10 Best Stephen King Books

Rolling Stone did a poll, asking what the 10 best Stephen King books are.  The answers -- a little ridiculous.  (www.rollingstone.com) I am glad they allowed novella's to count.

Here is the Rolling Stone line up:
10. Wizard and Glass. (REALLY?!)
9. Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption.
8. The Dead Zone
7. The Green Mile
6. 11.22.63
5. Misery
4. Salem's Lot
3. The Shining
2. IT
1. The Stand

I wonder if Shawshank might be getting a huge boost from movie memory.  I read the novella recently, and was struck by how much butter the movie is.  In fact, the same is true of The Body, which was turned into Stand By Me.  I liked the movie better.  In turn, I wonder if books like Bag of Bones might be overlooked because of the poor performance of the mini-series. Notice all the books selected were adapted nicely to screen, with the exception of Wizard and Glass.  In fact, The Deadzone and The Shining have both been given multiple treat

And I'm glad a Dark Tower novel made the list. . . but Wizard and Glass?  My favorites of that series were Drawing of the Three and Wolves of the Calla.

What would a correct list look like?  Glad you asked. . .
10. Christine
9. The Green Mile
8. Joyland
7. Salem's Lot
6. Dolores Claiborne
5. 11.22.63
4. The Shining
3. Pet Sematary
2. IT
1. The Stand

So I chose a lot of books people tell me they don't like.  (Pet Sematary, Christine, Joyland, Dolores Claiborne.)  But in many ways, these novels are much stronger than they are given credit for.  Dolores Claiborne in particular is an incredibly intense novel that is driven by both character and plot.  In fact, there are two plots moving through the book, and a connection point to Gerald's Game.  Frankly, it's brilliant.  Why is it so easily overlooked?  Because it was written in a period that was experimental for King.  So books like Needful Things, Gerald's Game, Rose Madder were not as strong and to some degree, I think, caused Dolores Claiborne to be lumped in with them.

Also, Pet Sematary is a dark, terrible novel.  (Expect a similar darkness to loom over Revival.) But it is also a strong novel.  In fact, I think it is better -- even scarier in theme --than The Shining.  Think about it, the guy digs up his dead sons body!  King takes you there!  The Shining is an exceedingly closed in novel; at points it's a tough read.  The Shining has been romanticized, so people give it a little more grace than they might otherwise. The thing is, The Shining is very closed in; almost claustrophobic.  In fact, note what reviews at the time said compared to modern readers.  The story is almost solely carried by three characters trapped in a hotel.  It is slow going for a few pages.  Yeah, when it starts rolling, it's good stuff!

I also think Joyland is too easily skipped over. What's great about that book is not the plot;  the mystery is secondary.  What makes the novel really strong is King's ability to take us back to 1973 and to the feelings of first love.  It's one thing to read a book King wrote in the 70's and think, "wow, this feels like the seventies alright."  Try reading the original edition of The Stand.  In fact, the revised version of The Stand still has flavors of the seventies.  But with Joyland, King wasn't writing during the period; but he perfectly recreated it. He did something similar with both IT and 11.22.63.

Does Christine deserve to be on a Stephen King top ten list?  I think so.  Not only is the novel a good one, but it represents the young Stephen King anxious to just drive the horror home.  It's a bloodbath; and unapologetically so.  The reader can feel King's joy.  Cars, rock and roll, and girls -- oh, and a ghost. It's not "deep" -- but it is a delight for the horror fan. King got himself into a hole when he wrote his narrator into a hospital bed.  So mid novel, he switched to third person!  I'm surprised he didn't rewrite the novel to stay with one perspective; but ultimately it is fine with me.  Who really cares if a writers switches between narrative styles?  Only my English teacher; and she's dead.

Don't you hate top ten lists?  Me too.  Good,  now give  me yours. . . 

