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

[P_Clapham]

I've made studying H.P.L. and the Weird Tales circle the focus of my undergraduate research, so I'm a little biased. 

Some of his stories are very good, and some are pretty bad.  At the Mountains of Madness can be a little daunting, but it is a good read.  One of the strengths of Lovecraft's work, and the other authors who contributed was the shared narrative constructs, characters, and invented texts.  Here are a few of my favorites, most of them taking place in my backyard. 

The Whisperer in the Darkness
The Colour out of Space
The Festival
The Nameless City
The Shadow over Innsmouth

[Wolf 359]

Green Eggs and Shuggoths...

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

You kidding? All of Dr. Seuss's works are based in the Cthulhu mythos.....

[Capt Croft]

You can't go wrong with any of these new radio dramas

http://www.cthulhulives.org/store/store.lasso?1=product&2=33163


My fav was Innsmouth and mountains, great company and each cd is loaded with props from the story

[Dolmot]

To answer the original question: all of them. There's not that much of it, really. No full length books, maybe six stories that count as novellas. The longest ones may exceed 100 pages in some formats, but hardly more than that. If you have read any modern serial-fantasy, where the author can almost get to the point (or not) after 2000 pages, you may be surprised to find out that after 800 pages you're done with Lovecraft originals.

A good Lovecraft novel compilation

I bought that one too. Cheap, nice, fairly complete. I think it's ordered approximately by publishing date, so you can follow his development through different stages. It's not a bad order to follow. In the beginning you get a couple of short "macabre stories", essentially boiling down to the fact that you really shouldn't do any funny stuff on gothic graveyards. Soon you'll get into the dreams, cosmic stuff and longer stories. The few missing short stories can be easily read online.

So, just get started and read it all. Length isn't the part to be afraid of...

[uhf]

Thanks guys.

I picked up a more generic book... on sale... I wonder why.  Is it some part of an evil Cthulhu plot?

But I have a list of the stories to read from all you posts.  So once again, thanks.

[Whiskyrat]

Late to the party.

I bought "Dagon and Other Macabre Tales" over 20 years ago from an out of the way 2nd hand bookstore in York. A good selection of tales and my first intro to the Mythos.  

As I had read but didn't own Mountains of M, Shadow over I and CoC, I picked up this one at the w/e.

B&N Hardcover $12 - a weighty tome - (about 3lbs) - had to take it out of my suitcase to meet the 50lb limit.  

[Dolmot]

Bumping the old topic (which might actually belong to the parent forum)...

Eldritch Tales: A Miscellany of the Macabre, a follow-up volume to Necronomicon by the same publisher. Announced for this summer or autumn. Possibly of some interest to people who want to know more.

[supervike]

If you have an E-reader, you can hardly go wrong with this free download:

http://cthulhuchick.com/free-complete-lovecraft-ebook-nook-kindle/

[The Gray Ghost]

My first book was Black Seas of Infinity which contains many of His best work.
August Derleth is ok be he is clearly copying  Lovecraft I have not found a copy of Howard works that I can afford so have not read him.
I find most of the modern Cthulhu books to be disappointing.

[nathan]

If you have an E-reader, you can hardly go wrong with this free download:

http://cthulhuchick.com/free-complete-lovecraft-ebook-nook-kindle/

Thanks for this link!

[LidlessEye]

I find most of the modern Cthulhu books to be disappointing.

Very much agreed.  Not many modern authors seem to "get" what Lovecraft was doing, and elect to hype up the gore or sexual aspects of their stories.  I've been far, far more satisfied delving back into Lovecraft's influences.  Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, William Hope Hodgson, Robert Chambers - all brilliant stuff.

[Blackwolf]

Very much agreed.  Not many modern authors seem to "get" what Lovecraft was doing, and elect to hype up the gore or sexual aspects of their stories.  I've been far, far more satisfied delving back into Lovecraft's influences.  Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, William Hope Hodgson, Robert Chambers - all brilliant stuff.

 LidlessEye's picks are perfect,may I add Lord Dunsany's Pegana stories?

[fanfavorite]

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.

 

Yes, ignorance is certainly bliss...


edit: you can find most if not all I believe of his published work, including really obscure ones, online for free. here is one such source: http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/fiction/

I started reading them online years ago here and there and I admit my first was "At The Mountains of Madness"- didn't process a bit of it.

I just bought the LoA's anthology of Lovecraft and just cracked it open last week. Started with "The Dunwich Horror" and "The Whisperer in Darkness" and I have to say some of his stories (especially "...[the] Horror") read themselves.

It is always an honor to be a geek of anything, but there is a special place in the cosmos (or beyond them) for a Lovecraft buff. The real cosmic horror of it all? That Mythos has been and is still currently being expanded upon for coming on 100 years now... good luck man!

Also learn some of the back story of the Mythos, the Mythos behind the Mythos I guess. For example, some obscure trivia for ya'll:

1. The Mad Arab, the writer of the Necronomicon, was Lovecraft's alter ego as a young boy growing up. He was fascinated with the Middle East and their cosmology- in particular, Egypt.
2. Most of Lovecraft's stories (weird stuff for the early 20th century you've got to admit) were all inspired dreams from his boyhood. Lovecraft was a haunted man from childhood.
3. Not really a fact per se, more eldritch speculation, but Robert Chambers was a self professed and critically terrible pulp author who only wrote for his paycheck. And yet no critic can argue the genius of "The King in Yellow", some would say, often mockingly (the poor fools) that he was inspired by something, "not of our ken..."
4. So much more...

Truly an eerie world saw through the eyes of  even weirder gentlemen.