Monday, December 8, 2008

BOOK REVIEW: The Book of Lists: Horror

Everyone loves a list. The internet is littered with them. Amazon has their Listmania lists, where you can make your own lists of books, movies, etc. And pretty much every other shopping website has ripped this off. Most of your favourite websites feature top 10 lists. And blogs are filled with lists (I even made one myself). So why not a book comprised of just lists?

I had read other editions of The Book of Lists, and enjoyed them. Some of the lists are really fascinating. And when I found out there was a Book of Lists dedicated to my favourite genre, I knew I had to check it out.

The Book of Lists: Horror is broken up into five sections: movies, books, music, miscellaneous (which includes T.V, video games, etc.), and lists submitted by horror fans. Most of the lists are by celebrities in the horror community such as Stephen King, James Gunn and Eli Roth.

Some of my favourite lists from the book:

Charles Black's Five Favourite Nightmare on Elm Street Tie-In Products - I had no idea there was a 1-900 number where you could call Freddy. Or a Freddy's Greatest Hits album.

Anthony Timpone's Ten Movies I Wish I Never Put on the Cover of Fangoria - Who knew putting Species II on the cover of Fangoria would be a mistake?

T.E.D. Klein's Twenty-Five Most Familiar Horror Plots - I can't even count all the times I've read a story ending with it being all a dream.

I was surprised how varied the lists were. I thought there would be a lot of repeats of the classics, but there were only a few.

What I liked most about The Book of Lists: Horror, is that it gave me tons of movies and books I had never heard of before. Now I have a huge list of books and movies that I want to check out thanks to this book.

This book is a must-read for all horror lovers. Even if you're not into horror you would probably enjoy it. Lots of the lists are funny and all of them are interesting. It's definitely fun reading.

Rating: 5/5

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Glad you enjoyed the book, and thanks for such a great review!

Cheers!

Scott Bradley
co-editor, THE BOOK OF LISTS: HORROR