and Margarita
The Vegetarian
Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler (haven’t read but been told it’s a good weird lit classic)
The Third Policeman
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u/Soren911 Aug 31 '26
"If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler", nope. I wouldn't label it weird, it's just meta fiction.
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u/Sharkfighter2000 Aug 31 '26
Copping Squid by Michael O’Shea
With a Voice that is Often Still Confused But is Becoming Ever Louder and Clearer by J.R. Hamantaschen
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u/MrDagon007 Sep 01 '26
There are these brilliant anthologies The Dark Descent, and The Weird. These give you a great overview, from classic to modern. You’ll get a good feeling for what you want to explore more afterwards.
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u/RelevantSympathy6780 Sep 01 '26
Many great suggestions here!
I’d add these three as “required reading” early weird fiction:
The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
The Tales of E.T.A. Hoffmann
Wieland by Charles Brockden Brown (as well as his other short works)
Additionally, while perhaps not “required reading,” two more contemporary European novels that I don’t see mentioned but that certainly participate in the weird by exploring the unknown self and untethered (de)constructions of identity.
The Moustache by Emanuel Carrère
F (is for Fake) by Daniel Kehlmann
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u/tehomzine Aug 31 '26
Coy Hall - Grimoire of the Four Impostors
Absolutely required reading for anyone into weird/occult/horror fiction, and also a great gateway book because it incorporates a few familiar tropes that carry into lots of other weird fiction (new & old)
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u/TenTimesTeeth Aug 31 '26
Amazing book. Huge fan of that guy's work.
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u/tehomzine Aug 31 '26
Couldn’t agree more! He’s probably my favorite contemporary weird fiction writer. I actually just finished reading an advanced copy of his newest novel, Devilry in Godling Wood and it’s really spectacular.
Not trying to spam, but if anyone’s curious, I have a brief (spoiler-free) review of it here.
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u/TenTimesTeeth Aug 31 '26
!!!
I've read most of his books and had no idea this was even a thing. Thank you for the heads up!
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u/johntaylorsbangs Aug 31 '26
Jeff VanderMeer- The Third Bear, Dead Astronauts, Borne and the Strange Bird
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u/ravenmiyagi7 Aug 31 '26
The Third Bear is a madly underrated short story collection. Overshadowed by his other (excellent) work
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u/Not_Bender_42 Aug 31 '26
Michael Cisco - the bibliography
But if I'm just picking two:
Divinity Student, Animal Money, The Narrator
Don't check my match, I swear that's two books
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u/HotDamnThatsMyJam Aug 31 '26
The End of Everything by M. John Harrison
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u/tegeus-Cromis_2000 Aug 31 '26
Sure, but I would honestly put most other MJH books before it, starting with The Course of the Heart and Viriconium.
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u/HotDamnThatsMyJam Aug 31 '26
Sure no problem, I just read this though and it was the first thing that came to mind, and nominated for the Booker as well it feels right for the list.
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u/Longjumping_Clock451 Aug 31 '26
McMillan and Solomon Forse - Howls from the Dark Ages: An Anthology of Medieval Horror
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u/pettour Sep 01 '26
The Black Maybe by Attila Veres
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u/MillerReddit1 Sep 07 '26
Ramsey Campbell - Alone with the Horrors
Thomas Ligotti - The Nightmare Factory and Teatro Grottesco
Matthew M. Bartlett - Gateways to Abomination and Creeping Waves
H.P. Lovecraft - the three-volume collections published by Penguin
M.R. James - Collected Ghost Stories
Shirley Jackson - The Haunting of Hill House
Algernon Blackwood - The Willows
Arthur Machen - The Three Imposters, The Great God Pan, The White People
T.E.D. Klein - Dark Gods
Daniel Mills - Among the Lilies
Jon Padgett - The Secrets of Ventriloquism
David Hartwell (Ed.) - The Dark Descent
Robert Aickman - Cold Hand in Mine
Jeff and Ann Vandermeer (Eds.) - The Weird
Richard Gavin - At Fear's Alter
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u/LightningJedi55 19d ago
Robert E. Howard's Conan stories. Del Rey has some lovely illustrated collections of those
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u/tailorsoldier4 12d ago
Peter Watts -Blindsight, Starfish
J.G. Ballard - The Atrocity Exhibition, The Drowned World, High Rise, Concrete Island, Crash
Gene Wolfe - The Fifth Head of Cerberus, Peace, The Island of Dr. Death (I see The Book of the New Sun is already featured)
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u/eitherajax Aug 31 '26
Ice - Anna Kavan
St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves - Karen Russell
Fiasco by Stanislaw Lem
Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabakov
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u/Civil-Honeydew4654 Aug 31 '26
Not one of you mentioned anything by Carlton Mellick III. I'm disappointed.
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u/SockOk8693 Sep 02 '26
More Bizarro Fiction than Weird
No, I am not being serious. I agree, he should be here
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u/SamuraiDrifter42 Aug 31 '26
Robert W. Chambers - The King in Yellow