Silly question but... what's a good HP Lovecraft book to read?

[uhf]

I've never read any Cthulhu...  I can assume its good, because its still got this ummm 'cult' fan base...

[LidlessEye]

Lovecraft can be tough to get into, and isn't for everyone.  Whatever you do, don't make the same mistake as many budding Lovecraftians of starting with The Call of Cthulhu, which in itself isn't an especially strong story (or even worse, take my father's path and go straight to The Mountains of Madness!).  Shorter stories like 'The Rats in the Walls' and 'Pickman's Model' are probably the most accessible entry points.  I usually recommend the Del Rey compendium "Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre"; read the stories in more or less the order presented.  This starts you out with some fairly conventional horror, works through Lovecraft's real classics and eventually culminates in one of his most complex tales.  If you get that far and still hunger for more, you can start delving into the more obscure corners of Lovecraft's library.

If you find Lovecraft himself a little dense, Robert Howard's 'The Black Stone' is a great intro to the mythos world as well.

[Red Orc]

All books contain forbidden knowledge; therefore it's better to read nothing, lest what you find between the covers of dread and eldritch tomes of blasphemous and cyclopean aspect should blast your sanity until you stand naked and alone before the blind whirling uncaring chaos of no human aspect that is the void at the centre of existence.

 

[General]

I started with "The Dunwich Horror."

[Doug ex-em4]

All books contain forbidden knowledge; therefore it's better to read nothing, lest what you find between the covers of dread and eldritch tomes of blasphemous and cyclopean aspect should blast your sanity until you stand naked and alone before the blind whirling uncaring chaos of no human aspect that is the void at the centre of existence.

 

Oh - you've been to Rhyl, then....? 

Doug

[Christian]

There are a lot of fantastic horror stories written around the same time as Lovecraft. Maybe you could get a collection of shorter stories to get a bit of a flavour for the genre.

Arkham Publishing have released collections before. I also had a Penguin collection of just Lovecraft works. I would just try and get my hands on as much as possible!

This book is really good:
http://www.amazon.com/Great-Terror-Supernatural-Modern-Library/dp/0679601287%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0679601287

And I paid four times as much as Amazon has it for :/

[Red Orc]

Oh - you've been to Rhyl, then....?  

Doug

Rhyl?

Yeah.

[Anatoli]

Hope you can find anything helpful from what I have here:

Lovecraft in general http://anatolisgameroom.blogspot.com/search/label/Blog specials?updated-max=2010-09-01T19%3A25%3A00%2B02%3A00&max-results=20


A good Lovecraft novel compilation: http://anatolisgameroom.blogspot.com/2010/09/necronomicon-best-weird-tales-of-hp.html

[Heldrak]

Purists (and I am one) will tell you to stick with stuff written by Lovecraft himself and to avoid things written by his friends and correspondents (August Derleth, Robert E. Howard, etc.).

There should be a lot of collections out there. Personally, I like "The Call of Cthulhu", "The Dunwich Horror" and "The Shadow Over Innsmouth". You should be able to pick up a collection with all three in the same volume (among others).

[flooglestreet]

"Green eggs and Shuggoths"

[uhf]

"Green eggs and Shuggoths"

Green Eggs and Shuggoths...

I was asking about HP Lovecraft...  Not Dr Seuse...

[Christian]

This should help:
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0600031.txt

All his collected works in one free volume.

Project Gutenberg is a database of all literature that is free of ownership. You have all the greats in there... E. R. Burroughs, H. Rider Haggard, John Buchan etc.

[einarolafson]

Lovecraft can be tough to get into, and isn't for everyone.  Whatever you do, don't make the same mistake as many budding Lovecraftians of starting with The Call of Cthulhu, which in itself isn't an especially strong story (or even worse, take my father's path and go straight to The Mountains of Madness!).  Shorter stories like 'The Rats in the Walls' and 'Pickman's Model' are probably the most accessible entry points.  I usually recommend the Del Rey compendium "Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre"; read the stories in more or less the order presented.  This starts you out with some fairly conventional horror, works through Lovecraft's real classics and eventually culminates in one of his most complex tales.  If you get that far and still hunger for more, you can start delving into the more obscure corners of Lovecraft's library.

If you find Lovecraft himself a little dense, Robert Howard's 'The Black Stone' is a great intro to the mythos world as well.

I think that too, it's better to read short stories first.

Oh - you've been to Rhyl, then....? 

Doug

hahaha, Rhylmouth or worst, Ryle'h. I live near  but far away enough .

[Doug ex-em4]

hahaha, Rhylmouth or worst, Ryle'h. I live near  but far away enough .

Whereabouts near? I used to live near Ruthin, not that far away.

Doug

[bc99]

I'd go with Call of Cthulhu... how can you go wrong! Check the other stories as well, especially Pickman's Model, and Rats in the Walls. The thing is, I read the latter stories first, and was like, "this isn't very Cthulhu-ish". I was actually introduced to the Mythos via the role playing game in the late 80s so it wasn't until Call of Cthulhu that I got the full Mythos experience.