Rating: 
Summary: Ookily Spookily!
Review: A nice, compact read, with all the traditional ghost story elements we've come to expect. And surprisingly timeless, considering the book was first published in 1959, it could easily be set in any decade of the late 20th century.I liked the sensible female characters, Theodora and Eleanor. They weren't meek and mild, nor where they overtly assertive. A modern horror classic, in my humble opinion.
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Summary: You owe yourself a visit to Hill House...
Review: Rereading the classic haunted house story does not disappoint; I found it just as chilling and engrossing as the first time around. Who can forget the unmistakeable but subtle images of horror: the writing on the walls, clasping hands with some unknown thing in the dark, the doors bulging inward? And the ambiguity of it all -- was Hill House truly haunted, or was it only the product of a fragile mind thinking, at long last, that it had found a home? Do yourself a favor. Visit Hill House again -- or the first time -- on some dark night soon.
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Summary: Nameless Fear
Review: Rather than beat every detail from her subject, author Shirley Jackson performs an astonishing feat by creating a sense of mounting terror not from what is seen, but what might be seen if we could only look around that corner, down that hall, behind that drape. And THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE is her masterpiece. In an effect not unlike Henry James' famous "The Turn of the Screw," Jackson presents us with Eleanor Vance, a woman who may or may not be already disturbed to the point of madness when the novel begins. Invited to join a group of researchers investigating a reputedly haunted house, Eleanor--stifled by unhappy memories and an unsympathetic family--leaps at the chance for escape from her humdrum life. She wants adventure, romance, a dash of excitement. And at Hill House, a Victorian mansion of truly evil repute, she finds it in abundance. Is there something--ghost, spirit, or simply mindless evil--at Hill House? Or is it Eleanor herself, empty and hungry for a place where she belongs, who creates the nightmare that swirls about the place? Jackson offers no easy answers in this, the finest American horror novel of the 20th century, a book often imitated but never equaled. It is certainly not a novel for reading alone in the dead of night, but is one that you may wish to read again and again, repeatedly testing the boundaries of reality--and guessing at that which is always just beyond the limits of our vision.
Rating:
Summary: Haunting: true fear comes from within
Review: I vividly remember the first time I read this Shirley Jackson tale, one by which I have come to judge all good horror literature. Jackson's strength as a writer of horror is not in what she delineates, but what she evokes from the reader's imagination, that core of our brain that truly is at the root of true horror. Eleanor, the protagonist of "The Haunting of Hill House" is virtually a cypher, having spent most of her 30 years caring for an invalid mother, who has passed away before the opening of the novel. Now living with her sister, she receives an invitation to take part in an experiment in rural New England by spending a few weeks at Hill House, where "doors are sensibly shut, and whatever walks there, walks alone." After literally running away from home, Eleanor is drawn into a relationship with Hill House, and, while we never actually "see" psychic phenomena, we become convinced that this is a house which is, as Dr. John Montague, leader of the experimental team asserts, is "born bad." Truly engaging writers draw one in, and as you read, you too, will become part of the fabric of Hill House, and Hill House shall become the standard by which you judge the most chilling of horror fiction.
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Summary: Shirley Jackson is the best!
Review: I have been a fan of the original movie for a long time. I saw the remake (not great) and decided it was time to read the book. It has so much more texture and complexity as compared to both movies. This is the arcetypical haunted house book. Jackson's style is chillingly clear. Her voice has the same eery quality that her short story "The Lottery" has. Just wonderful. A great way to pass these long, cold nights.
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Summary: one of the better haunted house stories
Review: this story is not only only one of the best renditions of the haunted house theme i've read, but also a haunting glimpse into the unstable mind, and how the unknown can be a catalyst for insanity.
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Summary: Things That Go Bump in the Night (and Our Lives)
Review: Hill House has stood for eighty years, and it waits patiently as a group of four begin to investigate the lurid history and supposed supernatural happenings that surround the dark dwelling.
The group of four is led by Dr. John Montague, whose avocation is parapsychology. There is also Luke Sanderson, a family heir; Theodora, a worldly clairvoyant; and Eleanor Vance, the protagonist of the novel, and a woman who has lived a sheltered life on the fringes of society and whose sanity hangs precariously in the balance.
It is Montague's intention to find the true reasons for the phenomena in Hill House; but he and the others are soon drawn past any type of investigation and caught up in a psychological nightmare, the focus of which is Eleanor herself. It seems that Hill House has found a kindred spirit in Eleanor will stop at nothing until it consumes her.
Jackson weaves her magic expertly in this novel, and other than a weak subplot that involves a potential romance between Luke and either of the women in Hill House, the story is tightly-woven with scares galore, and a literary framing effect which leaves the reader with the certainty that if Hill House was not truly haunted at the beginning of the novel, it undoubtedly is by the end.
A great read anytime.
Rating: 
Summary: Boo!
Review: Boo! What that didn't scare you? I know something that just might. Shirley Jackson's fine novel "The Haunting of Hill House". You will find one of the best first lines in any novel here: "No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream." This novel is a pschological terror at times, yet it is much more besides. The dialogue of the characters is very funny and Jackson's prose is always literary. Doctor Montague has rented Hill House because of it's reputation as a haunted house. He wants to do studies on the paranormal and advertizes for assistants to stay with him in Hill House. Eleanor, Theodora, and Luke are the lucky ones and the reader follows Eleanor as she makes her way to Hill House and meets the others after she arrives. I'll not comment on what happens to them in Hill House because I don't want to spoil it for anyone. I will say turning out the lights before retiring for the night might be a little more difficult the evening you finish this novel.
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Summary: The Movie Was Much Better
Review: I first saw the movie when I was a teenager, and twenty years later I am still watching the repeats. They don't make them like that anymore. They tried it just recently, and as always today's Hollywood ruined a good horror story. Although the book isn't quite as scary and interesting, it's still a good read. It doesn't go on and on about trivial things in the character's lives like you read in so many other books. That right there can make a book very boring.
Rating:
Summary: Striking Ghost Story
Review: The novel is very different from other common cheap-thriller ghost stories that I have read before. There has never been any physical appearance of the ghosts in this novel. You read and feel the effects of the supernatural in the house, and Jackson has managed to delineate this with consummate skill and power that you will be spooked by it. Not like the usual grotesque bloody looks of the spectre. The manifestations in the house are subtly expressed too, as you see the gradual, subtle change in Eleanor Vance throughout the story. As Roald Dahl once wrote in his selection of best ghost stories, "The best ghost stories don't have ghosts in them. At least you don't see the ghost. Instead you see only the result of his actions. Occasionally you can feel it brushing past you, or you are made aware of its presence by subtle means." Hill House does just that.
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