The 10 Most Disturbing Books Of All Time

American Psycho was so bizarre, but it was an interesting psychological look into a so called normal, successful business person.

Two titles I would add are "Say You Love Satan" about whacked out American teens on a killing spree, and "Lords of Chaos" about the whacked out Scandanavian death metal scene.

One of my most disturbing books (but still a fun read!) is the drive-in by Joe Lansdale. Its a sci fi book, but features the most bizarre acts of Canabalism often involving children. It was one of the few books that left me very uneasy.

I've read a surprising number of those books - "We Need To Talk About Kevin" was gut-wrenching, especially as I was working in a high school at the time.

I thought The Road was pretty clear that it takes place after a nuclear war, not a meteor strike. Maybe I'm wrong but I don't think so.

Geek Love by Catherine Dunn
is most disturbing as well.

OOO more books more books... I need some new stuff to read.
The Road one sounds pretty interesting.

great now I have 10 books to buy =(

"The Road" is excellent, but indeed quite bleak. Read it before the movie comes out this summer.

The Road isn't nearly as disturbing as Blood Meridian. Lots and lots of bloody graphic violence there.

In a rare instance, I SAW American Psycho before I read it and thought the movie was a riot (especially the whole "business card" thing...I work for a commercial printer).

A third of the way through the book, I wanted to pluck out my own eyes. Not so much for the gore, as the whole obsessive portrait. Beyond horrifying.

Well I've never read any of these books before.

But Showbread has a song called Naked Lunch. Good song. Great band.

For me it was a book my Mom use to read to me every night before she turned out the lights. It was called: Accidents Happen; the story of you!

Argh! I have over 50 books in my "Need to read pile" in my room and now I'm going to add these in it. D:

Sickness into you mind, sickness out of your mind.

I had a sneak preview of Kaaron Warren's Slights, upcoming in July, and it's one of the most disturbing books I've read. I'd put it somewhere between American Psycho's and We Need to Talk Kevin. It's about a girl who accidentally kills her mother in a car accident and has a horrific near death experience where she confronts the ghosts of everyone she's ever slighted. The sense of sly menace keeps building, rending happy suburbia apart with shocking revelations, from an awful little old lady next door to the things she unearths in her obsessive excavation of her backyard that reveal disturbing clues to her past. It's brilliant, queasy-making storytelling, the kind that sticks with you, so the details might hit you again like a nasty flashback. www.angryrobotbooks.com

Awesome, a few more books to add to my 'must buy or borrow these'. I love Burroughs, Selby and Ellis but would definately have put at least one Ryu Murakami on that list - all his books have a distinctly disturbing edge to them and are all great reads.

I saw this and thought Ooohh..But got em.every single one.
Reflects kinda badly on ones tastes tho...

I saw the 1992 movie of this with Peter Weller (Robocop) and it was the most bizarre thing I ever saw. It was somewhat entertaining, but like the book you really never had your bearings on what was happening.

Didn't this movie have a talking anus? Man, I thought I had repressed that. Crap I'm freakin' out again!!

I think Lolita by Nabokov should be on the list. It's the only book that has ever made me too sick to be able to finish it.

I want all of em.. Wanna see what they have!

American Psycho is my favorite book. I STRONGLY recommend , "The Third Policeman" by Flann O'Brian. It is definatly the most unusual book I've ever read.

Suffer the Children by John Saul. At one point a 13 year old girl kills a cat with a rock and dresses it in doll clothes, then she has a tea party with it in a mineshaft and ends up swearing at it because the corpse won't respond and then beating it and finally cutting it's head off with a butcher knife in a mad rage. It made me really sad to see her abuse the animal so horribly.

Read 'Bleeding The Orchid' by Aidan Lord. It's bad enough what happens to the kids in the title story. But what the bloody hell happens to the girl Abigail!?