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  1. #1
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    Stephen King

    200-odd pages into 11-22-63 now. I really really wonder if he knows that he's made several nods to both the Back To The Future trilogy and a few to Quantum Leap. Not a complaint, it's a pretty good read thus far. Been awhile since I've read one of his books. I loaned this and Under The Dome from the library, so that'll give me my fill I'm sure.

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    I really want to read a Stephen King book: which is the best place to start?

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    Quote Originally Posted by aggroculture View Post
    I really want to read a Stephen King book: which is the best place to start?
    Personally, I would recommend Bag of Bones. If I had to pick one one of his books that gave the best example of his style of writing, it would be this. The story is pretty gripping and has some good twists, and it's one of his better character pieces. Plus it's pretty fucking scary in places.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Trains View Post
    Personally, I would recommend Bag of Bones. If I had to pick one one of his books that gave the best example of his style of writing, it would be this. The story is pretty gripping and has some good twists, and it's one of his better character pieces. Plus it's pretty fucking scary in places.
    Bag Of Bones was the first books on tape I ever listened all the way through on a long trip. It was fantastic and read by King himself. As for great reading I liked The Shining and The Talisman (with Peter Straub)

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    Alright. I swore I would never read another Stephen King book (well, probably never) but here I am again. His books have been hit and miss with me, but the misses were BIG (I will never forgive him for having to trudge through the complete edition of The Stand only to find out that it NEVER GOT BETTER). But I'm a sucker for time travel so, God help me, I started 11/22/63. I'm about 40 pages in, and it's been pretty good so far. I'm definitely intrigued.

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    Quote Originally Posted by theruiner View Post
    Alright. I swore I would never read another Stephen King book (well, probably never) but here I am again. His books have been hit and miss with me, but the misses were BIG (I will never forgive him for having to trudge through the complete edition of The Stand only to find out that it NEVER GOT BETTER). But I'm a sucker for time travel so, God help me, I started 11/22/63. I'm about 40 pages in, and it's been pretty good so far. I'm definitely intrigued.
    Dude it's really good. I thought it was one of his best in a long time actually. It's quite long but it held my attention a lot more than Under the Dome. I hope you enjoy it!

    I'm skeptical about the Shining sequel and don't see that it even needs to happen, but if that's where his muse is leading him then who am I to argue? I'll read it for sure. I love this man.

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    Quote Originally Posted by theruiner View Post
    Alright. I swore I would never read another Stephen King book (well, probably never) but here I am again. His books have been hit and miss with me, but the misses were BIG (I will never forgive him for having to trudge through the complete edition of The Stand only to find out that it NEVER GOT BETTER). But I'm a sucker for time travel so, God help me, I started 11/22/63. I'm about 40 pages in, and it's been pretty good so far. I'm definitely intrigued.
    I'm 200 pages into it and loving it. I wasn't sold on the time-travel idea, in fact I was expecting this to be a complete dud. Now I'm completely taken aback by how much I'm enjoying it, and how well written it is. The highlight so far was when I read the scenes that feature characters from IT, I felt very nostalgic and emotional revisiting that setting, I felt as if I was revisiting the person I was when I read that book.

    As always, I am in utter admiration of this man.

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    Quote Originally Posted by aggroculture View Post
    I really want to read a Stephen King book: which is the best place to start?
    I still think IT is the best book he's written. It's pretty fucked up and genuinely disturbing, and it might go a little too far in some sections, but it's truly epic in the best way. After that, I'd probably recommend The Shining. I also think Needful Things is really underrated.

    I've tried to start reading 11-22-63, and I'm not really digging it. Sure, I'm only 50 or so pages in, but the whole concept seems really ludicrous, and the delivery and presentation feels completely forced. Hopefully it picks up a bit and he finds a groove with this story.

