• ✍️ WORDS ✍️

    Welcome Guest!

  • Words Moderators: Mysterier

Social What are you currently reading?

i’m reading The Rules of Attraction. back in high school kids scoffed at the movie because they felt it soiled a good book. unbelievable. the book is nothing. it’s not that the movie is a better movie than the book is a book. the movie — which is certainly flawed — is ultimately better, no consideration given for medium. which is exceptionally rare because feature length film isn’t all that great for conventional storytelling.

the “you’re gonna have to sell that bike of yours” scene in the movie is hilarious, great dialogue, and exceptionally acted. in the book it’s muttered nonsense that hardly even exists.
 
Stephen King's "It"

I was just telling a family member the other day that I'd like to collect his entire hardcover collection. Literally the next day, my customer told me she was tossing her library, including Stephen Kings entire collection and I took all of them home!
 
LadyAlkaline said:
Stephen King's "It"

I was just telling a family member the other day that I'd like to collect his entire hardcover collection. Literally the next day, my customer told me she was tossing her library, including Stephen Kings entire collection and I took all of them home!
Click to expand...

Niiice :)
 
LadyAlkaline said:
Stephen King's "It"

I was just telling a family member the other day that I'd like to collect his entire hardcover collection. Literally the next day, my customer told me she was tossing her library, including Stephen Kings entire collection and I took all of them home!
Click to expand...

Stephen King is so underrated, imo.
 
cduggles said:
Stephen King is so underrated, imo.
Click to expand...

Hm, I don't know. I like his narrative voice and ear for dialogue and in many cases his flow through the story, but I don't know if I'd call him underrated. He's had immense commercial success, and yes, while he's sometimes unfairly regarded as a pure gore and blood author, I don't on the other hand think he's necessarily creating literary masterpieces.
 
The collected stories of John Cheever.

Really excellent short stories.

And I keep a copy of infinite jest by the bed which is so great to just drop in anywhere at random. I also listen to the audiobook at work. Love that book!
 
Jack123456 said:
Hm, I don't know. I like his narrative voice and ear for dialogue and in many cases his flow through the story, but I don't know if I'd call him underrated. He's had immense commercial success, and yes, while he's sometimes unfairly regarded as a pure gore and blood author, I don't on the other hand think he's necessarily creating literary masterpieces.
Click to expand...

The Stand and Salem's Lot, i would consider two of his most "literary" pieces.

Though i didn't really like them as much as his more gruesome novels such as Pet Cemetery and Rage.
 
madness00 said:
The Stand and Salem's Lot, i would consider two of his most "literary" pieces.

Though i didn't really like them as much as his more gruesome novels such as Pet Cemetery and Rage.
Click to expand...

Yes, I guess, Bag of Bones comes to mind as well. All of those I would consider quite good. More often than not, though, I don't think that King's particular style (and most likely his personal preferences) is not that suited for or succesfull in more introspective/reflective (parts of his) books.
Such repetitive or outwardly uneventful novels as The Long Walk for example kinda show that without the motor of plot his writing doesn't really reach the depth of character, situation, reflections necessary to sustain an idea like The Long Walk, which is basically a hundred boys on the road walking, getting tired and then shot. That novel I abandoned after roughly its half since it became tedious and repetitive to me.

I gave up on Needfull Things and am now hearing The Regulators btw, which is actually quite enjoyable.
 
Just read Stephen Kings new book (The Institute). Read it in like 24 hours. First book of his in a long time that I've really loved.
Inspired me to read his books that I'd either skipped or given up on due to not liking in the past so read The Colorado Kid this morning (decent) and reading Cell now (really good so far, but here it fizzles out and is anti-climactic...NO SPOILERS PLZ).
I also have Liseys Story which was sooooo fucking (smucking bool) terrible when I tried to read it when it first came out. ANYONE here read it and think it wasn't shit? Not sure if I should even bother tbh.
 
Just read back and saw a lot of others posting about Stephen King. One of my favourite's. IT was my first King book (my first "grown ups" book actually...begged my parents for it when I was 11 haha).

