Goodreads Readers Rank the 10 Best Horror Books of All Time

Horror covers a lot of ground. It includes supernatural tales and stories of ordinary but twisted killers. It can lean toward romance, blend with sci-fi, or center on mystery. Everyone fears something different, so picking the most effective horror novels is hard. We turned to Goodreads, where millions of members have rated the books that keep them up at night. They really like Stephen King. Below are the top 10 books they chose, ranked, with reasons to read them this spooky season.

10. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818)

Mary Shelley was only 18 when she began writing this Gothic horror masterpiece. Its hero, Victor Frankenstein, is a scientist who creates new life from stolen body parts and then recoils from what he has made. Shelley’s first child had been born prematurely and died soon after. The novel captures the anxiety of birth and of failing one’s offspring in a way many adaptations of Frankenstein miss.

9. Carrie (1974) by Stephen King

Stephen King’s first novel follows Carrie White, a bullied 16-year-old who develops telekinetic powers and uses them to take revenge on the mean girls at school. The book’s popularity launched King’s career and brought supernatural horror closer to the mainstream. The story is tight and explains little about Carrie’s powers or her mother’s religious fanaticism. Still, it sets up many themes King would explore in more depth later.

Brian De Palma’s 1976 adaptation began King’s run as the most adapted living author. Mike Flanagan recently released a miniseries version for Prime Video.

8. The Haunting of Hill House (1959) by Shirley Jackson

The Haunting of Hill House is a classic Gothic ghost story. A paranormal investigator gathers a group in an isolated mansion to prove the supernatural is real. As the visitors bond, they start to experience strange phenomena and learn the home’s dark history. Jackson keeps many descriptions vague, so readers can’t be sure what the characters are really experiencing or who is to blame. That ambiguity adds to the eerie mood.

Flanagan directed an excellent Netflix adaptation that follows a family’s experience with the house over several decades.

7. The Exorcist (1971) by William Peter Blatty

Inspired by a real case of supposed demonic possession, The Exorcist follows Regan MacNeil, a young girl who grows increasingly disturbed and violent. When doctors can’t help, her mother turns to a Jesuit priest. Saving Regan’s soul means a priest in the middle of his own crisis of faith must wrestle with his doubts and with the devil.

Blatty also wrote the screenplay for William Friedkin’s iconic 1973 film. He continued the franchise with The Ninth Configuration and The Exorcist 3.

6. Misery (1987) by Stephen King

King leaves the supernatural behind in this deeply disturbing story of an obsessed fan who holds a bestselling romance author captive in her home. Paul Sheldon has ended his popular Misery series and wants to change careers by writing crime fiction. After a car accident, Annie Wilkes nurses him back to health. She won’t let him leave until he writes another Misery book.

Rob Reiner’s 1990 film captures the horror perfectly, with an Oscar-winning performance from Kathy Bates.

5. Pet Sematary (1983) by Stephen King

Losing a family pet is always hard, but in this King novel it becomes a nightmare. When his daughter’s cat Church is hit by a car, Louis Creed buries the animal in an ancient Native American burial ground. The cat comes home changed. It unleashes an evil that haunts the family and exposes the dark history of the town and its pet cemetery.

The book has been adapted twice, as a 1989 film by Mary Lambert and a 2019 version by Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer.

4. Dracula (1897) by Bram Stoker

Bram Stoker popularized the vampire story with Dracula, one of the most famous works of English literature. A Transylvanian count preys on the English town of Whitby. Stoker drew on folklore and earlier horror books to establish many of the tropes about vampiric powers and weaknesses.

Countless adaptations have borrowed from the story, from Dracula’s voyage on the Demeter to his seductive brides and the vampire hunter Professor Abraham Van Helsing. If you love Anne Rice or Let the Right One In, you owe it to yourself to read this classic.

3. ‘Salem’s Lot (1975) by Stephen King

A year after his first novel, Carrie, King wrote ‘Salem’s Lot, a book inspired by Dracula. It continues his focus on the horrors of Maine. Ben Mears, an author, returns to his hometown looking for inspiration for his next book. He investigates an abandoned old mansion and the death of a young boy. Then he discovers that the residents of Jerusalem’s Lot are turning into vampires.

Read the book and skip Gary Dauberman’s mediocre 2024 film adaptation.

2. It (1986) by Stephen King

The novel It alternates between the 1950s and the 1980s. It follows a group of misfit kids in the fictional town of Derry, Maine, who are tormented by a shapeshifting force of evil. Pennywise the Dancing Clown wakes every 27 years to claim new victims. The members of the Losers Club must confront their traumatic childhoods to protect a new generation.

Pennywise is one of fiction’s most iconic monsters. He has come to life in adaptations such as Andy Muschietti’s 2017 film and the 2025 HBO series It – Welcome to Derry.

1. The Shining (1977) by Stephen King

King drew on his own struggles with alcoholism for his third novel, The Shining. Jack Torrance is a recovering alcoholic who loses his sanity while working in a remote Colorado hotel. His son, Danny, has latent psychic abilities that grow stronger at the haunted hotel, where a previous caretaker murdered his family.

The book became the basis for Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 masterpiece. King continued Danny’s story in the 2013 novel Doctor Sleep, which Flanagan turned into a 2019 movie.

Source: Polygon