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    About halfway through 11/22/63 now. I don't love it yet, but it's keeping my interest pretty good. I'm burning through a lot of it every day, and I can't seem to tear myself away from it. So...yeah. We'll see. It's not bad. At the very least, I'll probably end up thinking it's just ok. I'm enjoying it too much to think it's bad. Hopefully it'll start getting really good here soon.

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    Sorry for the double post.

    Ok, so...622 pages in now. I'm digging it. I don't love it, but I'm enjoying it. I still can't shake the feeling that this is way longer than it needs to be, and there are many long stretches where not much happens (at least nothing too big) but the good parts are really good. And there were a couple of scenes that were very suspenseful.

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    Sorry. Triple post. Sorry.

    So, just finished 11/22/63. It was...good. Not great, but good. On the verge of "really good" but not quite. Maybe after it sinks in a bit I'll like it more. I just finished it about five minutes ago. Spoiler: There may or may not have been some tears at the end. God DAMN, was that sad.

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    guilty pleasure of sorts, but i've loved the majority of his early work since middle school. favorites include:

    the bachman books (the long walk and the running man especially)
    the stand
    christine
    pet sematary
    it
    the dead zone
    carrie

    his short stories are usually excellent... especially the night shift collection and skeleton crew.

    as popular opinion states, he has a bad habit of dropping the ball at the end of a few books, but definitely some great stuff along the way. i kind of fell off the wagon in the late 90s (quality dropped a bit), though cell was pretty enjoyable.

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    Quote Originally Posted by frankieteardrop View Post
    as popular opinion states, he has a bad habit of dropping the ball at the end of a few books, but definitely some great stuff along the way. i kind of fell off the wagon in the late 90s (quality dropped a bit), though cell was pretty enjoyable.
    I thought Cell was pretty good too, for a long while afterwards I was afraid of using my phone. Especially when I was walking around campus during the day and fearing all hell would break loose.

    My favorites are...
    The Stand
    The Long Walk
    Night Shift
    Four Past Midnight

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    Im really looking forward to his new book, the Shining Sequel, set 35 years after the overlook event, Danny is now a recovering alcoholic/drug addict in his 40's. Working in the carehome in upstate New York, with elderly patients when they die.
    He is informed of a gang who want Danny's supernatural powers, called THE TRIBE. They are vampire-esque. Taking the good out of people.

    Sounds like a masterpiece in the making.
    I dont know something about it sounds really deep, comforting, emotional, weird, sinister, trippy, and scary. I can already picture it.

    Stephen King makes it look so easy. I wish i could come up with ideas and expand on them as easily as him.
    Last edited by Highly Psychological; 02-24-2012 at 09:29 PM.

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    Yeah, I teared up at the end too. Probably my favourite book of his in the last decade or so.

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    Well looks like i have to start 11/22/63 too. I have a friend who said its good. Well now i guess its time that i borrow t from her.

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    Anybody else reading The Wind Through The Keyhole, the new Dark Tower novel? I'm around page 100, and finding it very enjoyable. It's like meeting up with old friends after a long absence.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Trains View Post
    Anybody else reading The Wind Through The Keyhole, the new Dark Tower novel? I'm around page 100, and finding it very enjoyable. It's like meeting up with old friends after a long absence.
    I just bought it and I'm about to pick it up. Avoiding spoilers at the moment, but I'm excited to revisit the Dark Tower world.

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    Wow, I didn't even know this was out yet. One of these days I'll really have to buckle down and read the series. In high school I read about half of the first book and all I remember is that it made my mouth feel dry.

    Also, this interesting tidbit according to Wikipedia:

    King's next novel is the upcoming sequel to The Shining (1977), titled Dr. Sleep, scheduled to be published in 2013, and King is currently working on Joyland, a novel about "an amusement-park serial killer", according to an article in The Sunday Times published on April 8, 2012.[48]
    I could care less about Dr. Sleep (I'll read it I'm sure, but does it NEED to happen?), but Joyland sounds awesome.

  20. #20
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    I enjoyed this rant against tax dodgers from Stephen King

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012...rich?fb=native

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    ^ What a dude.

