Quote:
Originally Posted by Bookpossum
Thanks for that, gmw - I should give him a go. Do you recommend any one bookin particular asa good way in?
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Last year I nominated a novella called
The Body - it was made into a movie called
Stand By Me. The movie was as close to a perfect replication of a book as I've ever seen - great cast, got the mood exactly right. So if you wanted to cheat, watch the movie.
If you want to try reading the novella, it's in a collection called
Different Seasons. There is a second excellent novella in this collection
Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption that was also made into an excellent movie (
The Shawshank Redemption). It has some unpleasant parts, the prison is not a nice place, but not horror as such.
The collection also has a novella called
Apt Pupil that was - you guessed it - also made into a move, but in this case I didn't like the story very much anyway.
I suspect that both these other stories (Apt Pupil and The Breathing Method) from the collection are ones you might prefer to skip - certainly I don't intend re-reading them.
As for full length novels:
The Dead Zone is a real favourite of mine. The title comes from the fact the protagonist is injured early in the book and some parts of his memory seem to be inaccessible, and he calls this "the dead zone" (it has nothing to do with zombies!). The book is (for me) so much better than the descriptions I've read of it.
The Stand is another favourite.
King is, for me, one of those writers that rates all over the place. The books I mentioned above get a 5/5 from me, but some (like
Cujo) get only a 2/5. As might be apparent, I prefer his earlier books. I suspect he became too big a name to be properly edited, and it shows.