Used Bookstore Find - Alone with the Horrors by Ramsey Campbell

Despite having more novels, anthologies, and short story collections than I could possibly read in a lifetime -- especially a lifetime like mine which was likely shorted a bit by some of my early Crohn’s disease complications -- I still frequently visit and buy things from used bookstores with little hesitation. The reason for this is simple; I’m a sucker for books, especially ones that are priced lower than fast food value meal selections (until you add up everything in my arms and then I could have gotten a nice steak dinner as some fancy restaurant for less). Anthologies and short story collections are even more addicting, because, while there might be some debate as to which novels I want to buy that day due to the knowledge that they will be spaced out by the chunks of time it requires to read them, there is no debate when it comes to the time required to read short stories because one can dip in and out of such collected works over the course of a year or more and never feel lost. In and out, a story here, a story there, either from the same collection or different collections, and in time one will finish everything within the covers of one, but at a far slower pace than it takes to read a novel -- unless the stories are so good that one drops everything to read them back to back (I’ve done this a few times, but only when between novels). So, there I was, browsing the cluttered shelves of the used bookstore by my parents house, hands grabbing books as if they were free, when my eyes stumbled upon Alone with the Horrors by Ramsey Campbell.

I hate to say it, but Ramsey Campbell is one of those authors I have always wanted to read but never have. This wasn’t a conscious choice, but instead it just kind of happened, my hands never picking up one of his novels while at the forgotten bookstores of my youth simply because I always seemed to be in there for a different title or titles. Chances are, given the really poor horror selection of the bookstores I used to frequent, his works weren’t even on the shelf, or at least weren’t easily visible while browsing (the standard selection always seemed to be, in their entirety King and Koontz, and randomly, a few works by Andrews, Barker, Keene, Laymon, Lumley, McCammon, Simmons, Wilson, and, toward the end of the stores existence, trade edition zombie novels by the dozen). They might have also put his books elsewhere. I’ll never forget the day I went in looking for an Anne Rice book, this being after I had read a gift copy of Interview with a Vampire during high school and realized I enjoyed it, but being unable to find her selection amongst the horror titles. It wasn’t until I asked for help that I was pointed to the literature section, which had nearly two whole shelves dedicated to her. Anyway, in interest of not getting too far off topic, I never did manage to read a Ramsey Campbell book, something which I now plan to rectify. I shall start with this short story collection, but I will not wait to finish it before ordering some of his titles from Amazon. Before jumping into that, however, I would like to know if anyone has any suggestions. It will be a few days before I can actually sign onto a web connection that I trust enough to put credit card information into (my parents house), so hopefully by then I will have a list to go off of. If not I will just select titles at random, which, given all the great things I have heard, will probably be just as effective. Still, I always enjoy being given suggestions due to the wonderful reads it has provided me with in the past.