I get it. I had to put the book down for a while and it took me a minute to come back to it. I agree that the scene in The Library Policeman is more disturbing than the one in It because of the exploitive component. Though I could also understand if someone were to make the argument that it is ultimately more critical to the story than It.
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Official Stephen King Publication Countdown - 15. The Shining (16 Viewers)
- Thread starter turnjose7
- Start date
I get it. I had to put the book down for a while and it took me a minute to come back to it. I agree that the scene in The Library Policeman is more disturbing than the one in It because of the exploitive component. Though I could also understand if someone were to make the argument that it is ultimately more critical to the story than It.
Frostillicus
Footballguy
I think so.
20. Bag of Bones
1998
Novel
Horror, gothic romance, mystery
3/5
- Derry story
- Castle Rock story
After the sudden death of his wife leaves novelist Mike Noonan suffering from a severe case of writer’s block, he escapes to a lakeside retreat where uncovers the secrets she was hiding and the horrifying past of the small town.
Often hailed by literary critics as one of King’s most sophisticated and well-written novels, Bag of Bones was heavily influenced by Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca and Herman Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” internally referencing both works. But it is also classic King and contains a myriad of ties to his other publications. The story takes place in part both in Derry and Castle Rock, it references and updates us about other classic King characters (including Bill Denbrough, Thad Beaumont, Ralph Roberts, and Alan Pangborn), and the house Sara Laughs is seemingly the twinner of Cara Laughs from The Dark Tower.
This is certainly a great book, and I understand the praise. More than many of his works, the characters in this draw you in and make you genuinely care for them. But I also felt a little let down at the end. I think there were missed opportunities for a more climatic ending and the book as a whole wasn’t quite as scary as it could have been. That’s nitpicking a little bit, but now that we’re in the top 20 there isn’t much to criticize about most of these books.
1998
Novel
Horror, gothic romance, mystery
3/5
- Derry story
- Castle Rock story
After the sudden death of his wife leaves novelist Mike Noonan suffering from a severe case of writer’s block, he escapes to a lakeside retreat where uncovers the secrets she was hiding and the horrifying past of the small town.
Often hailed by literary critics as one of King’s most sophisticated and well-written novels, Bag of Bones was heavily influenced by Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca and Herman Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” internally referencing both works. But it is also classic King and contains a myriad of ties to his other publications. The story takes place in part both in Derry and Castle Rock, it references and updates us about other classic King characters (including Bill Denbrough, Thad Beaumont, Ralph Roberts, and Alan Pangborn), and the house Sara Laughs is seemingly the twinner of Cara Laughs from The Dark Tower.
This is certainly a great book, and I understand the praise. More than many of his works, the characters in this draw you in and make you genuinely care for them. But I also felt a little let down at the end. I think there were missed opportunities for a more climatic ending and the book as a whole wasn’t quite as scary as it could have been. That’s nitpicking a little bit, but now that we’re in the top 20 there isn’t much to criticize about most of these books.
19. Carrie
1974
Novel
Horror
3/5
A teenage girl with telekinetic powers gets revenge on those who bullied her.
The one that started it all. This was King’s first published novel (even though it wasn’t the first he wrote). It launched the career of the most successful horror author of all time (and one of the most popular authors regardless of genre) and brought about a revival of interest in horror in popular fiction.
I was of course familiar with the premise before I first read it. Given that it was his first novel I thought it might be a little less mature than his later works. It definitely isn’t the peak of his writing, but I was surprised at how much depth this has. In particular, Carrie White is a much more sympathetic character than I imagined. I’ve previously talked about how I think the criticism that King doesn’t write strong female characters is ridiculous. Here, Stephen’s wife Tabitha famously helped him write from the standpoint of a teenage girl, but regardless, his first publication proves he can write great female characters.
There are a lot of nice fun touches in this one , like the newspaper and book clips. These were inserted because the original draft wasn’t long enough to qualify as a novel, but they end up adding a lot.
A classic of American literature.
1974
Novel
Horror
3/5
A teenage girl with telekinetic powers gets revenge on those who bullied her.
