Okay, feel like upping my reading, and felt like a cram, but leisurely taken.

So, the idea is 1 Stephen King book a month, read in the chronological order of publication. This will include the Bachman books. It will include collections, and non-fiction. It will only be books, not comics or any other non-print experiments King tried.

Exceptions will be books longer than 1000 pages (which I think means It, The Stand, and Under The Dome) will be 2 months.

So, I start in April, aiming to review and discuss Carrie on the last day of that month, or earlier. I will not start any books before the 1st of the month I've chosen.

For this year:

Carrie - April
Salems Lot - May
The Shining - June
Rage - July
Night Shift - August
The Stand - September + October
The Long Walk - November
The Dead Zone - December



I invite fellow travellers.

I'll probably do this for a few of the books. I've already reread Salem's Lot, Rage, The Stand and The Long Walk within the last year so more than likely I'll skip those.

ha me too on The Long Walk and Rage, but I'll just reread.

Is it okay if I post nothing but rage comments?

Sure.

youre going to get burned out on kings style if you do this.. at least i did when i tried the same thing years ago... good reading tho

I might join in on a book or two

Good Luck DB - tell us when King jumps the shark for you ok?

So I started Carrie today. Reread, but it's been like 30 years+ since I last read it.

What strikes me right out of the gate is that King's talent and craftsmanship seems almost fully-formed and is strikingly confident.

His great strength is there is a thick and clear vein of authenticity running through every page so far. How the hell does he put himself in the heads of so many different characters, and yet have them ring true?

Very creative mind. I always loved how descriptive he was and how well he ended each chapter. "And then someone coughed." or whatever the exact line was is one of my favorite lines I've ever read in books. Based on the writing style of Justin Cronin, I think he would have to be considered a huge fan of King.

I didn't become a very big reader until I got a Kindle for my phone a little over 2 years ago, but I've read everything on your list but Carrie and Salem's Lot, though it's been a long time. Isn't Rage the book King disavows? That was a really disturbing story, and I'm not sure why people are looking at it as one of the ones to re-visit.

Any reason why you're not including IT? That was the first one of his books I remember being glued to, with the second being the unabridged The Stand (spent my whole winter break Junior year of college reading it, just couldn't put it down, but haven't re-visited it since).

He's reading them in chronological order of publication.

IT was his 24th book and didn't come out until 1986.

Wow, it's amazing that was his 24th book. Feels earlier.

It is my favourite King book. Should get to it around June 2016

I did read Rage recently in fact, and posted about it in the Book thread in this forum.

Already read quite a bit since I got a tablet and I'm now going through The Stand.

I hated the ending of The Long Walk and in all honesty didn't particularly like it overall.

I loved the ending of The Long Walk, but endings really are not a Stephen King strength.

I've read that before. I felt the ending to 11\22\63 was ridiculously corny too.

I wouldnt mind rereading Salem's Lot and The Shining. I reread Carrie a few years ago. It's an amazingly accomplished first novel.

The Shining holds up really well. So does Christine. The Dead Zone not as much. I'm sure you know Night Shift is a collection of short stories. I switch out Different Seasons or Four Past Midnight for that, unless you want a long thread about which story each reader liked best.

I'll hopefully be keeping in touch with this one. King is a great writer.

The Shining is pretty much timeless, I think. I think I read it twice (a lot of people crap on King's TV miniseries version, but it was a really good adaptation, I thought). At the end of the turd Under the Dome Kindle version was the first few chapters of The Shining's sequel, Doctor Sleep. It got off to a good start, and it looks like it came out last September. Looks like I found my next book after I finish the second book in Justin Cronin's The Passage series.

I've heard very mixed reviews of Under The Dome. 90% have been about the ending.

King had trouble with endings from the early days.


Carrie is proving very enjoyable, by the way

About 70 percent into Under the Dome, it was beginning to foreshadow a really dumb ending, but it was too late to stop (some people liked it, some people thought it was dumb, and the book required a heavy time investment). The funny thing is the TV show was radically different than the book, and King was probably okay with that because he knew the story didn't really pan out. He probably wanted a fresh take on it, and is hoping for a much better ending (similar to Frank Darabont's The Mist adaptation, which had a great ending that didn't exist in the book). I started reading the book maybe 2 episodes in to the show, and was so distracted by the early differences (major character differences) that I actually stopped watching the show. The show was only okay anyway, so I doubt I missed much.

I liked Under the Dome. I also started the book because of the show and I also stopped watching the show to focus on the book (although I watched 7 episodes instead of 2). I think the characters in the book are way more interesting than in the show.

The characters in the book were great, and nuanced. I couldn't figure out why they changed the basic ideas of all of them. It was at its worst with Julia and Barbie. They also really watered down the Rennie and Junior characters. Certain things in that book could have played as is, but certain things had to be changed due to it being on network TV. That was the main reason I quit. The way they went with the TV show was that there was a dome, and a bunch of character names that were the same. Other than that, nothing was similar. The strange thing was how descriptive the book was about the dome, and how they didn't really get that right in the TV show, at all (though what they did was certainly creative from a sound perspective, and I liked it).

I thought the book got off to a good start, but it didn't live up to its potential. I couldn't even bear the thought of watching the show after a certain point in the book.