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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.

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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.

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