to utterly love Stephen King?

[minifingers]

Ex secondary English teacher, who snootily resisted his books and the whole horror genre for decades, in favour of Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Jane Austen, and lots of serious modern authors like Saul Bellow.

Had children, got too knackered and thick to read serious fiction so tarted on the Stephen Kings.

I find that I absolutely love his books. Love them, and the mind which created them.

Worried that I'm going to end up like that woman in Misery - you know, the Kathy Bates character. Obsessed.

Anyone else got a Stephen King pash or is it just me? He's not very mumnsetty.

I'm half way through Dr Sleep and loving it.

I loved Duma Key, a lot of his later books did not hold the edge of his earlier stuff for me. Bloody love Cell and Full Dark, No Stars, I'm excited to see a good marriage now as that is one of my favourite short stories.

I thought The Stand was shit, is that a minority opinion then? I just thought it was dull, more dull, a spot of violence (directed at a female character usually), dull, bit more violence... And it was a huge book. I regret taking the time to finish it.

I adore Misery though, it's perfect. And I love The Shining, and Cujo. I definitely want to read more of his books, I just found The Stand very disappointing.

I like all the above mentioned and will be in minority I guess saying that I loved the Cell. It is about to be made into a movie with Samuel L Jackson and John Cusack.

When reading it I thought it could totally translate to movie.

I prefer to read SK before I see a movie/Tv adaptation though as his character development is better than any I have seen when put into film.

Under the Dome TV show is rubbish compared to the novel and except for the episode he wrote, this season has been a bit of a weird roller coaster of a story. His novel was logical and interesting and a definite page turner!

Yes, I think it's safe to say that yours is a minority opinion.

I'm a lifelong SK superfan. At some point my SK stock has disappeared so thanks to this thread I've been on amazon and bought skeleton crew, fire starter, girl who loved, and Gerald's game. Currently on fire starter and you can see how his style has changed. He is so fantastic though. Looking forward to revival.

I definitely am in the minority in that I loved tommyknockers and needful things. I love his "entire tiny town gets taken over by weird shit" genre.

I divide his stuff into "worlds" in my head and Liseys story, rose madder and Duma key are in the same world. My least favourite world as the books make me feel a bit hot and sick. But still great, obv.

Guess I don't mind having a minority opinion if Cell turns out to be a great movie then.

My sisters all love Cell too (so guess not so minority). Haven't read Good Marriage but not surprised by the fact that SK was inspired by real events to write it. I had previously read a fact based novel on BTK killer so am aware of what and how he killed. Not sure if I would be able to watch /read the book now though.

Anyone else got any other SK worth reading? Currently on Dolores Claiborne.

Haven't read the whole of this (huge) thread at this point, but just wanted to add my twopenneth...

I have seen SK in the flesh. The Times about 10 years ago had a series of interviews in London with authors & he was one of them. Managed to get a ticket. To my shame I can't remember exactly what he said, but he was on tour plugging Lisley's Story. I remember him being really nice and humble...but towards the end of interview people started filing over to where he was going to do a signing...it was so rude. He signed for about an hour afterwards and all the people who'd been rude enough to get up got to see him & got his autograph. How much is that worth I wonder?

Anyway, my favourite books are Needful Things, It, Duma Key, The Shining, Firestarter, The Dead Zone, 11-22-63, The Stand.

Not so keen on Mr Mercedes, Dr Sleep, Dolores Clairbourne, Rose Madder & Cell, The Tommyknockers. But for the most part I'd take a slightly poor SK over almost any other book.

Ooh great thread! Another lifelong (well, OK once I'd met DH aged 20) fan here.

I had a great conversation with a colleague the other day.

Colleague: I watched Shawshank again last night
Me: Oh great film. I love Stephen King
Colleague: You're thinking of The Green Mile. Shawshank isn't Stephen King. He'd never have written something that good. He's shit.
Me: They're both Stephen King and he's not shit. Have you actually read any of his books?

Colleague googles after I persuade him: Oh OK, maybe you're right then.

We're still struggling through The Dome but have pretty much forgotten it's anything to do with SK. It was nice to see him in the cafe at the start of season 2 though.

We watched the new Carrie film the other day. I've no idea why they bothered to remake it, but it was surprisingly good really.

The Dead Zone is my favourite ever. Awesome book.

Love, love, love Stephen King. I have every single one of his books (and fondly remember re-reading them during many long nights of breastfeeding and burping DC!). I tend to find that those who are sniffy about his writing haven't actually deigned to read his books. As many others have commented on this thread, he is a master at creating worlds you can lose yourselves in, characters you find yourself caring about, and at his best he has a way of putting things that is just so right. He is a writer, not just a horror writer.

I also love it when one of his books references an event or character from one of his other books - I like to think of that as his shout out to us Constant Readers!

I saw the picture of someone's bookshelf rfurther up the thread and thought it was mine for a moment!

Currently I'm missing about four from my collection but I have the rest! Lifelong SK fan, started on Misery at 13 and never looked back.

The first time I read Tommyknockers I hated it. When I reread it years later, I enjoyed it far, far more.

My favourites are The Stand, It, Duma Key, Firestarter, From A Buick 8, and the Kennedy assasination one that I can never remember the name of. Least favourites are probably Lisey's Story and The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon.

Currently reading The Talisman, curiously, I'm not sure I've ever actually read it. I'm not sure why.

Also, talking about call-outs, in The Stand he mentions Steve Carella, who was one of my favourite characters from the 87th Precinct novels. It might just be the same name but I don't think so.

And finally, to the pp who hated the Gunslinger, I did too, but then I read The Drawing Of The three and it was brilliant. So it's worth hitting the rest of the series. I agree that there could have been only one reolution to the dark tower books.

His description of Norma's collapse and heart attack in 'Pet Sematary' is superb. The slightly stale breath...her sudden oldness...Brilliant.

Well, well, well.

Look what just landed on my desk. I am BEYOND excited!

I'm feeling fairly intense hatred for you right now, daddyorchips.

Don't hate the player, hate the game

About 1/4 way through and it is unnerving and dark and very, very good.

I only read the second Dark Tower book but was also underwhelmed. It probably didn't help that I'm no fan of cowboy movies and the like.

The scary monster thing being a giant crab made me

This is exactly how I feel about SK - he truly is a genius and just takes you along to these other worlds and they are so real! The DT series just blew me away, full of sharp social commentary just completely on the side... metaphysics, nature of reality... it truly was his crowning achievement and he is still writing great stuff after it... the Bob Dylan of the literary world imo...