Stephen King's Best Novel?

Many great books, most interesting is his range, coming of age novels joyland, the body(stand by me) and the talisman, love stories; 11/22/63, Lisey's
story,non fiction; On writing and Dance Macabre and a whole lot of imaginative horror stories. My favorites are the Dark Tower Series and Hearts in Atlantis. Just for the heck of it I'm adding my least favorite, the terrible "Revival".
 
I just finished FINALLY reading IT. Great story, fantastic characters, and its length for me was a boon.

As much as The Dark Tower cycle holds a special place in my heart, I think IT has displaced it as my favorite King story to date. Others on my favorites list include The Stand, Misery, Insomnia, The Dark Half, and Needful Things.

Really, though, the only book of his I've tried to read that I couldn't get into was Black House. Something about it just couldn't hold my interest.
 
Shorewalker said:
Probably The Stand, with an honorable mention to It.

I too love his longer work and feel those pangs of sadness when approaching the end.

Oh, and although a bit of a detour for Mr King, I thoroughly enjoyed Joyland...even though I doubted I would.
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I absolutely loved Joyland.
 
This isn’t the right thread for this but oh well.

I just saw a SK book in the charity shop for £1 and bought it. I don’t know SK or his books at all really although I’ve read maybe 2 a while ago.

The book I picked up was Duma Key. Is it one of the better ones or a bit rubbish or what?


To make the post slightly more relevant the best of his novels I’ve read is possibly Carrie
 
I just finished sleeping beauties, his latest with his son Owen. It's 700 pages but felt like 1100. From 1 to 10 I would give it a 7. For example I would give 11/22/63 and Hearts in Atlantis a 10 and the Dark Tower Series an 8. I've read a lot of SK and consider him my favorite writer. As for Duma Key, I would give it a 7. It's been 10 years since I read it and I remember it clearly. As I mentioned once before the only SK book I wish I never read was Revival. It was a nightmare and not the good kind.
 
Yeah, I read somewhere that he only wrote that as a fairytale for his children and didn't intend to publish it till his agents pushed him to give them anything that would make money. Revival is just a couple of years old so there's no excuse for that one. If you read SK then you probably read Dean Koontz, stay away from his book called "The Face". I swear I wanted to sue him for wasting my time.
 
Caliban said:
This isn’t the right thread for this but oh well.

I just saw a SK book in the charity shop for £1 and bought it. I don’t know SK or his books at all really although I’ve read maybe 2 a while ago.

The book I picked up was Duma Key. Is it one of the better ones or a bit rubbish or what?


To make the post slightly more relevant the best of his novels I’ve read is possibly Carrie
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Duma Key is great! It's another unfilmable story, so I hope no one gets any silly ideas ;)

Cathbad said:
Love Koontz, but haven't seen that one. Thanks for the warning!
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Same for 'False Memory', Cathbad. Dreadful and overlong. But I was prejudiced because I thought it was about alien abduction but...well...it's not.

pH
 
I like Koontz but I found him more hit and miss than King. Since so many of Kings early works are listed by people I'm going to list a few newer ones.

I thought Mr. Mercedes was excellent. The whole Bill Hodges trilogy was good but first was the best.

11/22/63. This was a different sort for King but still really enjoyable.
 
Anthoney said:
I like Koontz but I found him more hit and miss than King. Since so many of Kings early works are listed by people I'm going to list a few newer ones.

I thought Mr. Mercedes was excellent. The whole Bill Hodges trilogy was good but first was the best.

11/22/63. This was a different sort for King but still really enjoyable.
Click to expand...
I read sleeping beauties, it was an average SK novel which means it was okay but disappointing.
Hulu did 11/22/63 with James Franco. I watched it 2x so it was pretty good.
I bought King's newest the Outsider but can't start it til I finish The Smoke Jumper by Nicholas Evans.
 
I just finished the Outsider. It was definitely better than Sleeping Beauties, it reminded me of the Regulators or Desperation which were both very good and had the same names but were different characters.
For those of you who liked the Bill Hodges Trilogy, Holly Gibney shows up in the 2nd half.
Overall I would recommend it and will probably appreciate it more with rumination.
 
I just read on bookbub that SK has a new book coming out 10/30 that appears to be a "feel good" story just in time for x-mas. What's the world coming to? And no, I'm not kidding. It's called "Elevation" and yes, I will buy it right away with the hope that at least 1 person dies a macabre and gory death.
 
As long as am really enjoying it, his best novel is the one am reading at the time!!!
 
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