The one that started it all. This was King’s first published novel (even though it wasn’t the first he wrote). It launched the career of the most successful horror author of all time (and one of the most popular authors regardless of genre) and brought about a revival of interest in horror in popular fiction.
I was of course familiar with the premise before I first read it. Given that it was his first novel I thought it might be a little less mature than his later works. It definitely isn’t the peak of his writing, but I was surprised at how much depth this has. In particular, Carrie White is a much more sympathetic character than I imagined. I’ve previously talked about how I think the criticism that King doesn’t write strong female characters is ridiculous. Here, Stephen’s wife Tabitha famously helped him write from the standpoint of a teenage girl, but regardless, his first publication proves he can write great female characters.
There are a lot of nice fun touches in this one , like the newspaper and book clips. These were inserted because the original draft wasn’t long enough to qualify as a novel, but they end up adding a lot.
A classic of American literature.
Uruk-Hai
Footballguy
I haven't read this since it came out, so my memory is foggy on the details. I know I enjoyed it, though. I recall a really hard left-turn part way through and some memorable scenes. Some of King's best writing is in this book.
Uruk-Hai
Footballguy
Also, according to King, he threw the manuscript in the trash and Tabitha fished it out telling him to finish it.
zamboni
Footballguy
I think this is one of the few movies (The Shining being the other) that I thought was better than the book. And that’s no slight to the books, just incredible adaptations.
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18. The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla
2003
Novel
Western, dark fantasy, science fiction
2/5
- Dark Tower story
- Randall Flagg story
- Jerusalem’s Lot story
"We deal in lead."
“Perhaps I am simply a madman who dreamt of being sane for a little while.”
“First come smiles, then lies. Last is gunfire.”
Roland Deschain and his ka-tet defend a small frontier town from marauders coming to kidnap the town’s children.
Wolves is basically a retelling of Seven Samurai/The Magnificent Seven but with multiple bizarre twists. The first of the Dark Tower tales to be published following King’s near-death experience, the weirdness of the series gets ramped up by orders of magnitude. For some it is too much, and they lose interest here. For others, though, this is the key point in which the Dark Tower series transforms from a fun but ultimately generic hero’s quest into the lynchpin of the entire Stephen King universe. I’m obviously in the latter group. This book is so much fun, and it is cool to see the ties to King’s larger mythology really start to take shape.
2003
Novel
Western, dark fantasy, science fiction
2/5
- Dark Tower story
- Randall Flagg story
- Jerusalem’s Lot story
"We deal in lead."
“Perhaps I am simply a madman who dreamt of being sane for a little while.”
“First come smiles, then lies. Last is gunfire.”
Roland Deschain and his ka-tet defend a small frontier town from marauders coming to kidnap the town’s children.
Wolves is basically a retelling of Seven Samurai/The Magnificent Seven but with multiple bizarre twists. The first of the Dark Tower tales to be published following King’s near-death experience, the weirdness of the series gets ramped up by orders of magnitude. For some it is too much, and they lose interest here. For others, though, this is the key point in which the Dark Tower series transforms from a fun but ultimately generic hero’s quest into the lynchpin of the entire Stephen King universe. I’m obviously in the latter group. This book is so much fun, and it is cool to see the ties to King’s larger mythology really start to take shape.
Uruk-Hai
Footballguy
Yeah, this one is running on multiple levels. He's pulling characters out of stories he wrote 20 years before and has about eleventy-billion pop culture references from other artists' works. The artist-creation line is something that was obviously on his mind big-time when he wrote this.
It's also a great "surface read" story. It's long, but a lot of fun.
Dan Lambskin
Footballguy
Been awhile since I read the series so a lot of it blends together but this is the one with the a bunch of the Father Callahan stuff right?
Also has one of my favorite lines
“May it do ya fine, you stainless-steel *******”
17. Hearts in Atlantis
1999
Novella from Hearts in Atlantis
Realism, drama
1/5
“You’re supposed to stand up. If you see something happening that’s wrong, like a big guy beating up a little guy, you’re supposed to stand up and at least try to stop it.”
“Time passes and everything gets bigger except us.”
“Hearts are tough, Pete. Most times they don’t break. Most times they only bend.”
