Elevation by Stephen King

When a man starts losing weight (but not getting any smaller), he uses the strange situation to subtly affect change in his small town.

When we meet Scott, he's embroiled in a nasty disagreement with his lesbian restauranteur neighbors about their dogs pooping in his yard. He's super-busy with a big project for his website development business, but unhappily divorced and lacking human connections. He visits with a retired doctor about the weight problem, not because he thinks there's a cure but because he wants someone to confide in.

As his health problem becomes more extreme, Scott takes on "fixing" things with his neighbors as a project. A sort of quest, as you may.

I had a hard time starting this book - I actually read the first 30 pages twice, because I'd set it down for quite a while and had to begin again. But once I got into it, I was hooked. It's a modern parable about the "weight" of one person on a community. Bonus: I had no idea what would happen in the end!

Gwendy's Button Box by Stephen King and Richard Chizmar

A girl is entrusted with a very special box yet given little information on its use or implications.

When almost-middleschooler Gwendy meets the suited man, she is strangely drawn to the box he offers. She needs to have that box! But then he's gone, and she's left with a million questions and one strange, small box with a series of colored push buttons on top.

This is my favorite kind of Stephen King story: it's creepy and sinister, yet really left up to your imagination to fill in the blanks. Because what's scariest is very personal, and you create your own nightmare with his subtle framework and direction.

Also, this audiobook recording includes a bonus short story, "The Music Room," based on an Edward Hopper painting. Also fantastic, and very, very minimal.

Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders by Neil Gaiman

I love everything from Neil Gaiman, and I especially adore the audiobooks where he reads it himself. So pretty much, I loved this collection of poetry and short stories from 2006.

Many of these stories have links to other Gaiman works - one was an early idea for The Graveyard Book, and one that's part of the world of American Gods. Many have won awards. My favorite is a backwards, unwinding of the book of Genesis.

In an audiobook this collection of vignettes could be a bit confusing (I found it hard to hear the breaks between stories, sometimes - to know I was moving into a new world). Also, sometimes I have to review poetry more than once for it to more fully absorb. To solve these challenges, I also kept a paper copy of the book for reference and review.

Wolverton Station by Joe Hill

You know those unlikeable businessmen whose job it is to destroy small business? The despicable ones we love to hate in pop culture films? In this brief story about a man on a train, Joe Hill gives that bastard his right proper due.

This short story was published as a stand-alone ebook, and since I'm a total sucker for anything Joe Hill writes, I downloaded it for my Nook. This is the kind of twist-on-the-expected, clench-your-stomach, waiting-for-something-really-bad-to-happen short fiction I used to love from Stephen King. It's not outright gory because it doesn't have to be - your imagination does all the heavy lifting!

Yikes, and yay!

Cat Out of Hell by Lynne Truss

In her first foray into fiction, punctuation expert Lynne Truss brings us an absurd, completely horrifying novel about the evil inner lives of cats. I'd forgotten how subversively funny Truss can be, but her nonfiction books were both informative and hysterical. This novel sneaks up on you with the laughs ... and the cold heebie jeebies.

A man on a grief sabbatical gets bored and begins reading a document emailed to him by a former colleague. What starts out fantastical and unbelievable begins slowly to make more and more sense until you're scared of your own housecat and can't put the damn book down.

It's a gothic horror premise: Let me tell you my tale of death and immortality. But it's told in a more contemporary manner, in a shifting variety of forms: sometimes it's straight narrative, other times it's transcripts of oral recordings, descriptions of images, email correspondence and more.

I love horror, and I have a cat. That said, I had to put this down for a bit in the middle because I made it half-way through after dark and I got the creeps. I finally got up the guts to finish, and I loved it - but I'm still giving my cat the side-eye treatment.

John Dies @ The End by David Wong

Profane and hilarious, this book is like a mashup of "Ghostbusters" with "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure." Humanity is in peril as portals to another dimension open and spit through evil beings, and the only ones (maybe) able to save us are a pair of twenty-something slackers.

David works in a movie rental store, and John can't keep a job for more than a couple months. At a summer party where John's (horrible) band plays, a new drug gets passed around. Nearly everybody who takes the "soy sauce" dies in a dramatic and horrific way - except John, who goes comatose.

Turns out the drug turns your brain into a supercomputer able to do astronomical calculations of probability in a split second, and allows you to see horrific and fantastic things invisible to everyone else.

This book is incredibly smart - and also really, really dumb. It's twisty and unpredictable, funny and fun, but not the kind of thing that will last long in your memory. Sometimes you just need a good flight of fancy, and this one has certainly been entertaining for me.

There is a sequel, and I will be looking that one up too.

By the Silver Water of Lake Champlain by Joe Hill

Neighborhood kids wandering the foggy morning beach make a startling discovery - the beach boulder they've climbed in fun turns out to be their lake's fabled sea monster, dead and washed up on the sand.

