Huckleberries Online

Me: The Girl Who Love Stephen King

Posted by DFO

May 1, 2009 6 a.m. • 39 comments

Me: Oh LOVE that book (“The Stand”) — have read it several times. I KNOW we are supposed to read great literature and I do, but Stephen King can paint a picture with his words and transport me wherever he wants. I haven’t read any of his newest books - for years, but maybe I’ll revisit some of the older ones this summer, which is “light reading time” for me.

Question: I read King’s “The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon” a couple of weeks ago. I’ve read almost everything by King, including the Gunfighter series. “Salem’s Lot” remains my favorite. Indeed, King is a great story teller. No need to apologize me. As for everyone else, which Stephen King book or short story is your favorite?

39 comments on this post so far. Add yours!

Arch_Druid on May 01 at 8:44 a.m.
Beyond “Firestarter,” I regard MOST of Stephen King’s novels as grotesque. There are other horror novelists that I like much better.
Me on May 01 at 9:01 a.m.
Grotesque? I’d have to politely disagree with that. Some of his novels are not even horror at all. The Green Mile. The running man. Different seasons collection which had Apt Pupil and the Shawshank Redemption.

I think if you only think of Stephen King a s horror novelist you miss out.
Cindy_H on May 01 at 9:04 a.m.
Misery.
No contest.
Arch_Druid on May 01 at 9:09 a.m.
Me, Stephen King is BEST known for his horror novels. MOST of his horror novels are grotesque. I stand by what I say.
JeanieSpokane on May 01 at 9:18 a.m.
My favorite is IT. Don’t read if you are afraid of clowns. Misery scared me to pieces! I can’t even watch the movie. The one King book I will NEVER read is Gerald’s Game - a co-worker told me the plot and I will never ever read it even if it were the last book on earth. Needful Things - good read. The Talisman - excellent! My first was the Tommyknockers. Loved that book and read it twice back to back.
Me on May 01 at 9:21 a.m.
No problem Arch - I just didn’t want people to get the wrong idea if they have NEVER read him. Grotesque brings to mind (to me anyway) the slasher stuff like people running around with chainsaws chopping people up and I just don’t find his work to be that way. It is much more psychological which to me is way scarier.
brentandrews on May 01 at 9:29 a.m.
Oh, The Shining is my favorite, prolly read it ten times, I shivver to think about it …. “Heeeeeere’s Daddy!” The Overlook! And the stalking shrubs! Danny! The shine! That ROOM! And the MOVIE! Ohmygosh! Home alone tonight … love to get the creeps, maybe I’ll pick it up again.

Awesome story in this month’s (May/June) Writer’s Digest with S. King and Jerry B. Jenkins (Left Behind) talking about the craft over several pages (the two are apparently friends). Really informative, and fascinating. King is right: I crave his voice as much as the story, it’s just a classic “everyguy” writing like a madman. Plus, I guess he’s achieved every writer’s dream.

The Stand runs a close second to The Shining. As a teeny I once quit a kitchen job to finish The Stand - the job was getting in the way of my reading.

Haven’t read King’s latest stuff, for several years. Mostly I read nonfiction now: Indian books, China books.
Cabbage Boy on May 01 at 9:37 a.m.
I am not a huge King fan. I think The Stand and The Green Mile were great books. Some of the others I have read have great plots but I think his endings are sometimes weak. Like in Needful Things. Great idea and build up, but the end is just a mob and violence.
Arch_Druid on May 01 at 9:45 a.m.
Having seen “The Shining” the movie, and read the one where the gal has really bizarre supernatural powers from birth, grotesque isn’t always a slasher movie. Grotesque can be waves of blood spilling across a motel floor, IE “The Shining.” “Firestarter” is my fave book and movie of all King novels. The only one that I thought was the best.
tarynahecker on May 01 at 10:32 a.m.
I read a lot of Stephen King when I was a kid. I remember reading “It” in 6th grade I think it was and I still don’t walk too close to sewer drains. One of my favorites was a book of short stories. I think it was called “Night Shift” and for some reason in particular I really liked the story about the doctor who gets stranded on an island and starts amputating parts of his own body to survive off. The story ends with the guy eating his earlobes and saying “Lady fingers, tastes just like lady fingers.” I think I was a weird kid.
JeanC on May 01 at 10:52 a.m.
My all time favorite Steven King story is The Stand. That one had me sleeping with the lights on for a couple of weeks. Next in line are Misery, Carrie, Salem’s Lot and the Shining.
kamm on May 01 at 12:37 p.m.
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon- I kept waiting for something twisted to haen. There was that background heart thumping something. It was a tender story.
But I’ve read a lot of them, even the Bachman sroties.
I’ll read anything that catches my attention within 15minutes.
My dad was a teacher and our TV was off for the 1st month of school. We learned to realy like books!
Katrina on May 01 at 12:52 p.m.
I love “The Stand” the best, and reread it every few years. A close second is “It”, which I think does an amazing job of capturing the magical thinking of childhood, and the feeling that you are living on a whole other plane of perception from adults, who miss so much. It really brings me back to that place. I love it.

