Checking Titles Off The Stephen King List!

My Stephen King Collection

SOMEBODY up on facebook posted something intersting that I’m surprised I never thought to create myself: A CHECKLIST for all of writer STEPHEN KING’S fiction* books!

Had quite a fun time going down the list and checking off the ones that I had read, and found myself surprised, not only by how many I’d read, but how many I THOUGHT I read but realized I didn’t/never completed! Collections like Just After Sunset, Full Dark, No Stars and even novels like Under the Dome and Revival are all books I own and thought I finished, only to discover I had bookmarks in them where I’d gotten distracted and moved on to other books! Looks like I’m going to have to do some finishing up!! 

My Checklist of What I've Read so far:

Funny, Stephen King ’s novels have been such a part of my life since being introduced to his work in High School that just looking through the list of titles, it takes me on a journey through my life!

*PS: I omitted non-fiction works (like DANSE MACABRE and ON WRITING) and other miscellaneous releases (like the CREEPSHOW graphic novel with Bernie Wrightson or the graphic art short-fiction book MY PRETTY PONY and the like) Still quite a list to tackle!

Send In Those Clowns

I think that the current iteration of IT’s villain Pennywise the Clown is forgetting a fundamental thing. Clowns don’t have to be portrayed as these demonic denizens roaming the countryside, like this pic of Bill Skarsgaard:

The reason clowns are scary? Is because they're CLOWNS. and I’m not being sarcastic when I say that the comic “Butterscotch the Clown” from Conan O’Brien’s show is absolutely more terrifying:

 Everything about him creeps me the fuck out. The white makeup, the gloves, even the faded  color of the green costume- all of it sets my alarms off!

The Bill Skaarsgard Pennywise frankly looks like a cool Horror monster. Yeah, scary if you saw it , but totally wicked and bad-ass! The Butterscotch clown, looks like he is simply up to no good. I get a million more bad vibes form him than the slick movie version!

That’s why even in the Tim Curry version, where Tim looked more like the traditional clown, they had to add things like his mouth opening with a million teeth and roaring- they just can't get past the fact that it’s the clown out there in the street with no business being there that’s freaky.

In the book, Pennywise was in the sewer which actually doesn’t make sense- f he was trying to trick Georgie into believing he was kind, wouldn’t he appear in the street? But a playful clown PULLING Georgie into the sewer with all his might?. THAT stuff is creepy as HELL!

Michael Connelly: Dark Sacred Night

Matt Haig: The Humans

Claire North: The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

Thrilling story of a man named Harry August whom, upon his death as an old man, is discovers that he repeats his lives over and over...with his memories of each life intact!

Very intriguing ideas and crazy scenarios played over the decades of death and rebirth....

Stephen King: 11/22/63

A Time-traveling story with some interesting elements that gets bogged down the same way a lot of these things do: Someone jumps into the past or into the future but all the story is about is their boring-ass romance of "Will you tell her you love her?"...

Seriously, at times it seems like King wrote a book JUST about a guy wooing a woman in the 60's and dumped it right in the middle of the time Traveling story. ZZzzzzzzzz.....

Stephen King: Doctor Sleep

After reading King's latest book The Outsider and really digging it, I thought I'd go back and read some of his other books that I'd passed over initially, beginning with the SHINING sequel DOCTOR SLEEP.

In this book, little boy Danny from the original story is back as a grown up recovering alcoholic, who makes contact with a young girl who shares the same "shining" as he does, and their battle against those that prey upon those with the gift.

In a strange coincidence, no sooner had I finished reading this when they released a trailer for a MOVIE to be released starring Ewan McGregor!!!

John Grisham: The Whistler

"Replay" By Ken Grimwood

Man, just started reading "Replay" by Ken Grimwood and it is so good that I've barreled thru a good 1/3rd of it already!!! The story of a 40+ year old man who dies of a heart attack and wakes to find himself brought back to his life as a 19 year old in college!

With the knowledge of the future, he uses what he remembers to mold and shape his life for the (seeming) better, but will these changes bring him happiness and satisfaction? Such a gripping read to watch him as he wrestles with fate to find success, happiness and peace with himself!