Disturbing and depressing reads.
Explore a haunting collection of the most disturbing and depressing books that challenge the soul. From dark fiction to harrowing true stories, these unsettling reads will leave a lasting impact.
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Badass Horror
by Michael Hemmingson
Seven stories written by some of the best writers of modern fiction including Garry Kilworth, Ron Damien Malfi, Michael Boatman, and Michael Hemmingson reach to the edge of human endurance and push all the harder.
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God Laughs When You Die
by Michael Boatman
A host of drug dealers meets a foe they cannot kill. The president accidentally invites demons into the country and watches the pope turn into a sabertooth tiger. A man, dead since 1920, lives again in present day Los Angeles to satiate a malevolent goddess. These tales by Michael Boatman will disturb, terrify and traumatize you. Boatman grabs you by throat and drags you kicking and screaming through his prose. With a dash of Lansdale and a smattering of Martina's Wild Cards, the tales within inhabit the dark and nasty side of our souls, and throughout Boatman infuses it all with a keen wit and an eye for detail. And when he lets you up to breathe, like God, you might just find yourself laughing. This is the sort of stuff I like to read as the bells sound midnight. Paul Haines award-winning author of Doorways for the Dispossessed Boatman's debut collection will knock you down and kick you in the teeth. Alternatingly hysterical, grotesque, bizarre, and fantastic, Boatman's collection is a must-read for anyone itching to get their hands on fresh new fiction that pulls no punches. Ronald Damien Malfi, author of The Nature of Monsters and The Fall of Never Michael Boatman writes like a visitor from hell. Someone out on short term leave for bad behavior. I love this stuff. He's one of the new, and more than promising, writers making his mark, and a dark and wonderful mark it is. Joe R. Lansdale
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The Rape of Nanking
by Iris Chang
Attempts to analyze the degree to which the Japanese imperial government and its militaristic culture fostered in the Japanese soldier a total disregard for human life.
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The Demon
by Hubert Selby
Harry White is a man haunted by a satyr's lust and an obsessive need for sin and retribution. The more Harry succeeds - a good marriage, a good corporate job - the more desperate he becomes, as a life of petty crime leads to fraud and murder and, eventually, to apocalyptic violence.
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Last Exit to Brooklyn
by Hubert Selby
The decadence and violence of the urban streets is graphically portrayed in this novel set in a post-WWII Brooklyn slum.
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Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders
by Vincent Bugliosi
The true story of the Manson murders.
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Gods Chinese Son
by Jonathan D Spence
A powerful account of the largest uprising in human history--the Taiping rebellion (1845-64)--in which 20 million Chinese were left dead, God's Chinese Son tells "a story that reaches beyond China into our world and time; a story of faith, hope, passion, and a fatal grandiosity" (Washington Post Book World). Photos. Author lectures & tour.
