Top ten horror books

Michael Marshall Smith is a British novelist, screenwriter and short story writer who also writes as Michael Marshall. In 2003 he named his top ten horror books for the Guardian. One title on the list:

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

Horror is blessed with a number of great stylists and Jackson is right up there. Both this and We Have Always Lived in the Castle demonstrate an extraordinary ability to evoke disquiet and melancholy from the simplest of things, and to keep gradually racking them up until you think your head will melt. Has one of the greatest opening paragraphs in horror, too. Spooky.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Haunting of Hill House also appears on Carlos Ruiz Zafón's top ten list of 20th-century gothic novels and Brad Leithauser's five best list of ghost tales.

--Marshal Zeringue