What's the most disturbing (also good) book you've read?

[snouty warthog]

'last exit to brooklyn', no doubt. I couldn't finish it- brutal.

the queen is dead, boys...

non-fiction- 'the damage done' by warren fellows is a brutal but fascinating book- the life of a guy convicted of heroin smuggling and imprisoned in Thailand's toughest jail... a real sledgehammer blow of a book...

'house of dolls' by kazetnik 135633 (prisoner 135633)- the diary of a Jewish woman, smuggled out of Auschwitz. it's just the saddest thing ever...

 

[frogwoman]

we need to talk about kevin .

Not disturbing as such but very very dark ...


at the moment ive been printing off pages from a book online called "The mask of Sanity" by Hervey Cleckley, about psychopaths. It is absolutely fascinating but quite a worrying read ...

Ive also read a book recently called "Their kingdom come" about Opus Dei which i got in scotland, a bit technical and hard going but the facts in it are some of the scariest things youve read in your life

 

[sojourner]

What, no Marquis de Sade? The 120 days of Sodom by the fella - gruesome, beyond disturbing, and very interesting in terms of the philosophy behind it, and the historical detail. Add to that Justine, and Philosophy in the Bedroom, although 120 days is the worst imo

 

[miss minnie]

Alma Cogan by Gordon Burn.

A slim novel, it reads as a gentle, first person reflection on celebrity... until the last page reveals a terrible and spine-chilling fact. I won't spoil it for you.

 

[sojourner]

Alma Cogan by Gordon Burn.

A slim novel, it reads as a gentle, first person reflection on celebrity... until the last page reveals a terrible and spine-chilling fact. I won't spoil it for you.

Ooo, just looked that up on Amazon, looks good...my fingers hovering over Add to Shopping Cart!

 

[ice-is-forming]

the wasp factory by Iain Banks
Lord of the barnyard by Tristin Eegolf

Perelandra,
out of the silent planet and
that hideous strength.

all by CS Lewis.

 

[ice-is-forming]

Im not Scared
or
The Wasp Factory

just seen this, the wasp factory is a good/dark/funny one eh?

 

[treefrog]

Random acts of senseless violence by Jack Womack, set in the near future as american society collapses, its the diary of a nice 12 yo jewish girl in New York, who's scriptwriter parents are financially ruined, and forced to move to Brookyln. The girl starts to adopt the language and slang of the area, as her life becomes grimmer and grimmer. Whats fascinating is the first page is ordinary english, but the last page would be pratically unreadable if you just skipped to the end, but because the author introduces the syntax and grammar gradually, by the end it's completely readable. Brilliant. Grim but Brilliant.

Bloody fabulous that book, amazing and horribly bleak.

Another vote for WAsp Factory here, I read it as part of my English Higher at school. After repeated re-reads and endlessly poring over it in order to write my dissertation I became quite freaked out and eventually had to throw it away. Not read it since...

 

[Mrs Magpie]

A short story by Margaret Atwood....I was pregnant at the time and it wasn't a good story for a pregnant woman to read really...can't remember the title....

 

[Yu_Gi_Oh]

Obviously the wasp factory and Maribou Stork Nightmares are up there as disturbing. Jesus those books are a bit much!

I read 'we need to talk about Kevin' last week and found it gripping and sad but not disturbing.

Dead Babies by Martin Amis was probably one of the most disturbing books I've read, all that talk of teeth really fucked me up.

I would point out though that I read all these books (except we need to talk about kevin) between the ages of 11 and 15 and would probably not be half as bothered by them now.

 

[Dissident Junk]

Cabal, by Clive Barker, really bothered me, as did The Hellbound Heart (basis for Hellraiser).

There's something about the ideas in both that really disturb me.

 

[DownwardDog]

Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosiński

The story of a young boy lost among Polish hillbillies during WW2. Grotesque but strangely compelling.

Gravity's Rainbow has its moments.

 

[rusalki]

Oblivion by D.F.Wallace.

The Demons by Fedor Dostoevskij.

Treatise of the Soul's Passions by Antonio Lobo Antunes.

 

[frogwoman]

Bloody fabulous that book, amazing and horribly bleak.

Another vote for WAsp Factory here, I read it as part of my English Higher at school. After repeated re-reads and endlessly poring over it in order to write my dissertation I became quite freaked out and eventually had to throw it away. Not read it since...

i liked the wasp factory, as unpleasant as it is ...

random acts of sensless violence sounds amazing, i'm gonna have to read it at some piont ...

 

[felixthecat]

Another vote for The Wasp FActory - Iain Banks, and The Cutting Room - Louise Welsh.

Oh, and The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

 

[foamy]

Dispatches - Michael Herr. (Journalists account of the Vietnam war, gave me nightmares every day i read it)
The War Zone - Alexander Stuart

another vote for:
We Need To Talk About Kevin
Lovely Bones
America Psycho
Wasp Factory

 

[sparkling]

We need to talk about Kevin. Maybe it was being the mother of boys but there were some bits I could barely read.

 

[Dirty Martini]

The Wasp Factory is cack.

I'd go for American Psycho, Shame by Salman Rushdie, and The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien.

 

[Poot]

We need to talk about Kevin. Maybe it was being the mother of boys but there were some bits I could barely read.

I read this just after my son was born and actually I was very very relieved that I didn't feel the way that the narrator did. I was still very disturbed though- a very powerful book, I thought.

Interestingly (I thought) Lionel Schriver (who is female) was interviewed on Radio 4 and she doesn't have any children. She claimed she couldn't possibly have written the book if she had because what on earth would they think of her?

 

[sparkling]

I read this just after my son was born and actually I was very very relieved that I didn't feel the way that the narrator did. I was still very disturbed though- a very powerful book, I thought.

Interestingly (I thought) Lionel Schriver (who is female) was interviewed on Radio 4 and she doesn't have any children. She claimed she couldn't possibly have written the book if she had because what on earth would they think of her?

I've heard her speak a few times. I had mixed emotions whilst reading that book in the beginning I just wanted to rescue her son.

 

[avu9lives]

Julian Cope (head on)

griddle cooking by (m&s)

walking the dales (mike harding)

glyn jones (the history of the vikings)

i need a beer (by me)

 

[Sweaty Betty]

IT...stephen king

This may have more to do with reading it at age 12, then content itself, although i remember the film beig utter shit in comparison to the scary images the book created.....

 

[Dirty Martini]

It's a long time since I read it, but I Was Dora Suarez by Derek Raymond

 

[avu9lives]

witches,goblins and the other world, by sulamith wulgang

 

[avu9lives]

Banks banks, banks read many of his works, disturbing-no, stimulating-yes, great writer.
crow road, complicity, walking on glass, the bridge, espedair street, canal dreams, whit, 'wasp actory! havent read the algerbraist yet, and some Iian banks.

Bukowski- yeah

Burroughs hmmm

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Lolita

 

[Wookey]

Watership Down

 

[ice-is-forming]

And who can forget lord of the flies

 

[Wookey]

Lord of the Whosit?

 

[ice-is-forming]

lord of the flies

http://www.gerenser.com/lotf/

and necroville, http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/m/ian-mcdonald/necroville.htm