Finding the best stephen king suitable for your needs isnt easy. With hundreds of choices can distract you. Knowing whats bad and whats good can be something of a minefield. In this article, weve done the hard work for you.
Reviews
1. The Shining
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Jack Torrances new job at the Overlook Hotel is the perfect chance for a fresh start. As the off-season caretaker at the atmospheric old hotel, hell have plenty of time to spend reconnecting with his family and working on his writing. But as the harsh winter weather sets in, the idyllic location feels ever more remote . . . and more sinister. And the only one to notice the strange and terrible forces gathering around the Overlook is Danny Torrance, a uniquely gifted five-year-old.2. On Writing: 10th Anniversary Edition: A Memoir of the Craft
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Great product!Description
Immensely helpful and illuminating to any aspiring writer, this special edition of Stephen Kings critically lauded, million-copy bestseller shares the experiences,habits, and convictionsthat have shaped him and his work.Long live the King hailed Entertainment Weekly upon publication of Stephen Kings On Writing. Part memoir, part master class by one of the bestselling authors of all time, this superb volume is a revealing and practical view of the writers craft, comprising the basic tools of the trade every writer must have. Kings advice is grounded in his vivid memories from childhood through his emergence as a writer, from his struggling early career to his widely reported, near-fatal accident in 1999and how the inextricable link between writing and living spurred his recovery. Brilliantly structured, friendly and inspiring, On Writing will empower and entertain everyone who reads itfans, writers, and anyone who loves a great story well told.
3. Night Shift
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Night ShiftStephen Kings first collection of storiesis an early showcase of the depths that Kings wicked imagination could plumb. In these 20 tales, we see mutated rats gone bad (Graveyard Shift); a cataclysmic virus that threatens humanity (Night Surf, the basis for The Stand); a smoker who will try anything to stop (Quitters, Inc.); a reclusive alcoholic who begins a gruesome transformation (Gray Matter); and many more. This is Stephen King at his horrifying best.4. The Stand
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Anchor BooksDescription
Stephen Kings apocalyptic vision of a world blasted by plague and tangled in an elemental struggle between good and evil remains as riveting and eerily plausible as when it was first published.A patient escapes from a biological testing facility, unknowingly carrying a deadly weapon: a mutated strain of super-flu that will wipe out 99 percent of the worlds population within a few weeks. Those who remain are scared, bewildered, and in need of a leader. Two emergeMother Abagail, the benevolent 108-year-old woman who urges them to build a peaceful community in Boulder, Colorado; and Randall Flagg, the nefarious Dark Man, who delights in chaos and violence. As the dark man and the peaceful woman gather power, the survivors will have to choose between themand ultimately decide the fate of all humanity.
(This edition includes all of the new and restored material first published inThe Stand:The Complete And Uncut Edition.)
5. 11/22/63: A Novel
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Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Best Mystery/ThrillerDescription
Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Best Mystery/Thrillernow a limited series on Hulu starring James Franco!WINNER OF THE 2012 LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE
In Stephen Kings most ambitious and accomplished (NPR) and extraordinary (USA TODAY) #1 New York Times bestselling novel, time travel has never been so believable. Or so terrifying.
Dallas, 11/22/63: Three shots ring out.
President John F. Kennedy is dead.
Life can turn on a dimeor stumble into the extraordinary, as it does for Jake Epping, a high school English teacher in a Maine town. While grading essays by his GED students, Jake reads a gruesome, enthralling piece penned by janitor Harry Dunning: fifty years ago, Harry somehow survived his fathers sledgehammer slaughter of his entire family. Jake is blown away...but an even more bizarre secret comes to light when Jakes friend Al, owner of the local diner, enlists Jake to take over the mission that has become his obsessionto prevent the Kennedy assassination. How? By stepping through a portal in the diners storeroom, and into the era of Ike and Elvis, of big American cars, sock hops, and cigarette smoke... Finding himself in warmhearted Jodie, Texas, Jake begins a new life. But all turns in the road lead to a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald. The course of history is about to be rewritten...and become heart-stoppingly suspenseful.
6. Doctor Sleep: A Novel
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Doctor SleepDescription
Master storyteller Stephen Kings terrifying sequel to The Shiningan instant #1 New York Times bestseller that is "[a] vivid frightscape" (The New York Times).On highways across America, a tribe of people called the True Knot travel in search of sustenance. They look harmlessmostly old, lots of polyester, and married to their RVs. But as Dan Torrance knows, and spunky twelve-year-old Abra Stone learns, the True Knot are quasi-immortal, living off the steam that children with the shining produce when they are slowly tortured to death.
