Favorite King Book

The Dark Tower Series is my favorite. After that though I have a couple, Bag of Bones, It, Gerald's Game, and Salem's Lot. Of course they're all great books.........it's so hard to choose..

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For me it's The Gunslinger. It started the series and is just a solid book.

Hearts in Atlantis - a great trip down Memory Lane to the time of the protests against the Viet Nam war

Bag of Bones, definitely, although I agree with SqueakyChu that Hearts in Atlantis is a real trip down Memory Lane. Puts me right back in the guys' dorm across the quad.

In a completely different vein, I also really like On Writing.

The Green Mile (I read it when they were all published in one book) is my absolute favorite, but I also really enjoyed Needful Things (except the end... I hated the end of the book) and Pet Cemetary

I haven't read a lot of his stuff, but I enjoyed Misery the most.

I agree with with #1, #4 Bag of Bones was my all time favorite. I find that interesting - I don't think that particular book as being particularly well-known. I also really liked Salem's Lot and Wizard and Glass.

Definitely, Bag of Bones. The story was with me for a long time.

My favorite King book must be The Green Mile, closely followed by Misery and Bag of Bones.

I'm surprised I don't see The Stand here. I thought that was his best, in the original published version (not the later released longer edition).

For me, there are four: Salem's Lot (scared me spitless); The Stand (a desert-island favorite); The Green Mile (horrifying and wonderful, at different times and sometimes at the same time; also loved the movie); The Shawshank Redemption (different from King's usual but amazing; loved the movie too).

Stephen King is one author I use to read but got tired of years ago.but the ones I liked back then were Firestarter and The Stand (the oringinal not the extended version).
They have re-printed some of his early work he wrote under the pen name Richard Bachman, which I have enjoyed Namely The Long Walk and The Running Man. The latter of which I was quite surprized with.
Another one of his I found interesting was Thinner.

I think The Stand is probably my favourite as it seems to be the one I re-read the most, closely followed by IT. Insomnia is another one that I like to re-read and I like the Desperation and Regulators books. From a buick 8 and Everything's Eventual are becoming more recent favourites and the Dark Tower series is one of the best I have ever read by any author.

I liked The Stand a lot - think I read it more than once. And I LOVED The Body, the short story from Different Seasons that the movie Stand By Me was based on. There are two lines in that story, one about the ability of words to hurt and one... I can't remember that are just phenomenal and the reason why I have always thought SK was vastly under-rated. Of course then I read - or started to read - Dreamcatcher and had to quit it was so inane. But we all get to make mistakes on occasion, lucky us.

Ah, I remembered loving Dreamcatcher, I especially loved the character Beaver! I agree that it was quite.. insane as you put it, but great none the less in my opinion. The movie, on the other hand, was a huge disapointment. =/

My favorite King books are Bag of Bones, Misery and Dolores Claiborn. Can't wait to read his new one Duma Key!!

I really like his short stories that aren't horror. Two of my favorites are Shawshank Redemption (which I read before the movie but I like both) and The Body (which I read after the movie but I like both). I also liked Everything's Eventual (the short story) and I read that The Stand and the Dark Towers series are part of that same reality. So I'm really keen of reading them, but the size is daunting. I've continously borrowed The Stand from the library but still haven't read it.

#17 - once you get going on The Stand it's worth the effort, but I admit that the size of the book can by daunting before you start. Once you have bonded with the characters you really start to care about what happens to them and once that has happened the only issue about the thickness of the book is that you want it to be longer. It might be difficult to bond with them to start with though as there are a lot of them, but you'll probably pick a couple of favourites out of the book and really focus on them. This is my favourite SK book in that it is the one I reread the most but I would also say give the Dark Tower series a try too, it's a bit of a commitment but it's worth it.

#18 - Jody, I've just borrowed The Stand yet again from the library. This time I'm determined to read it! Although I do have a couple of other books to get through first. But this time the library had a paperback copy instead of the hardcover doorstop I usually borrow but intimidates me no end.

