ShmoopTube

Where Monty Python meets your 10th grade teacher.

Search Thousands of Shmoop Videos

Bestsellers: Thrillers 728 Views


Share It!


Description:

Click on the "play" button...if you dare. Wow, you don't seem very scared. Well, we did what we could. Guess thrillers aren't our forte.

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:01

Thrillers, a la Shmoop. Thriller. Suspense. Horror.

00:10

These terms are used to describe books that might be a little frightening, like a spider

00:13

scurrying across the floor...

00:15

...or a little gross, like a glass of milk left out on the table overnight...

00:19

...or a little of both...like a Justin Bieber song.

00:27

Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, for example, is a novel that is both thrilling

00:31

and suspenseful, in a good, non-Bieberish way.

00:34

The book also comes with a side order of technological hijinks and a heaping plate of Swedish meatballs

00:39

thrown in for good measure.

00:41

The book made headlines...and bestseller lists around the world...

00:44

...thanks to its butt-kicking heroine, Lisbeth Salander.

00:46

She's a little bit country and a little bit rock n' roll...

00:50

Wait, scratch that. There is no country in Lisbeth Salander: she's all punk rock n' roll.

00:58

She's also a talented, borderline sociopathic computer hacker bent on revenge.

01:04

This isn't your grandma's suspense novel, although we'd bet MawMaw probably read The

01:08

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo before you did.

01:11

She probably saw the movie first, too. You're falling behind the curve, young whippersnapper.

01:16

Now, if you're looking for a story so scary that it will haunt your dreams for the rest

01:20

of your life...

01:21

...you might want to try reading Stephen King, the master of modern horror.

01:24

He's written about possessed cars, writer's block, rabid dogs, and the end of the world...

01:31

...but one of King's most famous and most frightening novels is about a really, really nasty case

01:36

of cabin fever. In The Shining, the Torrance family takes

01:40

up residence in an old hotel in the mountains for the winter.

01:43

The management fails to inform them that the hotel is crawling with ghosts.

01:48

Not Casper the Friendly Ghost, either, but some seriously sinister spirits.

01:54

So, what happens when Mr. Torrance goes bonkers?

02:01

Will his wife and kid make it out alive? Will the Redrum girls stage an intervention?

02:11

You have to read the book to find out...although the Stanley Kubrick film adaptation is darned

02:16

good, too. Feel like scaring yourself half to death?

02:20

Either of these bestsellers should do the trick.

02:22

Just make sure you don't drink a glass of water first and then read these in bed.

02:26

We can't be held responsible for anything that happens.

Up Next

Who's Seuss?
954 Views

Dr. Seuss was a failure to start, but he soon learned to follow his heart. He wrote books about things that he knew, and soon enough, his book sale...

Related Videos

Edgar Allan Poe: The Twilight Connection
3322 Views

Sure, Edgar Allan Poe was dark and moody and filled with teenage angst, but what else does he have in common with the Twilight series?

Emily Dickinson
2479 Views

Emily Dickinson was a New England poet/hermit with a fascination with death and immortality. She wrote over 1000 poems in her lifetime, most of the...

Lord Byron
377 Views

The first real celebrity was a poet? Guess our standards have changed.

Robert Frost
2800 Views

Shmoop the road less traveled by.