This short story has been published as a stand-alone ebook. Since I'm a sucker for anything Joe Hill writes, you know I'm in. At just 20 pages, it's a masterful piece of childhood innocence that grips you, then nails you, and left me stunned. Did I mention just 20 pages of actual story? :)

NOS4A2 by Joe Hill

This is an author who understands he's only doing half the work, writing the book - you're an equal partner, as you bring the narrative to life in your imagination. And in this case, it's especially horrific because the bad guy's grabbing kids.

True conversation:

Me: This book is ripping my guts out. Yesterday I couldn't put it down, but I almost don't even want to pick it up again. It's awful and it's dark and it's making me sick. 

Husband: So you won't be giving it a good review, then.

 Me: Are you KIDDING ME?!? I'm giving it a STELLAR review! But with a cautionary warning: pansies need not apply.

This book is the epitome of modern horror in my book: twisted and dark, but not unnecessarily gory or explicit. He's sketching it out for you, but you get to add the color yourself. I've read Hill's other books (and loved them) and he's just getting better.

I haven't told you anything about the book. Do I have to? You're either in already, or you're not. :)

Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell

Last week I had a nightmare based on this book: you are welcome to use that fact as a gauge to how deeply this series of short stories impacted me.

My dream can be attributed to the standout tale "Reeling for the Empire," which is not about vampires. Just because the book has vampire in the title doesn't mean it's wall-to-wall bloodsuckers - actually, only the first, titular story has anything to do with them (a mere 9% of the book, for those counting).

These are eight tales of classic, creepy horror; the kind of stories that make your shoulders creep closer to your ears as you read. As a tale begins you're never sure where it may take you - stories include persistent seagulls, an eerie scarecrow, a freak blizzard, and the absurd fans of a perpetually losing team. How will they end up? That's the fun of it.

You may remember I was underwhelmed by Swamplandia! last year. Suffice it to say I enjoyed this book much, much more. I'm a convert - this is probably my new favorite horror-genre book. Russell's unique, original tales never fall into the familiar and well-trod story grooves, and each is a jewel of suspense and creativity.

Revenge by Yoko Ogawa

This slim volume contains 11 short stories, each independent yet also intertwined. They're not horror, exactly - at least not gory-horror. They're smarter and macabre; more like "Twilight Zone"-style tales that are both strange and dark, and always with a twist at the end.

Each story is complete in itself. Yet, the farther you read ... Mama from one story is also the woman carrying a bundle in a later tale. The respiratory doctor featured in one tale pops up at least twice (three time?) more. Some are plausible: strangely shaped vegetables, a crazy uncle. Others are fantastical from the get-go: making a purse for an exposed, external heart. 

I could NOT put this book down, and read it all at once. Granted it's only 162 pages long, but I was enthralled with the writing and the stories Ogawa weaves. And more amazingly, the book is translated from Ogawa's native Japanese. The stories themselves are universal - they could be American, or European; none give you anything that demands, "this story takes place in XXX." 

Lies, Knives and Girls in Red Dresses by Ron Koertge

Have you ever read the old, non-Disney-fied versions of fairy tales? The dark, gothic ones the Grimm brothers actually collected from the oral tradition? This book of poetry is a spin on those horror-filled tales of morality.

Angsty, angry teen girls admit their attraction to the naughty, forbidden wolves and monsters. Minor characters in often-told narratives get their opportunity to tell the story from their perspective.

Many of the stories are a little naughty. Most are hilarious for the unexpected spin they put on familiar tales. Definitely not the kind of book for your toddlers - but teens and adults will enjoy revisting their nursery favorites!

Horns by Joe Hill

Could you get past the "horror" genre to read a really good coming-of-age story? Because this book is SO WORTH IT ... even if you're not a fan of the supernatural.

Ig did something terrible last night, but he can't remember what. Now, in addition to a killer hangover, he seems to have sprouted devil's horns from his forehead. And they seem to make everyone he comes into contact with confess their darkest thoughts.

Much of the story is told in flashbacks to Ig's high school days: hangin' with his friends, meeting Merrin and falling in love, etc. And while Ig was a good kid with high morals and solid faith, since Merrin's murder a year ago, he's struggled to find footing.

I would love to read and discuss this story with a book club. There's lots of meat here to dig into concerning belief, humanity, evil, revenge, love ... but I'd have to convince them that a horror story is worth their time. Any ideas on how to do that?

Locke & Key: Welcome to Lovecraft by Joe Hill

A beautifully rendered graphic novel with equal parts horror, gore, mystery and the supernatural. It's the first book in a new series, and I'll definitely look for the next - while it's gorier than I'd usually prefer (even cartoon murder is maybe more than I need to see), the classic scary supernatural storyline hooked me, big time. I want to know what's up with the scary chick in the wellhouse, and I want to know what's behind the rest of the doors in the Locke house.