I thought this would be a fun topic. I usually swap my books after reading and rarely put any on my keeper shelf.  But there have been a few that I just can't get rid of.  First, all of John Saul's books. The first book of his I read was Suffer the Children and since then I've been hooked. Even though there are some books of his I know I'll never read again, I just can't get rid of any.  I love Bentley Little just as much, yet I have no problem trading his books, hmm...             Some others that are on my keeper shelf are Harvest Home by Thomas Tryon; Faerie Tale by Raymond Feist, The Green Mile series by Stepehen King and Grimm Memorials by R. Patrick Gates. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, I keep all of Ruby Jean Jensens, too, unless I get a double, I love her books.

So, I thought it would be fun to hear what horror is on everyone's keeper shelf? Maybe I can get some ideas for books to read!

Brenda

I have (with the exception of The Dark Tower Books) the entire Stephen King collection in hardback.I've told me son those are his inheritance!LOL! I'm also collecting Bently Little in Hardback which will be keepers.Clive Barkers Books Of Blood are also keepers and last but not least my collection of hardback Tolkein Books my  dad bought me when I was a kid:)

Stacy

I  have all the Stephen King books in hardcover except the Gunslinger and Wizard and Glass. I also have all the Clive Barker books and also a lot of his comics and graphic novels. These take up a big bookshelf, so I don't have room for anymore.

I keep all my laymon.king ketcham books.i also have every V.C.andrews except one i loaned out a few years ago

Anything by Douglas Clegg.

My horror keeper shelf:

The Shining, The Talisman, Black House, The Stand (uncut version), 'Salem's Lot, Dolores Clairborne, It, Bag of Bones, all of my true ghost story books from Ohio and West Virginia, several Robert McCammon, Clive Barker, and Richard Matheson. Several collections of Edgar Allan Poe, including an incredible illustrated one by Simon Marsden. Some older hardcover books on witchcraft and the occult, lots of Hans Holzer and a collection of Time Life Books "The Enchanted World" and "Myth and Mankind". Anything I can find by Shirley Jackson.

         Well, with me, a more accurate query would be "what's NOT on your keeper shelf"?

         I very, VERY rarely part with a book that I've read. I'm a collector at heart  &  still have a copy of the very first horror  novel that I ever read  (  which was NIGHT OF THE VAMPIRE by Raymon Giles just in case you were curious ... ). Which I read when I was about 12 way back in 1973. Oh, I'd read a plethora of books before that, most of them genre titles. But, most of those were from the school  as well as the public library, while the rest were either Big Little Books  or those wonderful old Whitman hardcovers that were sold pretty much everywhere back then. Plus lots  &  LOTS of comic books. Which were my first reading love.

         But, NIGHT OF THE VAMPIRE was the first "adult" paperback original that I sought out  &  purchased. Mainly because I'd seen it advertised for seemingly like FOREVER in the back pages of my favorite magazine of the time, FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND. Now, some 33 years later, I can't recall if I'd actually ordered it from the magazine or if I found it  &  bought it somewhere else like a drugstore. But, I ( finally ) got a hold of it  &  after devouring it, I thought that it was some of a genre literary classic. I LOVED it!  

         Of course, many years later when I re-read it, I understood that it was a FAR cry from being a great work. In fact, it struggled to reach the level of mediocre. But, it's place of seminal importance in my life remained secure.

I'm with Jim on this one! I have about 700 books on my keeper shelf! I shop for books at least twice a week. I also have several hundred that I could post but it takes so much time, I post them when my bookshelf (on this site) gets down to about 143. Horror and true crime are almost exclusively what I read. Marley and Me is one of the best books I've ever read!! But some of my keepers are Stephen King, Dean Koontz, John Saul, Bentley Little, J.F. Gonzalez...

My books have a room of their own!!!

Christa

I am in the process of collecting all Stephen King books (hardcover) and all the Laurell K. Hamilton books (hardcover). I used to have all Stephen King's books back about 7 years ago and due to a messy divorce I lost most of them so I am starting over. :)

My John Saul hardcovers.  I reread them every few years and would never part with any of them. 

Wow...Hard question. I'm somewhat OCD and have trouble parting with any books (unless they REALLY don't suit my tastes.)

Some authors...King, Koontz, Edward Lee, Jack Ketchum (any of his books I can get my grubby mitts on) J.F. Gonzalez...

