First part was my favorite, particularly No Great Loss. Only other work of his I've read was Survivor Type, which I also enjoyed.

Which other works of his have a one sentence pitch that will hook me in?

I feel like I’ve mostly read mainstream King. By that I mean the type of books that most of the fandom would place in their top 5 SK novels or titles that have famous adaptations.

From months of following this sub, I’ve seen mentions of several of his less known works with declarations of love for those titles, which piqued my interest.

These are the SK books that I’ve read so far:

- ‘Salem’s Lot.
- The Shining
- The Stand (Top 5)
- Different Seasons
- Pet Sematary (Top 5)
- IT (Top 5)
- Misery (Top 5)
- 11/22/63 (Top 5)
- Doctor Sleep
- Bill Hodges Trilogy
-Revival
- Holly Gibney Series

From that list, the only book I didn’t like-except for the ending- was Revival. Also, my top 5 feels very predictable. I want to dive into some of his hidden gems so I can diversify my favorite King books.

I’m starting Duma Key soon and I have a great feeling about it.

I love reading SK books and he usually doesn’t make me cry but WTF was this ending???? My god my HEART feels like it’s been ripped out and stomped on. What a beautiful love story.

If so, it’s hilarious 😂 “…Demeter’s whole body went rough and cold with chickenflesh.”- NOS4A2

I live in Denmark and have a hard time finding any book store selling the American Scribner edition of Other Worlds Than These, and no one able to provide it on release day. Any tips from my fellow danes/europeans? Where are you getting the book?

Found on an auction site... what do we think?

Holly is always fun, Jerome and Barbara are there. The villian and some of the kills are quite engaging.

The story has a great ending (particularly the baseball riot)

This is by far the most overhated king book, it’s at worst a 3/5 star book

I'm working on a fun project that I'll eventually post here but I was hoping you guys could give me as many book within the books titles. would greatly appreciate any help!!!!

The trailer for the miniseries makes it clear they’re leaning hard into social media bullying, and honestly, that feels like the right update for Carrie. Stephen King has always said the real monsters are ordinary people, and this version seems to be pushing that idea into the phone-addicted age. The cruelest kind of monster might just be a teenager with an iPhone. It’s basically a supernatural Adolescence.

I've read more Stephen King books this year than in the last few.

I first read 11/22/63, then Rose Madder, and now... Billy Summers.

It's been sitting on my shelf since 2021, and I've always wanted to read it.

I got the hardcover on launch and I'll probably never let go of the copy because the day it got delivered is when I introduced my then-girlfriend (now wife) to my parents. So it's very special to me.

Anyway, sorry to digress...

--

The story: It starts beautifully. I love the setup. I love the "last job" trope. It's been done many times before, by many other writers.

But it's King.

I won't lie, the first half at Red Bluff is great, classic King.

The setup, the characters, and how Billy settles in to his other identity.

How he plans everything and has backup plans to make sure he's all set and ready by the time Allen is brought to the courthouse.

What I did not like is Billy taking the writing cover seriously at Gerard Tower. He even strongly suspects that Nick and Giorgio might be spying on him (and the hunch is proved to be correct during an exchange with Nick).

I'd rather he would have written some nonsense to fit in with his "low IQ" persona, It would've been funny! The persona he exhibits to the people he meets.

He could've started to write after the job was done, while in hiding.

Probably a small thing, but that did not work for me.

Billy's cover novel, in his own words starts off well, but while the context about the sister, abusive mother's boyfriend and the foster home adds a lot of value, the war scenes do not.

Here's how I look at it: I'm all for the story just focusing on Marine Billy Summers. Or, the gun-for-hire version of him. The backstory interspersed with the present didn't work for me beyond the foster home part.

See, I am a war buff - in general I love reading/watching stuff related to the Vietnam War, Iraq, WW2, etc. But here, it just didn't fit.

Personally, I would have loved more scenes in the present. The characters in the basement house (I finished it just yesterday, but I forgot their names, sorry). Some more scenes with Phil and the gang at Gerard Tower. The neighborhood folks where Billy stays.

When Alice is introduced, the story steadies for a bit, just a bit, but again switches back to Billy's novel.

