I just discovered i had this in my collection already, BUT I did not have a first edition. Now I do. Hoo-hah.My review is the same -- one of the top five of King's books, evenly written and evenly paced, with the horror building up into a mighty crescendo of evil horror. Of the apparitions, the most horrific to me were the topiary animals.The ending is different than the movie ending, with more violence in the book. ( )

This book finally made me understand the draw of Steven King. I had previously read three other novels and been unimpressed, but in The Shining, King's mastery of writing is easily experienced. I was hooked from page one and hesitated every time I was forced to put it down. An absolute must read! ( )

This book scared the crap out of me!! I am a mom, so most of my reading is done right before I go to bed....needless to say, while reading this book, I had many nightmare-filled nights!! The only negative I have to say about this book, is that it had way too much curse words for me, and I don't feel they were really necessary to the plot of the book. Other than that, amazing read!! ( )

Scared the living crap out of me! A wonderful read. One of King's best! ( )

Not a bad book, but not as good as Carrie, in my opinion. The first four parts of the book were great, but the last part got a little too silly for my tastes. It seemed to me that the story was going in the direction of a man who was simply going insane and that would have been a good way to conclude it without bringing in supernatural aspects of the hotel. It would have been interesting to see how everything was explained through Jack's insanity. But that's not how it was done. The story was well told, regardless, and King's attention to detail in his writing gets better with each book I read. ( )