A Washington Post Best Book of the Year

Peter Straub—bestselling author and 8-time Bram Stoker Award winner—has gathered here 24 bone-chilling, nail-biting, frightfully imaginative stories that represent the best of contemporary horror writing.

Dan Chaon “The Bees”
Elizabeth Hand “Cleopatra Brimstone”
Steve Rasnic Tem and Melanie Tem “The Man on the Ceiling”
M. John Harrison “The Great God Plan”
Ramsey Campbell “The Voice of the Beach”
Brian Evenson “Body”
Kelly Link “Louise’s Ghost”
Jonathan Carroll “The Sadness of Detail”
M. Rickert “Leda”
Thomas Tessier “In Praise of Folly”
David J. Schow “Plot Twist”
Glen Hirshberg “The Two Sams”
Thomas Ligotti “Notes on the Writing of Horror: A Story”
Benjamin Percy “Unearthed”
Bradford Morrow "Gardener of Heart”
Peter Straub “Little Red’s Tango”
Stephen King “The Ballad of a Flexible Bullet”
Joe Hill “20th Century Ghost”
Ellen Klages “The Green Glass Sea”
Tia V. Travis “The Kiss”
Graham Joyce “Black Dust”
Neil Gaiman “October in the Chair”
John Crowley “Missolonghi 1824”
Rosalind Palermo Stevenson “Insect Dreams”


From the Trade Paperback edition.