5 stars (I loved):
It
Misery
Carrie
Needful Things
'Salems Lot
Rose Madder (would normally have liked this less but I read this while suffering severe anxiety and his descriptions of hers and how she felt were so fucking spot on, I loved how much I could relate)
Desperation
Dreamcatcher
The Green Mile
The Body
The Long Walk
The Rage (meh, I was bullied at the time)
The Shining
The Black House
The Institute
The Dark Tower 2
The Dark Tower 3

4 Stars (I liked):
Firestarter
The Talisman
Pet Sematary
The Tommyknockers
The Dark Half
Doctor Sleep
Insomnia
Bag of Bones
Duma Key
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
From a Buick 8
The Regulators
Under the Dome
On Writing
Blaze
The Dark Tower 1
The Dark Tower 6
Mr Mercedes
The Outsider
Sleeping Beauties
End of Watch
Finders Keepers
Elevation

3 Stars (they were okay)
Cujo
Gerald's Game
Dolores Claiborne
The Eyes of the Dragon
11/22/63 - boring as hell but I really liked the ending (didn't help that I'm not American or into American History)
Gwendy's Button Box
Revival (maybe 2.5 stars)

2 Stars (didn't like)
The Stand - I know this is very much against the grain: I really enjoyed the first part (Captain Trips) but after that it just seemed endless scenes of characters walking around America doing nothing much of anything. I've tried to read this 3 times and have never made it more than 2/3 of the way through. I do plan to give it another go soon as I'm in my twenties now and probably have more patience as a reader than as a young teen when I first attempted this)
The Dead Zone - bland meandering plot. I actually hated this, but 2 stars because I did finish it
The Dark Tower 4 (fuck that 500+ page irrelevant flashback)
The Dark Tower 5 (yawn!)
Christine (didn't care enough to finish)

1 Star (I hated)
Liseys Story

Totally up for debate/other opinions/who agrees :)

What's your fav King book? Mine would be a tie of It and Misery
 
@ChemicallyEnhanced - I too didn't really like the stand. I thought Lisey's Story was okay, actually.

But yeah again my favorites are It, Deadzone, The Bachman Books, Pet Cemetery, Under The Dome, The Regulators, and The Tommyknockers (meth).

Will definitely check out his new one.
 
madness00 said:
@ChemicallyEnhanced - I too didn't really like the stand. I thought Lisey's Story was okay, actually.

But yeah again my favorites are It, Deadzone, The Bachman Books, Pet Cemetery, Under The Dome, The Regulators, and The Tommyknockers (meth).

Will definitely check out his new one.
Click to expand...

It's good :)
King doesn't remember writing The Tommyknockers, but he said he wrote almost all of it while high on Psilocybin Mushrooms...I can definitely believe that.
On that no he literally does not remember a single word of Cujo (blackout drunk the whole book).

Did you not enjoy the "classics" (It, The Shining, Salems Lot, Carrie, Misery, etc)?

Did you enjoy Liseys Story (how do you pronounce that, btw? I always read it as Lee-see) from the start or does it improve?
 
I liked It and The Shining, Salem's Lot was full of unnecessary info on the town IMO, and to my shame never read Carrie or Misery.

I think you're right on how to pronounce it. I didn't enjoy the start - it does improve IMO.
 
started The Wayward Bus this morning.

was feeling binge reading more oates. big books of little girls living in hell. decided to try something new instead.
 
madness00 said:
The Stand and Salem's Lot, i would consider two of his most "literary" pieces.

Though i didn't really like them as much as his more gruesome novels such as Pet Cemetery and Rage.
Click to expand...

So many of his books aren't even horror tbh.
The Dark Tower series - action/western
Carrie - melodrama
Misery - psychological thriller
Christine - sci/fi, romance
The Eyes of the Dragon - Sci-Fi, fantasy
Dolores Claiborne - drama
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon - adventure

There's loads more (most of his recent books are suspense thrillers) but I CBA to look them up

P.S. I know most people consider Carrie a horror but it really isn't. There are no horror elements until the end and even then they all totally deserved it so much! From the prom onwards I was like YOU GO GURRRL!!
King himself is the one who said he wrote Carrie as a melodrama and it wasn't until after his next two books - 'Salems Lot and The Shining - that he got typecast as a horror writer (which he actually never wanted).
 
Hmm, unlike a lot of people I actually enjoyed Cell. I'd give it 4/5
Just re-read Dreamcatcher (one good thing about my brain damage affecting my memory is I could barely remember a thing) and enjoyed it 90% as much as I did the first time. Some 700 pages but read it in two nights. Il n'y a pas d'infection ici. 5/5

Bought The Stand today and read the first 60ish pages so far. I tried to read this 3 times between the ages of 13 and 19 and never got more than 2/3 of the way through. The first part - Captain Trips - about the super-flu I love, but after that it was just literally hundreds and hundreds of page of many, many characters all walking around in America, discovering endless dead bodies and...NOTHING else.
But, most people seem to find this his best (King himself has said that even though it isn't one of his favourites, it seems to be his most popular) so I'm trying again. I think I'm more patient as a reader now I'm in my 20s.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top