#19 ~ As Jody has said, once you get into it, you won't be able to put it down and will only wish it were longer!

Reading all that's been said about The Stand, I'm afraid I'm going to have to dig out my (hardcover) copy of it and reread it. :)

It and The Stand were the same for me. They were both worth the effort because the characters were great.

Luckily I read them when I was a teenager and for some reason I translated aggression into looking for the biggest book I could find and reading it. Weird I know, but somehow it prove my superiority to the morons around me. Ah youth. :P

Got a question -- I really like the Dark Tower books. Just finished the third. But I am not at all a horror or thriller reader. What should be my next King book (beside finishing the series of course) ?

Dolores Claiborne is a good story without being supernatural and Different Seasons has two non-supernatural, very good stories that have also been made into films, The Shawshank Redemption and The Body (filmed as Stand By Me).

Hearts in Atlantis has links to the Dark Tower and is a group of stories that are linked but can be read alone. There is a little more supernatural stuff in this one but it is a very good book and well worth reading.

Everything's Eventual is my favourite of his stort story collections and the good thing about the short stories is that you can dip in and out of the book if you don't like all of the stories. Nightmares and Dreamscapes is also very good for this.

I wouldn't dismiss any of his books though as they are also great comments on the history, politics and social issues of America, it's just that most of them are told with a horror/thriller slant. Even if that's not what you are usually reading, King does this better than anyone so you can rely on him to give you something worth having from his books.

It's been a very long time since I've read King, but I used to be a big fan of his non-horror. The stuff I liked were stories like what you'd find on the TV show "the Twilight Zone." The reason I stopped reading him was because too many books started out Twilight Zone-ish, but the last quarter would turn into horror. The ones that I remember liking that fit this description were:

-Night Shift, a collection of short stories. Some are horror, but from what I remember, most aren't.
-Misery
-Gerald's Game
-Dead Zone

I also thought the Shining, Carrie and the Firestarter were really good, but I probably can't call those 3 non-horror.

And of course, there's the penultimate King book, the Stand. I personally wouldn't classify it as horror.

Has anyone watched the mini-series movie, The Stand? I'm in the middle (actually the early stages) of reading The Stand and I'm thinking about watching the movie afterwards. Is it worth investing the 6 hours to watch?

The mini-series is OK. It's hard to summarize The Stand in 6 hours, but that's better than trying to do it in 2 hours.

My favorites for years have been The Stand and The Bachman Books. Rage had a big impact on me 25 or so years ago (I hunted for years for a decent copy of the original book and finally landed one, since Rage isn't published anymore), and The Running Man and The Long Walk have always been vivid in my mind's eye. Roadwork didn't do much for me, though.

I guess I like his short stories more than most of the long stuff, barring The Stand. Apt Pupil. The Mangler. Night Shift. Many, many more.

The Green Mile and Needful Things. I loved The Stand. I took me so long to get into and then,POW, I was so involved. I really enjoyed the book. The miniseries was OK, but some of the casting left something to be desired.

I really liked The Shining, Dead Zone, and Hearts in Atlantis for ESP, psychical kind of weird stuff. But my fave fave is The Green Mile. It's epic, remeniscient of ancient hero tales, and deals with the idea of right prevailing over wrong while showing reality (by that I mean John is executed even though he's innocent because during that time periond he was guilty of being black.)

For me it definitely was The Shining, but I really enjoyed most of his books. I just read The Long Walk, which I thought was excellent too.

The Shining,, The Shining, The Shining. Loved lots of other books, but this was my all time favorite.

My favorite Stephen King books are his early works - 'Salem's Lot, The Shining, and The Stand. I also loved The Talisman, which he co-wrote with Peter Straub (not one of my favorite authors, but I did enjoy his Ghost Story). Their sequel, Black House, was good, though not as good as the original.

The Dark Tower series was great; my favorite book of the series was Part V - Wolves of the Calla.