Re: Best Stephen King Book Ever
Lillia Iniguez
In our recent interview with Stephen King, we asked the author to name the best book he ever wrote. Without a moment's hesitation he went with Lisey's Story, a 2006 novel about a woman coping with the death of her husband, who happened to be a best-selling author. We figured many of his fans would have a different choice, so we opened it up for a vote. Here are the results, but note that the vast number of Dark Tower books made it hard for any one of them to make a great showing on the list.
King tackles the genre with a clever tale about a nefarious killer at a North Carolina amusement park in this detective mystery novel. After a carny grows privy to the death that shrouds the once pleasant location, it is up to him to help crack the case and catch a killer. King isn't a detective mystery novelist by trade, but this is an impeccable attempt at it. While it isn't necessarily the best in comparison to his other novels, it does highlight the author's capability to shift from the horror to the mystery genre to capture the horrors that exist in every aspect of life.
Stephen King takes on classic werewolf stories in Cycle Of The Werewolf. It is Stephen King's shortest novel to date. Each chapter is its own story that features a werewolf terrorizing a small town every time the moon is at its fullest. It is a more traditional werewolf tale, with very few King twists, making it a solid and casual read. Cycle Of The Werewolf is neither good nor bad. It's just not the most remarkable story he's ever written and can easily get overlooked.
The Eyes Of The Dragon is one of the first fantasy novels that King authored in his lengthy career. It features a medieval setting, magic, and the classic battle between good and evil. The novel's setting is tied into The Dark Tower series as a Delain is one of its In-Worlds. Critics regarded The Eyes Of The Dragon as one of his best works when it was initially released. While it has its merits, it's not the best story he has ever crafted.
Wolves Of The Calla is the fifth installment in The Dark Tower series. It is one of the most action-packed novels in the series, with several fantastical battles that culminate in a strange discovery. While it is the fifth story out of the eight total included in The Dark Tower, it's arguably one of the best due to its ability to grab the reader's attention and keep it for the entirety instead of bogging them down with rich detail. Other installments have notably let down the series' fanbase, but Wolves Of The Calla proved that it could get better over time.
Firestarter is a story about hallucinogenic drugs, their lasting impact on the human body, and pyrokinetic abilities. With government conspiracies backing up this sci-fi horror novel, it is one of the greatest works King has ever authored. A wealth of real-life conspiracies and true events assisted in the story's overall creation, making it all the more fascinating. Universal and Blumhouse released a live action film adaptation in 2022.
Stephen King's story of Carrie White has been adapted and retold several times since the book's release in 1974. It was Stephen King's first novel, paving the way for the author to become the king of horror that he is today. Carrie tells the story of a telekinetic young woman whose powers develop after she menstruates for the first time. It is told through various documents uncovered during the investigation into the fire she caused at her high school. The format of this novel is relatively rare, and King perfectly utilizes the investigative method to tell one of horror's most important stories.
Ultimately, IT is the best novel King has authored to date. While it may be a divisive story, it is one of the most detailed, articulate, and timeless tales that he has ever written. It could tie with The Shining and Misery for its impact on popular culture and horror history, but its universe-building narratives set it apart from all the rest. If it weren't for Pennywise the Dancing Clown's own origin story, this book could have fallen lower on this list. However, its impeccable storyline, alongside King's astounding ability to weave in several coming-of-age stories under the umbrella of one larger tale, sets it apart from the others.
Several other Stephen King books could have easily tied for first place, but none are as talked about, questioned, and theorized on as IT. Likewise, the recent movie adaptations of King's timeless novel have propelled levels of interest to an all-time high, leading fans to apply new meanings and thinking to a decades-old book, keeping it fresh for generations. The story of the Losers Club as they go up against Pennywise as children and then as adults has become a classic tale about overcoming obstacles, abusive environments, and the horrors around coming of age.
We live among walking legends, from LeBron James and Steven Spielberg to Paul McCartney and Meryl Streep. In the category of writing, Stephen King is among the very best. The 76-year-old from Maine has written countless classics, with a signature ability to both instill fear and keep readers helplessly attached to the plot.
