What are Stephen King's best books?

Different Seasons

Three of the four stories were turned into movies. Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, Apt Pupil and The Body which became Stand by Me.

Under the Dome was a great book as well, but the show sucked donkey balls.
 
shadow_priest_x said:
Out of curiosity, have you seen any of the made-for-TV mini-series that have been made based on King's books, and if so, which do you think were the best?
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I have seen them all...please keep in mind I am easier on them then some because I am a fan and would still rather see a mediocre King Adaptation than something else.

1. Storm of The Century--Excellent, unnervingly good.
2. It- Great casting, loved it even though corny at times.
3. The Stand--Not easy to transfer imo, but well done.
4. Tommyknockers--Pretty good, has Traci Lords
5. The Langoliers--Terrible special effects, cool story
 
I enjoyed the gunslinger and got caught up with life in the middle of the second dark tower book. It was getting wacky.

Couldn't finish Cujo.

All of my favorite stories of his come from his novellas.

The mist is a GREAT story and perfect in short form.

Apt Pupil is fucked up and not in horror type of way. My favorite of King's.

The body (stand by me) is a great dark drama about kids who dont understand death until they see it.

Just pick up the book Different Seasons and you got Shawshank, stand by me and apt pupil all in one. It's worth it.

Also, even though apt pupil is my favorite, Survivor Type is the one story that I remember most of all of his work. And I think it was only about 16 pages. Here's a synopsis:
"Survivor Type" is written as the diary of a disgraced surgeon, Richard Pine (real name Richard Pinzetti), who, while attempting to smuggle a large amount of heroin on a cruise ship, finds himself marooned on a tiny islandin the Pacific with very limited supplies and no food. A self-proclaimed "survivor" type, his diary entries documenting his day-to-day activities become more and more disjointed and raving, revealing his slow mental decay and eventual insanity caused by starvation, isolation, and drug use.
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The one I enjoyed the best was the first one I ever read: Desperation. This was a long ass time ago, over 20 years, but I remember thinking that it was good, and the name of the book was awesome. Unfortunately, the made for TV movie followed suite with all the others - awful
 
greygoose said:
The one I enjoyed the best was the first one I ever read: Desperation. This was a long ass time ago, over 20 years, but I remember thinking that it was good, and the name of the book was awesome. Unfortunately, the made for TV movie followed suite with all the others - awful
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Wasn't that two books but from different perspectives?
 
It
The Shining
Rage
The Long Walk
Salem's Lot

I'm currently trying to read the Dark Half which my brother gave to me but it's a hard read. It's fun reading George Stark's segments but Thad & Liz Beaumont are just so boring and it just drags and drags. I've been reading it for 2 months and i'm only halfway through
 
bufetadanacara said:
Isn't Sun Dog part of Four Past Midnight? I liked the Langoliers from that group. Secret Window was ok.
Needful Things was good.

The Stand, uncut version, is the best.
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Got the 2 mixed up when writing the post. Thanks for the pickup. Still didn't like sundog. The only story I couldn't finish. The stand is also very good.
 
scorpipede said:
IT, From A Buick 8, Dark Tower series, any of his short story collections although a couple of his newer ones I haven't read yet. Check out The Man in the Black Suit. Great short story. Puckered my anus back when I first read it. Lots of others. He had a lot of great stuff up until he got crunched up by that van.
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The Man in the Black Suit is the scariest thing I've ever read.
 
Stephen King is at his best when he has an editor that can trim his stuff down. Sometimes he gets Lord of The Ringish with pages. Meanwhile his shorter stuff is great. Thinner, The Mist, The Body, Joyland, The Colorado kid....
 
SaucyJack said:
I recently read 11/22/63. I really enjoyed it. I felt disappointed at the end, as I often do, maybe because it's really more about the journey than how it turns out.
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King's endings are notoriously disappointing, so perhaps not..
 
GordoBarraBJJ said:
Wasn't that two books but from different perspectives?
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He wrote The Regulators under his Bachman alias. I can't remember if I read that one, but both books run...parallel to one another? A number of the same characters but in different situations/circumstances.
 
The stand , the talisman , it , through the eyes of the dragon , the dark tower series if you can tolerate the end being crappy crap and making you mad and 11/22/63 which I thought was his best ever .
 
greygoose said:
He wrote The Regulators under his Bachman alias. I can't remember if I read that one, but both books run...parallel to one another? A number of the same characters but in different situations/circumstances.
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Yeah - I did read both but it was ages ago.
 
The Stand - read that ages ago as well.

I've read a quite a few but off the top of my head I cannot remember most of them - have not read the recent stuff.

The Green Mile novelette series was good.
 
The Bachman Books. All of them are great. If you've ever seen The Running Man, you should read the book to see just how much "creative license" was taken while making the movie.
 
A lot of good suggestion, one particular short story always stayed with me though, Survivor Type. Its worth a read, it doesn't really get more creepy than that story.
 
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