The Book of Lists: Horror

Right away I can say that if you liked trivia, then you will like this book. If you like the horror genre in any form (film, books, tv, music, etc.), then you will like this book as well. Some readers out there may remember the Book of Lists series, and this is a pretty good entry in the series.

The book is arranged into major chapters. There is one chapter each for film, literature, music, miscellaneous trivia, and a little bit of this and that at the end. Personally, I like the literature chapter best, but that may be because I am a literature sort of person. I did find the film chapter pretty interesting as well. It does cover a pretty broad range of films, especially older films that may or not be available nowadays. You may find yourself longing to watch this or that film, or maybe watch again a film you may have enjoyed before.

The lists contain a variety of trivia and items. I do think a small weakness of the book, which is what prevented me from giving it five stars, is that a couple of lists are a stretch. There were a couple of lists of movies that "were not really horror movies but can be viewed as horror" and similar concepts that felt that the editors were just pushing. Those kind of lists just made it feel like the editors were simply pushing in stuff to fill up the book rather than something that was carefully thought out.Aside from those, and those weak lists are few, the content overall is pretty good. The editors do a good job of providing context for the lists in the form of introductory notes, which at times can be as entertaining as the annotated lists. Yes, most of the lists are annotated.

I definitely enjoyed this book, and I would recommend it to any fan of the horror genre as well as anyone who just likes reading trivia books. I know there are a few items listed that I may look up to experience later, and for that, I think the book is worth it.