Don't wish to be seen as an edgelord or anything but American Psycho was funny and too contrived to shock (read it on release, so I'm not thinking about the movie)
But yeah, The Road, think about on a weekly basis.
Most of Stewart Home's books such as C**t and Slow Death
Simon Strong's A259 Multiplex Bomb "Outrage" has some pretty hairy stuff in it.
Bits of Wetlands by Charlotte Roche are quite icky.
I enjoyed American Psycho a lot. The part where Patrick beats the tramp to death stuck with me the most I think (really powerful in the musical version with Matt Smith from Dr Who too). And for some reason the part where he eats dry oatmeal.
Don’t wish to be seen as an edgelord or anything but American Psycho was funny
You won't, it was. 😉
The collector
I've not read it but serial killers Leonard lake and Charles Ng loved it so much they killed entire families in homage to it
Another vote for blood meridian, imagery of Indians raping dying men who they'd just scalped and vultures pecking at dead children
The tattooist of Auschwitz. Still unbelievable to me that this happened in the lifetime of my parents. Harrowing.
If we're including non-fiction - The Knights of Bushido.
Amazing what depths a human being is capable of.
'Crash' by JG Ballard. Was reading a lot of his earlier short stories and post apocalyptic fiction at the time (the Drowned Worlds stuff etc) as a young teen (13, 14 or so) and thought "oh, look, another JG Ballard book".
It was quite the eye-opener.
The Bond by Simon McCartney his ordeal climbing in Alaska.
Yeah, that was quite hard reading. Also another climbing book called Jagged Red Line by Nick Williams. I'm not sure either 'turned my stomach' exactly, but there's a sort of almost unbearable, visceral sadness that's quite common in mountaineering literature.
I've never really understood the attraction of reading true-life atrocity stuff or the fictional equivalents.
The bit in Aquarium by Victor Suvorov, (the autobiography of a Russian spy) where he describes Oleg Pekovsky being slowly fed feet first into a crematorium furnace. I used to see Suvorov about where I worked and it always made me feel a bit queasy................
Brexit: What The Hell Happens Now? by Ian Dunt
Every awful thing outlined as a "might happen" has actually happened...
The bit in Aquarium by Victor Suvorov, (the autobiography of a Russian spy) where he describes Oleg Pekovsky being slowly fed feet first into a crematorium furnace. I used to see Suvorov about where I worked and it always made me feel a bit queasy…………….
Can't remember the book but I read about Chang Kai Shek feeding his "victims" into the furnaces of steam engines. Once they heard a loud crack they knew the heads had exploded. Gruesome.
Penkovsky's fate was apparently filmed and the film was shown to KGB recruits as a warning...
Urban Grimshaw was pretty tough reading when you realise it's a true story, not so much from a gore pov but the lack of hope for these kids.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Urban-Grimshaw-Shed-Crew-Bernard/dp/0340837357
And the description of one scene in one of the Hannibal Lector books where a guy got thrown out of a building window was pretty grim.
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
and
The road for me, too. It's excellent though.
@badlywireddog .. oh thanks I’ll look for the Williams book ! Simon is the most mild-mannered 60 something you’re ever likely to meet
Sean Hutson the Assassin.....page 147 in particular
Just remembered another - Atrocity Week. About rich westerners hunting tribesmen in Southern Africa from helicopters.
I skipped about four pages of American Psycho, I think it was the part with the drill. But it was a bit forced: The Wasp Factory was more mentally troubling.
+1's for Maribou stork nightmares and Haunted (I gave up after the pool story, too much!)
No mention of Filth? After that I decided I wasn't going to read any more of IW's books, it was grim!
Bury my heart at wounded knee +1000
It was the first book that politicised me. My dad didn’t want me to read it when I first found it in his collection, I snuck it out at 14. Bastds.
Due a re read tbh.
Couple of the Jo Nesbo novels have thrilled/freaked med out in equal measures. Snowman and another one where a metal star was found in the throats of victims.
Leopold's apple, and it's in the mouth (well, in the head really, not much of a spoiler given the opening chapter).
He does come up with some imaginative ways to kill people, but I don't remember finding them particularly hard to read. I seem to remember he write's like a 15 certificate film, there's all the build up but cut's to another shot just as it get's horrific and leaves it to your imagination.
e.g. the first chapter of leopolds apple, you don't know what's going on, just like the victim. It's not even massively scary, just the feeling of being trapped. Then it happens, and there's just a bit of confusion, no sense of pain etc. It's not until a few chapters later that you find out how she died.
Ohhhh, spoiler and /spoiler in square brackets works in the new forum!
All that's in the first few pages so not really a spoiler though.
Never let me go.
Re-reading Birdsong at the moment and some parts of that turn my stomach (mainly because they are based broadly around things that actually happened*).
*And I don't mean the saucy bits with Isabelle in France before the war, I mean the descriptions of men slowly dying after gas attacks etc in the trenches.
No mention of Filth?
Another very funny book.
I’ve only read the Fred West wiki page, that was more than enough for me 😣
High Life: Matthew Stokoe
"Soaked in such graphic detail that the pages smell, Matthew Stokoe's High Life is the sickest revision of the California crime novel, ever"
I like a bit of noir but..
This is a great ‘books to avoid’ thread. Probably get flamed by some but J G Ballard books I’ve attempted have all been very boring. I like the ideas, but the execution is lacking. J G Dullard. I agree with The Road, a very well written novel that stays with you long after reading.
I’ve only read the Fred West wiki page, that was more than enough for me 😣
Programme about Fred Westabout to start on ITV.
I think the only book that I’ve found challenging is ‘A Feast Unknown’, by Philip Jose Farmer; while it didn’t actually revolt me, it gets pretty nasty in places.