An addiction to a card game threatens the academic standing of a group of college students as the possibility of being drafted into the Vietnam War looms large.
In my commentary for The Body, I expressed frustration with my inability to use words to communicate. That seems relevant here, as I’m not sure I know how to express why I love the title story from the Hearts in Atlantis collection so much. The novella is ostensibly about a group of college students that becomes obsessed with a card game (something that feels very real and not unlike various obsessions I developed as I grew up). But it is actually about so much more, and I feel like it really could be seen as the great American novel for an entire generation.
This is sort of going to get into some spoilers. Maybe not plot spoilers but spoilers about ideas. So be warned. The theme of broken vs. resilient hearts is something that King touches on in a lot of his works (my all-time favorite King quote, from the still-to-come Wizard and Glass, is about this theme). Here it is addressed most directly. Carol expresses the quote above, but later Peter decides: "Hearts can break, yes, hearts can break. Sometimes I think it would be better if we died when they did, but we don't. Because it isn’t just the loss of love to consider. It is the loss of ideals.” But then, what about hearts in Atlantis? It’s with that question that King shifts the collection from being about the relationships of a few interesting characters growing up in New England, to being about the tragedy of an entire generation.
Hearts in Atlantis is probably the fictional King book that has the most autobiographical elements. Reading it provides a lot of insight that elevates one’s appreciation for some of his other writing. But even if you never read anything else by King, this is a brilliant work that anyone can appreciate. It is probably this, more than any other story, that makes me consider him to legitimately be an all-time great writer.
1999
Novella from Hearts in Atlantis
Realism, drama
1/5
“You’re supposed to stand up. If you see something happening that’s wrong, like a big guy beating up a little guy, you’re supposed to stand up and at least try to stop it.”
“Time passes and everything gets bigger except us.”
“Hearts are tough, Pete. Most times they don’t break. Most times they only bend.”
An addiction to a card game threatens the academic standing of a group of college students as the possibility of being drafted into the Vietnam War looms large.
In my commentary for The Body, I expressed frustration with my inability to use words to communicate. That seems relevant here, as I’m not sure I know how to express why I love the title story from the Hearts in Atlantis collection so much. The novella is ostensibly about a group of college students that becomes obsessed with a card game (something that feels very real and not unlike various obsessions I developed as I grew up). But it is actually about so much more, and I feel like it really could be seen as the great American novel for an entire generation.
This is sort of going to get into some spoilers. Maybe not plot spoilers but spoilers about ideas. So be warned. The theme of broken vs. resilient hearts is something that King touches on in a lot of his works (my all-time favorite King quote, from the still-to-come Wizard and Glass, is about this theme). Here it is addressed most directly. Carol expresses the quote above, but later Peter decides: "Hearts can break, yes, hearts can break. Sometimes I think it would be better if we died when they did, but we don't. Because it isn’t just the loss of love to consider. It is the loss of ideals.” But then, what about hearts in Atlantis? It’s with that question that King shifts the collection from being about the relationships of a few interesting characters growing up in New England, to being about the tragedy of an entire generation.
Hearts in Atlantis is probably the fictional King book that has the most autobiographical elements. Reading it provides a lot of insight that elevates one’s appreciation for some of his other writing. But even if you never read anything else by King, this is a brilliant work that anyone can appreciate. It is probably this, more than any other story, that makes me consider him to legitimately be an all-time great writer.
16. Low Men in Yellow Coats
1999
Novella from Hearts in Atlantis
Fantasy, dark fantasy, magical realism
2/5
- Dark Tower story
“Don’t be like the book-snobs who won’t do that. Read sometimes for the story—the language. Don’t be like the play-it-safers that won’t do that.”
“The less you know, the more you could believe.”
A group of children meet a mysterious stranger who seems to be on the run.
Having this and the Hearts in Atlantis novella back-to-back seemed mandatory. While the short stories that appear later in the collection are nice, the two novellas are the heart of the collection. They actually stand in contrast to one another as Hearts in Atlantis has no supernatural elements at all, while this one has the most of any in the collection. Though compared to King’s other works, it is still quite subtle.