Haunted by the inhabitants of the Overlook Hotel, where he spent one horrific childhood year, Dan has been drifting for decades, desperate to shed his fathers legacy of despair, alcoholism, and violence. Finally, he settles in a New Hampshire town, an AA community that sustains him, and a job at a nursing home where his remnant shining power provides the crucial final comfort to the dying. Aided by a prescient cat, he becomes Doctor Sleep.
Then Dan meets the evanescent Abra Stone, and it is her spectacular gift, the brightest shining ever seen, that reignites Dans own demons and summons him to a battle for Abras soul and survival. This is an epic war between good and evil, glorious story that will thrill the millions of devoted readers of The Shining and satisfy anyone new to this icon in the Stephen King canon.
7. Pet Sematary: A Novel
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POCKETDescription
Discover the classic #1 New York Times bestseller from master storyteller Stephen King!When Dr. Louis Creed takes a new job and moves his family to the idyllic and rural town of Ludlow, Maine, this new beginning seems too good to be true. Yet despite Ludlows tranquility, theres an undercurrent of danger that exists here. Those trucks on the road outside the Creeds beautiful old home travel by just a little too quickly, for one thingas is evidenced by the makeshift pet cemetery out back in the nearby woods. Then there are the warnings to Louis both real and from the depths of his nightmares that he should not venture beyond the borders of this little graveyard. A blood-chilling truth is hidden thereone more terrifying than death itself, and hideously more powerful. An ominous fate befalls anyone who dares tamper with this forbidden place, as Louis is about to discover for himself
8. It: A Novel
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Now a major motion pictureStephen Kings terrifying, classic #1 New York Times bestseller, a landmark in American literature (Chicago Sun-Times)about seven adults who return to their hometown to confront a nightmare they had first stumbled on as teenagersan evil without a name: It.
Welcome to Derry, Maine. Its a small city, a place as hauntingly familiar as your own hometown. Only in Derry the haunting is real.
They were seven teenagers when they first stumbled upon the horror. Now they are grown-up men and women who have gone out into the big world to gain success and happiness. But the promise they made twenty-eight years ago calls them reunite in the same place where, as teenagers, they battled an evil creature that preyed on the citys children. Now, children are being murdered again and their repressed memories of that terrifying summer return as they prepare to once again battle the monster lurking in Derrys sewers.
Readers of Stephen King know that Derry, Maine, is a place with a deep, dark hold on the author. It reappears in many of his books, including Bag of Bones, Hearts in Atlantis, and 11/22/63. But it all starts with It.
Stephen Kings most mature work (St. Petersburg Times), It will overwhelm you to be read in a well-lit room only (Los Angeles Times).
9. 'Salem's Lot
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Ben Mears has returnedto Jerusalem's Lot in the hopes that living in anold mansion, long the subject of town lore, willhelp him cast out his own devils and provide inspiration for his new book. But when two young boys venture into the woods and only onecomes out alive,Mears begins to realize that there may be somethingsinister at work and that his hometown is under siege by forces of darkness far beyond his control.
10. The Bazaar of Bad Dreams: Stories
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The Bazaar of Bad Dreams StoriesDescription
The instant #1 New York Times bestseller! Stephen King delivers an outstanding (USA TODAY) collection of stories, featuring revelatory autobiographical comments on when, why, and how he came to write (or rewrite) each story.Ive made some things for you, Constant Reader...Feel free to examine them, but please be careful. The best of them have teeth.
Since Nightshift, published many years ago, Stephen King has dazzled an entire generation of readers with his genius as a prominent writer of short fiction. Now in his latest collection, he once again assembles a generous array of unforgettable, tantalizing talesincluding those that, until recently, have never been published in a book (such as the story Cookie Jar, which is exclusive to this edition). There are thrilling connections between these worksthemes of mortality, the afterlife, guilt, and what we would do differently if we could see into the future or correct the mistakes of the past. Magnificent, eerie, and utterly compelling, The Bazaar of Bad Dreams is one of Stephen Kings finest gifts to readers everywherea master storyteller at his very best.