    Finished reading the new Dark Tower novel, can't recommend it enough to fans of the series. There's no big revelations, but it's heartfelt and sincere enough.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Trains View Post
    Finished reading the new Dark Tower novel, can't recommend it enough to fans of the series. There's no big revelations, but it's heartfelt and sincere enough.
    I've only read through the entire series once and that was several years ago. Haven't touched it since, so there are a lot of things I don't remember. Do you think that would cause problems with my enjoyment of this book? I really don't have the willpower to go through all of the books again right now, on the whole they were an enjoyable read, even brilliant at times (especially the first three), but they could also be quite frustrating, especially in the way they became increasingly convoluted and tied to every single one of Stephen King's books.
    Last edited by Alexandros; 05-10-2012 at 04:19 AM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Alexandros View Post
    I've only read through the entire series once and that was several years ago. Haven't touched it since, so there are a lot of things I don't remember. Do you think that would cause problems with my enjoyment of this book? I really don't have the willpower to go through all of the books again right now, on the whole they were an enjoyable read, even brilliant at times (especially the first three), but they could also be quite frustrating, especially in the way they became increasingly convoluted and tied to every single one of Stephen King's books.
    You could always try this site and read through the synopsis of each book. That's basically what I did whenever I began to read one of the Dark Tower books as it always took me some time to get back to them so I forgot some things pretty quick.

    http://darktower.wikia.com/wiki/

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    Cujo is a damn fine book.

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    I got into King a few years ago when I saw Dark Tower VII on sale for $5. I thought, at the time, that it was all seven 'chapters' in one huge book, and bought it. Later realizing my mistake, I started picking up the first six chapters, and have been hooked ever since. I thought Wind Through The Keyhole was a nice little addition to the DT series.

    Cell was fantastic, as were Duma Key and Lisey's Story. I loved Under The Dome (until the abysmal ending) and 11/22/63 is one of the best books I've read in years.

    I've just recently started going back through more of his older stuff, and am loving all of it. I just finished Pet Semetary (really good, but not as scary as I'd been lead to believe) and am halfway through The Shining. The Stand was epic...that's really the only way to describe it.

    I believe reading the DT series is the best way to start if you've not read anything of his. As almost every other novel ties into it, or in some way mentions or connects to it, the DT has made reading his other novels that much more enjoyable.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Leman Russ View Post
    I believe reading the DT series is the best way to start if you've not read anything of his. As almost every other novel ties into it, or in some way mentions or connects to it, the DT has made reading his other novels that much more enjoyable.
    Maybe I'll start checking out some of his other stuff then. I absolutely loved The Dark Tower series, still have to get Wind Through the Keyhole. The only one of his other books that I've read is Dreamcatcher and I loved that as well.

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    Quote Originally Posted by kdrcraig View Post
    Maybe I'll start checking out some of his other stuff then. I absolutely loved The Dark Tower series, still have to get Wind Through the Keyhole. The only one of his other books that I've read is Dreamcatcher and I loved that as well.
    Duma Key, 11/22/63 (neither of which are connected to DT) are two of my favorite King books. Duma Key was creepy as hell to me.

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    Thanks for the tips, I actually remember wanting to read 11//22/63 when it came out cause it sounded cool but I never got around to it.

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    Read it! It's his best in years. I love historical stuff, but the presentation is really important - I've only ever had two really good history teachers, and it was their classes that made me realize how interesting history is. King is like the most entertaining history teacher, although he does meander a lot around the middle of the book.

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    I read the Gunslinger a while back and really didn't like it much. My first time reading Stephen King. It's not that I had an issue with the story itself, but I found something about the vernacular or the way it was written to be really off-putting to me. Yet everywhere I see people praising the whole of the Dark Tower series. Is it just me? Does the writing style change after the first book? I've since given King another shot and read Under the Dome, which was enjoyable and a much easier read (aside from the ending shitting the bed).

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