Far more fun than a 10 Best list is a 10 worst list. And the funny thing is -- I still read and enjoy several of the books off this list.  They're just not King at the top of his game.  But, unable to come up with TEN -- here's five.
5. Gerald's Game
4. Insomnia.
3. The Tommyknockers
2. Dreamcatcher
1. Cell

Highlights From the ROLLING STONE Interview

Rolling Stone has  posted their interview with Stephen King (rollingstone.com/culture)

The interview is interesting.  King admits he still feels insecurity.  He also admits that there is a cost to being "too political."  King says he never liked Tom Clancy, not because of politics, but because he did not feel Clancy was a good writer. Keep in mind, Clancy is almost totally plot-driven, while King is character driven. However, King likes an author named Stephen Hunter, and he's a republican.  So his taste in books and writing are not driven by his political views.  Or, put another way -- you can read novels by someone you politically disagree with.  (Sounds familiar to me)

Funny thing, King says he watched  about half of the room 237 documentary and then got "impatient" with it. He also says he doesn't "get"  the cult following that's grown up around Kubrick's version of the Shining.

Discussing his upcoming novel Revival, King said he's had the idea since he was a kid. He also noted that actually writing a book takes at least a year for him as it moves through various drafts. "I read this story called The Great God Pan in high school, and there were these two characters waiting to see if this woman could come back from the dead and tell them what was over there. It just creeped me out. The more I thought about it, the more I thought about this Mary Shelley-Frankenstein thing."

When asked if he is done writing the Dark Tower books, King said he's never done with the Tower.  He then drops something of a Tower-Bomb by revealing "those books were never edited, so I look at them as first drafts." Really?  King says the problem is in finding time to rewrite the books.  He acknowledges, "There's a missing element – a big battle at a place called Jericho Hill. And that whole thing should be written, and I've thought about it several times, and I don't know how to get into it."  I've been reading Dark Tower books -- and I agree with him.  I like the novels, bu it does feel like there is more to be done.

The interview also covers familiar ground about addiction and how in the world King would churn out bestsellers while hooked on coke.

Discussing his best and worst novels, King fesses up that in his view The  Tommyknockers is "an awful book."  The problem?  Well, he  says there might be a 350 novel in there -- but it's 700 pages!  That's insightful.  I've thought for a long time King should give us a revised/smaller version of the book, just as he gave us an expanded version of The Stand.

King also admits that he does not like Dreamcatcher.  That's a novel  I also struggled with; even though the early pages were totally engrossing.  But what is his favorite book?  Well, it's another I can't get through!  King chooses Lisey's Story. "That one felt like an important book to me because it was about marriage, and I'd never written about that. I wanted to talk about two things: One is the secret world that people build inside a marriage, and the other was that even in that intimate world, there's still things that we don't know about each other."

After discussing his struggles with organized religion, King spoke about his personal belief, stating, "Yeah. I choose to believe in God because it makes things better. You have a meditation point, a source of strength. I don't ask myself, Well, does God exist or does God not exist? I choose to believe that God exists, and therefore I can say, God, I can't do this by myself. Help me not to take a drink today. Help me not to take a drug today. And that works fine for me."

Asked if he wants to go to heaven, King replied, "I don't want to go to the heaven that I learned about when I was a kid. To me, it seems boring. The idea that you're going to lounge around on a cloud all day and listen to guys play harps? I don't want to listen to harps. I want to listen to Jerry Lee Lewis!"

As I read views on religion, I wonder -- who taught this guy?  People on clouds?  That's -- NOWHERE.  Harps?  He must have had like the worst Sunday School teacher ever.

Rolling Stone Gives Us A Glimpse Of REVIVAL

rollingstone.com has posted an excerpt of Stephen King's upcoming novel, REVIVAL.

What excites me is King's statement that the book was a play on Frankenstein.

Stephen King's new book Revival, in stores on November 11th, is a modern-day Frankenstein story about a electricity-obsessed minister that turns on God after his family dies and his five-decade relationship with a drug-added rock guitarist. "I've had the idea for this book since I was a kid," 

Of course, this should come with a request -- "Oh please Mr. King, don't pull one of those Koontz 'I Frankenstein' things on us!"  Of course he won't.

I've got to admit, this book has me a bit nervous.  Not because I'm scared to be scared, but because King and religion sometimes go well together, and sometimes it's an unhappy marriage.

By the way, speaking of religion and horror --I've always thought a haunted church (with a twisted preacher who could raise the dead) would make an awesome horror story.  Most people don't know how truly spooky some parts of a church can be after midnight.