Stories include:
-Mile 81
-Premium Harmony
-Batman and Robin Have an Altercation
-The Dune
-Bad Little Kid
-A Death
-The Bone Church
-Morality
-Afterlife
-Ur
-Herman Wouk Is Still Alive
-Under the Weather
-Blockade Billy
-Mister Yummy
-Tommy
-The Little Green God of Agony
-Cookie Jar
-That Bus Is Another World
-Obits
-Drunken Fireworks
-Summer Thunder
11. Gwendy's Button Box: A Novella
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Stephen King teams up with long-time friend and award-winning author Richard Chizmar for the first time in this original, chilling novella that revisits the mysterious town of Castle Rock.There are three ways up to Castle View from the town of Castle Rock: Route 117, Pleasant Road, and the Suicide Stairs. Every day in the summer of 1974, twelve-year-old Gwendy Peterson has taken the stairs, which are held by strongif time-rustediron bolts and zig-zag up the precarious cliffside.
Then one day when Gwendy gets to the top of Castle View, after catching her breath and hearing the shouts of kids on the playground below, a stranger calls to her. There on a bench in the shade sits a man in black jeans, a black coat, and a white shirt unbuttoned at the top. On his head is a small, neat black hat. The time will come when Gwendy has nightmares about that hat
The little town of Castle Rock, Maine has witnessed some strange events and unusual visitors over the years, but there is one story that has never been tolduntil now.
12. The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger
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The Dark Tower I The GunslingerDescription
Now a major motion picture starring Matthew McConaughey and Idris ElbaAn impressive work of mythic magnitude that may turn out to be Stephen Kings greatest literary achievement (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution), The Gunslinger is the first volume in the epic Dark Tower Series.
A #1 national bestseller, The Gunslinger introduces readers to one of Stephen Kings most powerful creations, Roland of Gilead: The Last Gunslinger. He is a haunting figure, a loner on a spellbinding journey into good and evil. In his desolate world, which mirrors our own in frightening ways, Roland tracks The Man in Black, encounters an enticing woman named Alice, and begins a friendship with the boy from New York named Jake.
Inspired in part by the Robert Browning narrative poem, Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, The Gunslinger is a compelling whirlpool of a story that draws one irretrievable to its center (Milwaukee Sentinel). It is brilliant and freshand will leave you panting for more (Booklist).
13. Needful Things: A Novel
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Needful ThingsDescription
Master storyteller Stephen King presents the classic #1 New York Times bestseller about a mysterious store than can sell you whatever you desirebut not without exacting a terrible price in return.There are two prices for this. Halfand half. One half is cash. The other is a deed. Do you understand?
The town of Castle Rock, Maine has seen its fair share of oddities over the years, but nothing is a peculiar as the little curio shop thats just opened for business. Its mysterious proprietor, Leland Gaunt, seems to have something for everyone out on display at Needful Thingsinteresting items that run the gamut from worthless to priceless. Nothing has a price tag in this place, but everything is certainly for sale. The hearts desire for any resident of Castle Rock can easily be found among the curiositiesin exchange for a little money andat the specific request of Leland Gaunta whole lot of menace against their fellow neighbors. Everyone in town seems willing to make a deal at Needful Things, but the devil is in the details. And no one takes heed of the little sign hanging on the wall: Caveat emptor. In other words, let the buyer beware
14. Sleeping Beauties: A Novel
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Sleeping Beauties: A NovelDescription
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERIn this spectacular father/son collaboration, Stephen King and Owen King tell the highest of high-stakes stories: what might happen if women disappeared from the world of men?
In a future so real and near it might be now, something happens when women go to sleep: they become shrouded in a cocoon-like gauze. If they are awakened, if the gauze wrapping their bodies is disturbed or violated, the women become feral and spectacularly violent. And while they sleep they go to another place, a better place, where harmony prevails and conflict is rare.
One woman, the mysterious Eve Black, is immune to the blessing or curse of the sleeping disease. Is Eve a medical anomaly to be studied? Or is she a demon who must be slain? Abandoned, left to their increasingly primal urges, the men divide into warring factions, some wanting to kill Eve, some to save her. Others exploit the chaos to wreak their own vengeance on new enemies. All turn to violence in a suddenly all-male world.
Set in a small Appalachian town whose primary employer is a womens prison, Sleeping Beauties is a wildly provocative, gloriously dramatic father-son collaboration that feels particularly urgent and relevant today.
15. Stephen King, IT!