I haven’t had time to get farther in than the opening, but House of Leaves is looking mighty creepy.
Agreed. I read that a few years back, and it’s really stuck with me.
Re-reading this right now. (well, not right now, as I type . . .) Not traditional in any sense of the word, but just downright unsettling. Takes effort to get through it, but it’s totally worth it, IMO.
Yes, I thought about this when I had also thought of Saki’s The Open Window.
But as you say, the creepiness factor is certainly there.
A favorite ghost ghost story of mine is Charles Dickens’ The Signal-Man.
It’s a short novella, or a very long short story, but Oliver Onions’ The Beckoning Fair One is an all-time favorite of mine. It’s available on Gutenberg, but it’s best read from a book rather than on a screen.
Another vote for House of Leaves. No “normal” ghost story has ever gotten under my skin as much.
Thoughts so far:
[spoiler] What is it with ghost stories not having endings?!? A Fine And Private Place especially- I realize the story was supposed to be more about Mr. Rebeck than the ghosts, but couldn’t we at least see Mike and Laura in the new cemetary? Talk about a let-down. And The Ghost Writer (which, as far as I can tell, is a psychological thriller and not a ghost story per say) ends with Gerard in the process of escaping the house. No “tying everything together” section (which I usually need to figure out what happened), no figuring out what was what with Anne- the protagonist hasn’t even left the property yet!
The third book I’ve gotten up to is The Haunting Of Hill House. The copy my library had turned out to be the original 1959 printing, which is cool. What is not cool is that fifty years of readers with filthy hands (which could be a pit thread in its own) left it a mess.
I’m a bit confused about the ending- Eleanor dies, right?
[/spoiler]