One thing I enjoy about King’s writing is his ability to sketch Everyman down to the smallest detail, and then place him into the most outlandish and otherworldly situations imaginable. It’s that part of his stories that stays firmly grounded in the minutae of reality that makes them so horrifying.

He’s also a pretty apt student of sociology, I’d say.
Liz on May 01 at 2:12 p.m.
Oh this is right up my alley!!! Stephen King is, as far as I am concerned, THE master of the written word!!

I learned a lot about writing from his book on that very subject.
Doesn’t hurt that his stories are illustrated with real life places that I know and have visited. …or that he is a fan of simply the greatest baseball team EVAH….

As for the faves: yup, “The Stand” is up there. As is the “Dead Zone”. It IS getting rather old that King feels the need to flagellate right wing conservatives in EVERY SINGLE FREAKIN’ NOVEL!!!
Note to SK: we are not all that one dimensional. Sorry if that was your personal experience. Meet a few more of us before you continue stereotyping….

Lastly, I cannot help but mention that “The Stand” has been on my mind the last few days. For obvious reasons. Captain Trips anybody????
Liz on May 01 at 2:19 p.m.
Actually, except for Flannery O’ Connor, I cannot think of a single “serious” author that I genuinely enjoy. I am finally old enough now that I feel no need for the pretense of pretending I would rather be reading Dickens when the reality is that my literary nose would rather be inside the latest true crime thriller.

I find most serious literature to be very stuck on itself, very boring and so intent on carrying a message that its infuriating.

What makes something “great literature”??? How is Stephen King, whose use of the English language to evoke incredible word pictures “less than” other works???

Yes, truly some stuff you pick up is SO forumulaic and SO predictable with such one dimensional unreal characters that I can definitely see why it doesn’t rate very highly, but beyond that, I have a hard time seeing what separates “literature” from simply a well written, entertaining book. That happens to be commercially successful.

Thoughts anyone????
Nick_Adams on May 01 at 4:44 p.m.
I’m a huge Stephen King fan. I have all his books, plus a couple of his screenplays. Favorites are The Stand, It, The Body (made into the great movie Stand by Me) and The Talisman.

“The Boogeyman” a short story in the Night Shift collection was terrifying.

To riff a bit on Liz’s comment about “literature”, I enjoy O’Connor and Cormac McCarthy. I’ll admit it though, I’d much rather jump into the latest Christopher Moore or other more popular fiction.

I just finished up “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien. An absolutely fascinating book on soldiers in Viet Nam. It’s a collection of essays based on, yes, the personal items soldiers carried during the war. Riveting. I’d be interested if any of the Merry Hucksters have read it—especially Viet Nam vets (Stickman).
Nick_Adams on May 01 at 4:50 p.m.
To add to my last post, I should add that I do enjoy both Hemmingway and Steinbeck. I re-read “Cannery Row” every couple of years and make my way through my favs from both authors every four or five years.
Nick_Adams on May 01 at 4:51 p.m.
Sorry. Hemingway.
Cis on May 01 at 6:05 p.m.
My mother loved Stephen King books, so I use to get them from her when she was done. But she passed away in 90, so I think I only bought two after that.
Green Mile and the Shawshank Redemption.were my favorites. Christine the book scared me to death as I read it. the movie was a disaster. And Pet Cemetery, was the one I yelled at him as I read it… when the father would go to the cemetery to his son’s grave. Then left, and then came back, and then left and came back and dug him up. As he was coming and going, i was yelling no no… oh, good, he isn’t, then no no… oh, good.. OH, NO, HE DID IT!!.
For some reason I have gotten away from his books in the past 15 years, for the most part..
Liz on May 01 at 9:18 p.m.
oh gosh…I forgot…Pet Sematary…LOVE that book.
great song, too….(the Ramones…used in the ending credits of the movie)

Truth be told, I read a lot of nonfiction.

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D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.