Books like “House of Leaves”

What to read after “House of Leaves” by Mark Z. Danielewski: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
Hell House
Richard Matheson · 1971
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller” and “Creeping Dread”
A dying millionaire funds an expedition to the notorious Belasco House, a mansion in Maine where every previous attempt to study its hauntings ended badly. The group includes a physicist, a medium and two survivors, and the house begins to work on their most private fears.
2
The Haunting of Hill House
Shirley Jackson · 1959
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller” and “Creeping Dread”
An investigator of psychic phenomena invites several people to stay at Hill House, a building with a long history of death and madness. Among them is the fragile Eleanor, and as the house begins to single her out, the group's stay becomes a struggle to keep hold of sanity.
3
A Head Full of Ghosts
Paul Tremblay · 2015
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller” and “Creeping Dread”
Fourteen-year-old Marjorie Barrett begins to act strangely, and her family turns first to a priest and then to a reality-television crew. Years later her younger sister tells the story of what happened in the house, though her memory is not entirely trustworthy.
4
The Shining
Stephen King · 1977
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller” and “Creeping Dread”
Jack Torrance takes a winter caretaker job at the Overlook Hotel, bringing his wife and young son to its empty corridors. As snow seals them in, the hotel's violent past works on Jack's temper and drinking, while Danny's gift shows him things the family should never have seen.
5
Heart-Shaped Box
Joe Hill · 2007
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller” and “Creeping Dread”
- Psychological Thriller
- Creeping Dread
Aging rock star Judas Coyne collects macabre curiosities. When he buys a haunted suit online, the dead man tied to it begins to stalk him and the women in his life. To survive, Jude must confront the violence in his own past. A supernatural horror about guilt and revenge.
6
The Spite House
Johnny Compton · 2023
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Haunted House
- Creeping Dread
Eric Ross is on the run with his two daughters, taking whatever work he can find. He answers an ad offering a large sum to anyone who will stay in the Masson House, a spite house in Texas said to be the state's most haunted, and record what happens there. The house may also hold answers about his family.
7
The Exorcist
William Peter Blatty · 1971
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller” and “Creeping Dread”
- Psychological Thriller
- Creeping Dread
An actress's young daughter falls ill with symptoms no doctor can explain, and the doctors eventually suggest a religious explanation. A priest trained in exorcism is asked to help, and he must confront both the thing in the room and his own wavering faith.
8
The House Next Door
Anne Rivers Siddons · 1978
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Haunted House
- Creeping Dread
A new house is built beside the Kennedys in their quiet Atlanta neighbourhood. Over two years the families who move in are destroyed by scandal and violence, and even visitors are touched. Colquitt begins to believe the house itself is malevolent, and decides to warn the world.
9
The Silence of the Lambs
Thomas Harris · 1988
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller” and “Creeping Dread”
- Psychological Thriller
- Creeping Dread
A young FBI trainee asks a brilliant imprisoned psychiatrist to help catch another serial killer who abducts women. Their bargain-driven conversations become a psychological duel in which every answer carries a price.
10
The Last House on Needless Street
Catriona Ward · 2021
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller” and “Creeping Dread”
At the end of a quiet street live a man, his daughter and a cat, keeping to themselves. When a new neighbour comes looking into a child's long-ago disappearance, the house's careful routine bends and the story it protects begins to break apart.
11
The Elementals
Michael McDowell · 1981
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Haunted House
- Creeping Dread
Two related families spend a summer at Beldame, a lonely stretch of Alabama coast where three Victorian houses face the Gulf. The third house is slowly drowning in sand, and something inside it has been waiting for the children since they were small.
12
The Yellow Wallpaper
Charlotte Perkins Gilman · 1892
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller” and “Creeping Dread”
A woman is confined to an upstairs room by her physician husband and told to rest. Cut off from work and company, she becomes fixated on the yellow wallpaper, convinced that a figure is trapped behind its pattern and that she must set it free.