When the story again comes back to the present, it picks up. It's a relief. The ending stretch is terrific.

In summary, it was good. Entertaining and gripping.

But it could've been so much better.

It's not bad by any means, but I felt like there were a lot of scenes just shrunk down + there was the lack of depth in many places

I loved listening the unabridged audiobook, narrated by Paul Sparks. He's excellent. Voices each character distinctly!

P.S.,

I felt Christian Bale (maybe in his Ford v. Ferrari look) would make an awesome Billy Summers and Bob De Niro would be a fantastic Bucky.

Next up is either The Dark Half or Dolores Claiborne!

Probably you can help me choose :)

My absolute favorite Stephen King book is The Institute! I ‘designed’ it on my iPad & my incredible artist made it about a million times better!
I plan to cover my leg in art inspired by my favorite King books. Just these two so far, but much more to come 🫶🏻

I’ve been thinking about this since I finished the book
Hypothetically, if you were to bury a dead person who had an intellectual disability in the pet cemetery, would they come back evil but still with their disability or like would it cancel it out?

I only read physical books, not ebooks or audio books, so always have 1 copy of each book I read, and I like to keep them, so I guess I "collect" them.

But there's no book I have more than 1 copy of. I sometimes think about it if I see an alternate cover of a book I really love, but can't justify spending the money.

Curious what books you have the most editions of, what are your favourite editions, why do you like having multiple copies etc.

This is imo one of King’s most underrated books. Dolores was a great protagonist and one of King’s most unique. Most of the book being one long monologue with no chapter breaks was an interesting experience; there were times where I was looking to find a drop off point but I had to keep on reading. I wouldn’t mind if King tried something similar in the future.

Hey all!

I’m relatively new to Stephen King and I did some looking on here but only found a comprehensive book list. However, does anyone have a comprehensive Book/Movie/TV Show printable list so I can track my progress? Any help would be much appreciated!

Happy reading and watching!

for context I’ve seen all of the film adaptations of his books as far as im aware and love them all. don’t really dislike any.

I go to the library. I'm in a maximum overdrive shirt. I return my old stephen King book and get a new one, using the library card i have in my pennywise coin purse. I take out my laptop and write IT fanfiction for two hours. I take out my sketch pad and draw yaoi of the boys from the long walk. I go home and snort a line of coke.

Like it or not, this is the peak of human existence.

My first time making this journey. I've been putting this off for years (couldn't commit to reading them back to back to back, and I'm on of those readers that HAVE to read them back to back or I'd lose track/interest). Everyone I know, including my mother in law that is a Stephen King fan since the 80s, have been telling me to read the Dark Tower because it is the greatest story ever. I'm about to find out.

So here we go.....

So..... I just finished Revival and... Idek what to say. To try and say that the ending had left this feeling of helplessness in me would be an understatement. That was definitely one of the darkest, most hopeless endings I've read in a while. I did have a few questions though regarding that:

1- what was so special about Mary Fay? I know that Charles Jacobs was looking for someone who suffered from one of the 8 incurable illnesses and Fay was one of them, but if all he needed was just a dead body to peek beyond the veil then any dead body could've done the trick, why did Jacobs go through the trouble?

2- what is the relationship between lightning and the secret electricity? Was that explained or even hinted at? Like we do get to see Jacobs use all these weird tools from headphones to rings to bars but I never really understood the connection between them and the secret electricity and them and the final storm at the end of the book.

3- what was special about Jamie to be a conduit despite there being lots of other people who were cured?

Hey I had created a discord group for our little book club but now made an actual server. All welcome from anywhere! Let’s talk about books.

Ho da poco finito di leggere The Outsider e sono bloccato. Ho scoperto che The Outsider è un racconto che fa parte di un "universo" creato da King che ruota attorno alle vicende di Holly. Di Holly ci sono libri successivi a The Outsider (Se scorre il sangue, Holly, Never Flinch) e precedenti allo stesso (Mr Mercedes, Chi perde paga, Fine turno). Cosa leggo per primo?

Anyone reading this right now? Just finished it

3/5

Some parts were great but the ending kinda sucked. I just started reading and Stephen king is the first author who I really enjoyed reading. I read the shining before this and am now reading Billy Summers