Ghost Story - Peter Straub

Ghost Story

By Peter Straub

  • Release Date: 1979-04-05
  • Genre: Horror
4 Score: 4 (From 326 Ratings)

Description

#1 New York Times bestselling author Peter Straub’s classic tale of horror, secrets, and the dangerous ghosts of the past...
 
What was the worst thing you’ve ever done?
 
In the sleepy town of Milburn, New York, four old men gather to tell each other stories—some true, some made-up, all of them frightening. A simple pastime to divert themselves from their quiet lives.
 
But one story is coming back to haunt them and their small town. A tale of something they did long ago. A wicked mistake. A horrifying accident. And they are about to learn that no one can bury the past forever...

Reviews

  • Great Book

    5
    By yoyomarkwater
    Excellent story, beautiful detail, and an exhilarating plot.
  • Pure garbage

    1
    By MrKingBeef
    This was the ramblings of a drunk lunatic. Don’t waste your time, just go talk to an insane person for a couple hours instead.
  • Effective writing

    5
    By Nickplay
    Well written book that does a great job with creepy imagery. I wish the ending was a little different but I appreciated the journey. The characters were well written and aside from some of their actions not always making sense. Off to watch the 1981 movie based on the book. Wish me luck !
  • I was utterly captivated

    5
    By khhkihder
    It has been so long since I lost myself in a book.
  • Ghost Story Without Ghosts

    2
    By Boer Wart
    I’m not sure I’ve ever had a horror story scare me less. Most of the way through, I had no clue what the monsters were supposed to be. The eventual explanation didn’t move me at all. Maybe this book is evidence that, like rock and roll, horror fiction is out of gas.
  • Ghost Story

    5
    By D Rohlinger
    A great book with twists you never see coming. It’s so exciting that if possible you could devour it in one sitting. I had to take breaks because it’s so very intense my brain needed rest or it would have overloaded. I worried about the characters when away from the read and to me that is the only sign of a great book. I’m sorry I came to the end because I would like it to go on and on. I’ll think of this story often and fondly as one of my favorite books of the thousands of books I have read in my lifetime.
  • One of my Favorites

    5
    By TGarcia2582
    When I started this book it reminded me so much of and old movie I had seen. The more I read I was like I know what’s going to happen next. I almost gave up on this book then I googled it to confirm the movie was based on this book. I am so glad I did not give up on this book. As with any book to movie situation the book was so much better, and filled in some plot hole the movie had. This book and pretty much everything I’ve read by Peter Straub is worth reading. I haven’t found a book by him yet that I didn’t love. Once I start reading his books I can’t put them down.
  • Ghost Story

    5
    By GuitarDann
    Is, and has since I first read it, been, among the best stories I’ve read. Amazing characters & development of those characters. When the movie came out Fred Astaire, John Houseman, & Douglas Fairbanks seemed perfect choices for part of the Chowder Society, but the screenplay was not the novel, the movie was not the book, and Hollywood wasted paper & celluloid. With the new series formats & special effects, both visual and audio, & the right writing team who love this story as much as readers do; well, it would be great to see that effort.
  • I could write my own novel about how absurdly clever, menacing, and important this book is.

    5
    By Bank of America_Knoxville
    For those of you who have not heard of Peter Straub, or perhaps never read anything by him, (no those collaborations with Stephen King don’t count; Stephen King will tell you himself that he’s not as talented of a storyteller as Peter Straub). First I have to quickly address the insanity I just read in one of just two written reviews on this novel in the iBooks store, (the person let the novel go soaring over their head and they were SO close to understanding what metafiction is & how Straub used common horror tropes or cliches that we all know about since authors like King have made their careers on them but I digress...). I also find it impossible to believe that over 700 people have rated this novel on iBooks, yet I’m the THIRD person to write a few words about it? Either iBooks is deeply sensitive to what people say in a written review and remove them, or only a dozen or so people have actually rated this book on iBooks but due to its world wide acclaim & the fact that Peter Straub has more literary awards, including a many lifetime achievement awards and others for his ability to write outside of one genre, including some amazing poetry collections, so iBooks fudged the numbers to make it appear like 700 people have bought, read, and rated this book on their digital platform...again, I digress, but this is HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS, and to only have two visible customer ratings here would be like Metacritic, IMDb, or Rottentomatoes claiming 700 critics rated one of the best genre works of all time, however just 2 of them submitted a written review – oh and 1 of the 2 is so obviously not able to understand more challenging concepts than the stuff found in a Tyler Perry or Michael Bay movie. If you’ve read GHOST STORY, and I mean actually considered what the information that was repeatedly being given to you over several hundred pages meant & what the author wants you to feel since he obviously arranged everything the way he wanted it - so if you’re seeing countless names that all sound the same or have the same initials etc., ALL YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO UNDERSTAND from this technique is that the author uses them to keep you constantly off-balance and totally uncertain as to what will happen on the next page; *this* is one of countless techniques you’ll find in Straub’s classic, “Ghost Story.” I apologize for ranting about how completely lost reviewer on here instead of telling you about this book, but the bottom line is that you will not know what I’m talking about or why I feel strongly over all this until you READ IT FOR YOURSELF. The book has 3 “parts” – prologue and epilogue as well - but it could have just been published without the three act intervals with those 3 extra pages that bookend the different sections of the narrative. I think the publisher most likely knew that it would be easier for readers to trust the author with that kind of formatting, as the book is almost a thousand pages and in 1979 when it came out no one knew who Peter Straub was, so the story had to seem more accessible; I guess thats all it takes because it worked. Every person who has read this book says the same thing: “My first reading of this book, I thought the first part was going so slow, but then when I got to the second and third parts, everything was suddenly going so fast that I had no clue how it would end!” So yeah, enjoy the first third of the novel. Get comfortable with the protagonists and the town of Milburn. USE YOUR DIGITAL COPY TO HIGHLIGHT RECURRING OR SIMILAR NAMES AND CHARACTERS AT ALL TIMES wink wink nudge nudge. Oh, and did I mention this book is shockingly hysterical? Straub takes several swings at what the horror literature landscape had become back in the late ‘70’s, and it’s no coincidence that the protagonists/main characters of this massive story are literally the only people out of their entire world that enjoy getting together and telling each other NEW, CREATIVE, UPSETTING, EXPERIMENTAL forms of horror tales. Gee, golly, are there people in life who love sharing horror stories with others, and maybe they write them down, and get someone to distribute all the copies to the world? Hey, I think Peter Straub, that brilliant writer with all those awards and accolades does that! I wonder if there are any other people like him out there that I don’t know about...there can’t be more than just Stephen King novels when it comes to horror novels, right???
  • Ghost Story

    5
    By Herbal R.Ph.
    This has been one of the best novels I've read in a long time; an excellent read!

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