And also, Poppy Z. Brite is the god of gothic horror in my opinion. (thought that may be heatedly contested, lol) I would recommend her book Lost Souls for anyone who wants an entertaining, colorful romp through New Orleans with some vampires :D

There are only a few that I HAVE to hang onto...all of the Richard Laymon that I can get my hands on and Laurell K Hamilton's Anita Blake novels.  My hubby wants me to hang onto the Stephen King for now, though I don't recall ever rereading anything of his, except his short stories.  I just recently decided to part with my Bentley Little's since I've joined up here.  Gotta make room for my new obsession....Paperbackswap!  Ha!

I shall never part with anything by Poppy Z Brite. :)
I love love LOVE her.

Horror had kinda gone by the wayside for me, but I was reading in my Mostly Books Yahoo Group about one gal's inability to finish Scott Smith's The Ruins, and I was intrigued by her honest feelings of being a bit traumatized by the subject matter, almost as though she tasted it in a weird sort of way. That, of course, whetted my appetite for reading it, and as it came out in PB on July. 31, I went into Borders on Aug. 1 and waited for the sales girl to find it on a cart that had new books not yet on the shelf. I had just had extreme eye surgery, causing terrible swelling and bruising, yet managed to inhale that book and was upset with any interruption.

As soon as I posted it on PBS, my prediction was that it would be snatched up next on my list of posted books, and within an hour, it was wrapped and ready. Now, I want more from him, and it brought back my previous love for horror from a rather polar opposite current favorite of historical fiction. Scott Smith is a whole different type of author than Diana Gabaldon, and my beloved Philippa Gregory. He doesn't even use chapters, which I found delightfully refreshing and made for pounding reading.

Anything by Stephen King. I spent a lot of years collecting it.

I think the majority if books I have on my bookshelf are vampire stories. I'd love to get then all in hardback someday. 

The majority of books in hardback are the Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice.

I also have a Dark Hunter one in hardback, which I didn't even realize that's what it was until I got it home. All I knew was that it had something to do with vampires.

I won't ever get rid of the Anne rice books, or the Laurel K. Hamilton books along with several others. I've even ran out of room on the bookshelf, partially, thanks to this site :)

In the horror keeper section - I've got early Kings and Rice, Lovecraft and associated authors (Bloch, Dunsany, Long, Smith, Derleth), Hamilton's Blake series, Harrison's witch series.  (in no particular order or significance).

I think I'll be adding Simon Green's Nightside series which I stumbled on recently.  They're sort of a mix of Dashiel Hammet, Lovecraft, and a dash of Terry Pratchett.  Something From the Nightside is the first book in the series - there are 7 or 8 so far.

I have a tough time parting with books that I enjoy - though recently space has become an issue!  :-)

Classic horror staples, of course Dracula, Dr Jekyll, Frankenstein, Turn of the Screw, Woman in White, too much Poe and H P Lovecraft.  Also classic Stephen King: Carrie, Salem's Lot, Green Mile, Misery, Different Seasons.  A lot of cool collections compiled by masters like Hitchcock and Rod Serling.

Ooh and newest acquisition: the Terror by Dan Simmons, awesome book

I'm in the process of getting all the Stephen King books in hardcover.  I have all the Sue Grafton books but I guess thats not exactly horror (sorry)....Have a ton of Koontz too.  Anyone have any other suggestions on how to speed up finishing my King collection?  I've thought about posting some sort of trade thing for very good condition hc king books for 2 of whatever of mine...I need to update my shelf soon so I have more to choose from.  Any ideas are more than welcome.  I LOVED Blaze...what a great book!

Has anyone read "Haunted" by Steve Palahniuk (not sure about the spelling of his last name)?  - it was one of the best, gross-out horror books I've read in the past year! Great writing style!

I read that - it was pretty good. That first story was way nasty, but I like his style.

Clive Barker, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Anne Rice, John Saul and Peter Straub

I have Anne Rice's first four books in the Vampire Chronicles (Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, The Queen of the Damned and the Tale of the Body Thief) and am currently looking for the next in the series. :) I also have all of Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake Vampire Hunter Series up to the book Danse Macabre as well as the first three books in her Merry Gentry series and Death of a Darklord which is part of the Ravenloft Covenet. After that I have a lot of misc. horror including some V.C. Andrews, Stephen King's In the Eyes of the Dragon, some classics like Dracula, Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and I don't know if it counts or not but House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Jim Butcher's Storm Front.