If you have seen the movie Hearts in Atlantis, 95% of the plot came from this novella. The movie is fine and a reasonably faithful adaptation, though the novella has a lot more depth to it. In particular, Carol Gerber is a much better character in the book compared to the movie.
Low Men in Yellow Coats can stand on its own as a story, though of the five stories in this collection, it is the one most tied to King’s other works. In fact, it is pretty much mandatory reading for anyone making their way through The Dark Tower as one of the characters in Low Men becomes important later in that series, and the Low Men themselves also play a significant role.
1999
Novella from Hearts in Atlantis
Fantasy, dark fantasy, magical realism
2/5
- Dark Tower story
“Don’t be like the book-snobs who won’t do that. Read sometimes for the story—the language. Don’t be like the play-it-safers that won’t do that.”
“The less you know, the more you could believe.”
A group of children meet a mysterious stranger who seems to be on the run.
Having this and the Hearts in Atlantis novella back-to-back seemed mandatory. While the short stories that appear later in the collection are nice, the two novellas are the heart of the collection. They actually stand in contrast to one another as Hearts in Atlantis has no supernatural elements at all, while this one has the most of any in the collection. Though compared to King’s other works, it is still quite subtle.
If you have seen the movie Hearts in Atlantis, 95% of the plot came from this novella. The movie is fine and a reasonably faithful adaptation, though the novella has a lot more depth to it. In particular, Carol Gerber is a much better character in the book compared to the movie.
Low Men in Yellow Coats can stand on its own as a story, though of the five stories in this collection, it is the one most tied to King’s other works. In fact, it is pretty much mandatory reading for anyone making their way through The Dark Tower as one of the characters in Low Men becomes important later in that series, and the Low Men themselves also play a significant role.
The Longtime Lurker
Footballguy
And here I thought I read a lot of King, but turns out that's not the case. This list is awesome and my reading list has doubled. Taking notes on the Dark Tower companion stories I need to read and will probably take another trip along the beam later this year.
Uruk-Hai
Footballguy
This story is an elegy to (& criticism of) Baby Boomers. The characters here are King's own age at the time, so your comment about it being autobiographical I think is right on. It's got a "our generation screwed up" and a sadness vibe all over it. As someone who could get obsessive about things at that age (poker in my case, among many other habits), this story rings really true to me. I have no criticisms of this one, other than Carol might be a little too "adult".
Interesting, I never thought of Carol that way. I feel like she has the maturity to realize there are real life issues that are consequential (the war, her mother's health) but she also seems to have a bit of naivete around how to approach them (which we see play out in the later stories). This seems pretty characteristic of someone in college just learning to be an adult. I think we can partially attribute her maturity to some of what happened in Low Men in Yellow Coats, which is bound to make someone grow up a little faster. And of course she is going to seem more adult than the idiot guys playing cards and talking smack. But I still think there are some childlike qualities and gullibility there below a more mature facade.
15. The Shining
1977
Novel
Horror
4/5
An alcoholic man, his wife, and his preternatural son get trapped by a snowstorm in a haunted hotel.
I don’t know that I need to say a lot about this book. Obviously, this is one of King’s most famous works, if not the most famous. I suspect there are some who would rank this much higher, possibly even #1. The Shining has incredible balance between supernatural horror and the everyday horror of a man battling his personal demons. There are numerous iconic scenes, and it is genuinely scary. But for me, it just isn’t quite as brilliant as some of King’s best work. He has multiple books that are more ambitious and epic, some which are genre-defining. So, while I really love this book, it does not make the top ten for me.
1977
Novel
Horror
4/5
An alcoholic man, his wife, and his preternatural son get trapped by a snowstorm in a haunted hotel.
I don’t know that I need to say a lot about this book. Obviously, this is one of King’s most famous works, if not the most famous. I suspect there are some who would rank this much higher, possibly even #1. The Shining has incredible balance between supernatural horror and the everyday horror of a man battling his personal demons. There are numerous iconic scenes, and it is genuinely scary. But for me, it just isn’t quite as brilliant as some of King’s best work. He has multiple books that are more ambitious and epic, some which are genre-defining. So, while I really love this book, it does not make the top ten for me.
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