The following is a complete list of books published by Stephen King, an American author of contemporary horror, thriller, science fiction, and fantasy. His books have sold more than 400 million copies,[1][needs update] and many of them have been adapted into feature films, television movies, and comic books. King has published 65 novels/novellas, including seven under the pen name Richard Bachman, and five nonfiction books. He has written over 200 short stories, most of which have been compiled in book collections. Many of his works are set in his home state of Maine.
As a child, I found it impossible to walk into the building without feeling embraced by the architecture and falling into a state of hushed reverence for books. I often went there two or three times a week, back in a period when children were allowed to walk places on their own. I went for the books, naturally enough, but also for the feeling of entering a different world, one in which there was unqualified approval of literary pursuits.
I spent the next morning at my desk, attempting to conjure Rain Mitchell and begin composing this grand six-week soap opera. The effort proved pointless. I was surrounded by bills to pay, a bathtub that needed another scrubbing, food that demanded to be eaten, sweaters and fitted sheets that need to refolded for a fifth time. I was, in other words, way too present at my own desk.
I sat down at a desk and entered a kind of trance, one in which I left myself behind and fully embodied Rain. I found it effortless to write, and by closing time, I had produced ten pages of the novel.
We are happy to finally be able to offer prints in addition to books that can be purchased here from Stephen's extensive body of work. There is currently a limited selection of prints that can be purchased directly here online as well as a listing of other prints from other series portfolios. Given there are numerous works and series available, we are unable to present all series prints here, so please email with specific image enquires.
This essay is adapted from my Robert B. Silvers Lecture at the New York Public Library earlier this year, which was drawn from my Reading the Constitution: Why I Chose Pragmatism, Not Textualism (Simon and Schuster, 2024). The lecture and essay, like the book on which they are based, contain no revelations of private information, including within the Court or at conference. The descriptions and analyses refer to cases, legal opinions, articles, and books that are publicly available or to thoughts and analyses that are my own.
Why interpret the law in this way? Textualists typically say that purposes are too difficult to find, and that even if they were not, a statutory phrase may serve multiple, and even opposing, purposes. Textualists further contend that a description of purpose found in committee reports or other legislative history may reflect the views or the language of lobbyists or unelected congressional staff members rather than of elected members of Congress. The traditional examination of purpose, consequences, and values, textualists say, allows unelected, life-tenured judges to substitute their own ideas of what is good for the law itself.
Textualists then make four important, related promises. First, they suggest that there is a single right answer to each interpretive problem. A commitment to finding that single right answer will lead to fewer disagreements among judges and greater public faith in the courts.
Third, textualists promise that sticking to the text will help the legislator as well as the judge. By following a set of linguistic and interpretive canons, they contend, judges will help develop a system in which Congress can compromise and incorporate competing purposes into a single statute, assured of the rules that judges will follow when it comes time to interpret the text.
Fourth, they promise that textualism will prove a fairer system, for the law will mean the same thing in the hands of every judge, thereby increasing the likelihood that it will treat all litigants alike.
Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the Constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but are consistent with the letter and the spirit of the Constitution, are Constitutional.
The Court thought these laws were not sufficiently analogous. Some were too old. Some were too recent. Some applied to too few people. Some did not involve licensing. Some applied only after an individual had threatened the peace. Some regulated only concealed, not open, carry. In light of this disagreement, the dissent observed that since analogy often depends upon the minor details of very old laws, the true answer to what historical analogies were valid was: Who knows? Put another way, not only are judges not historians, but historical analogies, like language, are at least to some degree indeterminate.
Consider the number of mass shootings, the number of firearm-assisted suicides, the number of gun-related domestic homicides, the number of police officers killed by guns in the line of duty. And consider the evidence suggesting that limiting the number of guns and their carriage can help to limit the number of firearm deaths. Then consider Chief Justice Marshall, McCulloch, and the need for a workable Constitution. Should an interpretive approach grounded in that Constitution ignore these practical realities and the deadly consequences of striking down the efforts of democratically elected bodies to address them? Certainly not, I believe.
The second problem with originalism in Dobbs concerns stare decisis, a Latin phrase meaning that a court should generally stand by what has previously been decided. The doctrine of stare decisis is a long-standing principle of American law. It not only protects cases that later courts thought were decided correctly; it also prevents continuous reexamination of cases that may well now be thought wrong. Perhaps cases that long ago held that corporations were persons, or limited who may sue for antitrust damages, or others, were wrongly decided. Should the Court now reexamine them, deciding anew what is right? That approach, even were it practically possible, would reduce the law to a shambles. For without some basic legal stability, who would know what to expect or do next?
My point is that it is difficult to find subsidiary rules that help courts apply the Religion Clauses. It is less difficult, however, to return to the core purpose of the Religion Clauses: to reduce religious strife and promote harmony between people of different beliefs. Two cases from shortly after the turn of this millennium illustrate this reference to constitutional values and purpose in practice.
A majority of the Court (of which I was one) said the crucial question was whether the state had a secular purpose in creating a public display of an object whose primary purpose was religious. It concluded that the state did not: initially the Ten Commandments alone made up the display; lower courts had found that it violated the Establishment Clause, so the state officials added a few secular documents. This, the Court concluded, changed nothing; the state seemed to be looking for a way to avoid the holdings of the earlier cases (without complying). These factors, along with a few others, convinced the majority that the display was primarily religious, favoring some religions over others.
Indeed, one broader consideration counseled strongly against invalidating the monument in Van Orden on Establishment Clause grounds: such a ruling could have sparked disputes over long-standing depictions of the Ten Commandments on public buildings across the nation. That result, in turn, might have created the kind of religious divisiveness that the Establishment Clause sought to avoid. An originalist would likely not consider those consequences. But doing so in this case enabled the Court to advance the basic values that underlay the Religion Clauses, ensuring that a constitutional provision designed to work and to last will actually do so.
There are some reasons for fearing they will. The judges who favor textualism believe strongly in its value. They have used it to help decide not simply the cases I have mentioned but many others during the past few years. Yet there are also important reasons for believing that textualism and originalism will not carry the day.
I slept fitfully that night, dreamed a recurrent dream about a car repair shop whose employees were straight out of some noir pulp novel and to whom I seemed to be forever indebted, due to bad driving habits or moral failings. And then one weirdly warm January day in Wisconsin, I found myself in the King section of a bookstore, where a good twenty-five of his fifty or so books were on display. I picked the one that I thought my New York editor friend had recommended twenty-five years ago, the one about the demonic car.
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Stephen Ministries St. Louis develops and publishes books on a variety of topics. These books can be used as caring resources for congregations, equipping tools within your Stephen Ministry and other ministry settings, and references for personal study and growth. Click any book or title to learn more about it.
Empathy is a skill virtually anyone can learn or improve, and The Gift of Empathy empowers readers to do just that. This book takes an in-depth look at how empathy can strengthen relationships and enhance communication, equipping readers with practical insights they can use in all areas of life.
Leader Killers applies the principles from Antagonists in the Church to leadership in the business world and social sectors. It provides practical strategies to identify antagonists, deal with them effectively, and create an anti-antagonist culture in the organization, protecting morale and productivity.
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