Best Stephen King book for a beginner

[JimStirlingsPenisTransplant]

What would you recommend to read by Stephen King for someone who hasn’t read any of his books?
My mum recommended The Stand as her favourite but I need something a little less a daunting to begin with!

What is everyone’s favourite Stephen King and what would you recommend as a first timer to read?!

The Stand is amazing, but I would recommend either The Shining or The Green Mile.

Christine or It

I would say The Dead Zone is a good place to start. I would have said IT - it's superb horror writing - but some of the scenes really haven't aged well. He's a wonderful writer though I admit that the Holly Gibney books don't really do it for me.

Mr Mercedes is excellent. It’s a thriller but not the paranormal kind. I loved it.

The Stand and Misery are my two favourites, brilliant books!

I’d start with the short story : novella collections - Nightshift was his first one and has some excellent stories. Different Seasons included The Body and Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption. There are several more and they’re all great.

I would second Different Seasons - very digestible!

Have I got it wrong or isn’t The Body and Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption under the name Richard Bachman as The Bachman Books? I can’t remember but the depths of my memory are thinking The Breathing Method and The Apt Pupil I could be completely wrong. I recommend The Bachman Books though.

Just checking Amazon, I’m completely wrong 😂😂 I still recommend the Bachman books though.

No, they were published under King’s own name. The Bachman ones included Running Man, The Long Walk, Thinner and The Regulators (amongst others).

Anybody read The Tommyknockers? Just came up in conversation with my mum who’s on a Stephen King movie marathon lately,

I’ve still not started a book yet, been too busy!

Really hard to recommend one but I loved Dark Half, Needful Things, The Stand, Pet Sematary, Salem’s Lot, Misery. Those were my favourites. They’re all great though. The Stand is long but gripping!

I’ve read every Stephen King and Richard Bachman book and can’t think of a single one that isn’t outstanding but I’ve always thought that the Stand is by far the best, preferably the uncut version. I must have read it well over 20 times and never tire of reading it again.

Love the shining and Carrie as well!
love all of his books: try the mr Mercedes trilogy

I love the Shining and Salem’s Lot, I read those first and was hooked. The Shining is so different from the film, it has much more depth.

Pet Semetary traumatised me. I’ve read a lot of horror but I read it shortly after I had a baby and that was a very bad time to read it! I don’t think I could face it again and I think about it at least once a week years later.

The Shining is one of my favourite books but I thought the Jack Nicholson film version was dreadful and was SO different to the book. I much much preferred the 1997 mini series which was far more faithful to the book.

I personally love the TKs but it's often viewed as one of his weaker stories.

I also love Christine.

it’s one of those books that you think shouldn’t work, but it does.

There’s one that I can’t remember the name of. Set out in the woods somewhere and there’s whispered words of “lie still” or “Lysol”……I’ve just remembered , its Bag of Bones.

Havent seen it mentioned yet but I really liked Desperation.

Also, Lisey’s Story. I don’t think I ever actually finished it, because it is long and quite an intense read. I think I went through phases with it and at one point was really into it, but then went off the boil. Will give it another go.

I think Duma Key was the first SK book I read in real time, ie when it was published. I really liked it.

I used to be a massive fan, but nowadays I find the long descriptive passages hard work.
I loved Fairy Tale, except when he was in the fairy world.
I like his non horror books, Blaze, Billy Summers, Mr Mercedes, Finders Keepers, (not End of Watch, gave up on that) and all the Holly books, currently reading Never Flinch.
For anyone into the SK films there's quite a few free on You Tube, I've recently watched Big Driver, Apt Pupil, Roadwork and Silver Bullet.
If you're hunting round the charity shops and find a copy of Rage, snap it up, it's fetching a lot of money due to it not being reprinted.
I think Dead Zone is my all time favourite, I remember crying my eyes out reading it.

It! I love it. I know some scenes haven’t aged well (actually probably only one specific scene - what the fuck was he thinking?) but it’s still my favourite. It’s one of his epics. I don’t like the characters in The Stand as much.

I still can’t reread Pet Semetary even though DS is 11 and past the toddler bolting stage. It just came too close to the bone.

I would start with his older stuff - I really wasn’t a fan of Fairy Tale (the second half - loved the SK classic young boy with old man dynamic in the first half), and the Holly Gibney ones aren’t working for me now she’s the main character.

The Green Mile or The Body or Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption are all excellent, but you may know the films too well.

Skeleton Crew, which is 22 short stories. I think his writing can be very self-indulgent and bloated, but he avoids that in his short stories.

(I live fairly close to where Stephen King grew up fwiw.)

I was scarred for life after reading one his short story’s called The Boogeyman. You should read that. 😈

The older ones are best-
carrie
It
Misery
Cujo
The Shining
The body
Salems lot
Pet cemetery

The Green Mile is good, I struggled to get into IT and The Stand

Commenting to follow along. I would like to try SK again, only ever read Misery and it put me off for life. I hated it wading through pages and pages of Misery. Hoping there is something else I would like.

I enjoy supernatural (unnerving or witchy) stories more than out and out horror. Maybe he just isn't my bag.