Firestarter, used a similar concept of a young girl who can start fires with her mind, but Carrie is the OG. Speaking of which, feel free to read our list of the best classic horror books and the best classic horror movies.
Horror books are tantalizing reads that fully engross us. They can scare us to the bone and that's a thrill ride we can't give up. And if suspense is what we're after, there's hardly another choice than these best Stephen king books to read this winter, or any time of year,
We all know the proper steps to get a good night's sleep: No caffeine after 2 p.m., no staring at screens in bed as blue light is horrible for sleep, no drinking excessively before bed, and most importantly, having a bedtime routine. Other helpful actions can include sleeping in a totally dark room, keeping the ambient room temperature around 68 degrees Fahrenheit, making sure to go to bed and wake up at the same time every day (yes, even on weekends), and getting outside in sunlight first thing in the morning (window sun does not count).
Whether it is your dad, grandpa, a brother, a cousin, or a paternal or father figure, Father's Day is the time to celebrate the special men in your life. Regardless of whatever you call him, he's the man who helped you become the individual you are today. Outside of working his tail off and making sure he's turned off every unused light in the house, he's still just a man who has interests and hobbies. Some dads go fishing to blow off steam, while others collect vinyl records.
"The Green Mile" is a series that was released one volume at a time in 1996, with each installment landing on the "New York Times" Best-Seller List. Now compiled as a single work, it follows Paul Edgecombe, a prison guard at Cold Mountain Penitentiary where convicted killers wait to walk "the green mile" to the electric chair. Though Paul has seen nearly everything, his experiences with inmate John Coffey are like no other. John is a strange inmate, convicted of a depraved crime despite appearing to have the mind of a child. This is a thought-provoking and emotional novel, an iconic and believable story that mixes in shocking elements consistent with King's horror style.
Stark is an incredibly terrifying villain born from the pen name of Beaumont that he stopped using. However, George Stark returned and set out to kill everyone associated with his "death" after Beaumont stopped using the pen name. The novel touches on King's own time working under the name of Richard Bachman, but with a supernatural twist.
King was teaching Dracula to high school students and wondered what would happen if Old World vampires came to a small New England town. This was the germ of 'Salem's Lot, which King called "Peyton Place meets Dracula".[34][35] In two interviews in the 1980s, King called it his favorite of his novels.[36][37] (He now calls Lisey's Story his favorite of his novels.)[19][38] King's mother died from uterine cancer around the time 'Salem's Lot was published.[1] After his mother's death, King and his family moved to Boulder, Colorado. He paid a visit to the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park which provided the basis for The Shining, about an alcoholic writer and his family taking care of a hotel for the winter.[39] King's family returned to Auburn, Maine in 1975, where he completed The Stand, an apocalyptic novel about a pandemic and its aftermath. King recalls that it was the novel that took him the longest to write, and that it was "also the one my longtime readers still seem to like the best (there's something a little depressing about such a united opinion that you did your best work twenty years ago, but we won't go into that just now, thanks.)"[40] In 1977, the Kings, with the addition of Owen Philip, their third and youngest child, traveled briefly to England. They returned to Maine that fall, and King began teaching creative writing at the University of Maine.[41] The courses he taught on horror provided the basis for his first nonfiction book, Danse Macabre. In 1979, he published The Dead Zone, about an ordinary man gifted with second sight. It was the first of his novels to take place in Castle Rock, Maine.
When asked if fear was his main subject, King said "In every life you get to a point where you have to deal with something that's inexplicable to you, whether it's the doctor saying you have cancer or a prank phone call. So whether you talk about ghosts or vampires or Nazi war criminals living down the block, we're still talking about the same thing, which is an intrusion of the extraordinary into ordinary life and how we deal with it. What that shows about our character and our interactions with others and the society we live in interests me a lot more than monsters and vampires and ghouls and ghosts."[18]
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