In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 28th Year, Weeks 39/52

Books I read in my 28th year, between the 6th-12th of May.  One pre-read and two new ones!

Chart Throb is the reread.  It's one of Ben Elton's books which I have an Audible; I've listened to it probably half a dozen times.

The Plant is an unfinished novel by Stephen King, available to download.  I'll expand more on it when I write my next dedicated King post as part of my chronological challenge.

Finally, Her Smoke Rose Up Forever is one of the best short-story collections I've ever read.  I forget what prompted me to download it, but I'm so glad that I did!

In Which We Discuss Stephen King

First, an update as to where I am with this project right now.


- 15/6/13

Carrie - 1974 -  June 15th 2013
'Salem's Lot - 1975 - June 30th 2013
The Shining - 1977 - July 28th 2013
Rage - 1977 - July 31st 2013
Night Shift - 1978 - August 28th 2013
The Stand - 1978 - March 20th 2014
The Long Walk - 1979 - March 23rd 2014
The Dead Zone - 1979 - June 2014
Firestarter - 1980 - August 16th 2014


- 15/6/13 to 17/8/14 - 9

Roadwork - 1981 - 23rd August 2014
Danse Macabre - 1981 - 7th September 2014
- BONUS: Small World (Tabitha King) - 10th September 2014
Cujo - 1981 - 20th September 2014
The Running Man - 1982- 22nd September 2014
The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger - 1982 - 30th September 2014
Creepshow - 1982 - 1st October 2014
Different Seasons - 1982  - 24th October 2014

- 17/8/14 to 25/10/14 - 8 (17)

Christine - 1983 
Pet Sematary - 1983
Cycle of the Werewolf - 1983
The Talisman - 1984
Thinner - 1984 

- 25/10/14/14 to 14/07/2015 - 5 (22)

Skeleton Crew - 1985
It - 1986
The Eyes of the Dragon - 1987
The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three - 1987
Misery - 1987 

- 14/7/15 to 18/10/2015 - 5 (27)

The Tommyknockers - 1987
Nightmares in the Sky  - 1988
The Dark Half - 1989 

- 18/10/2015 to 22/12/2015 - 3 (30)

Four Past Midnight - 1990
The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands - 1991 
Needful Things - 1991
Gerald's Game - 1992
Dolores Claiborne - 1992
Nightmares and Dreamscapes - 1993

- 22/12/2015 to 24/4/2016 - 6 (36)

Insomnia - 1994
Rose Madder - 1995
The Green Mile - 1996
Desperation - 1996
The Regulators - 1996
Six Stories - 1997
The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass - 1997
Dark Tower: Little Sisters of Eluria (Legend) - 1998
Bag of Bones - 1998
Storm of the Century - 1998
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon - 1999
  
- 24/4/2016 to 14/11/16 - 6 (47)

Hearts in Atlantis - 1999
Blood and Smoke - 1999
"Riding the Bullet" - 2000
On Writing - 2000 
Secret Windows - 2000
The Plant - 2000  
Dreamcatcher - 2001

Black House (with Peter Straub) -2001
Everything's Eventual - 2002
From a Buick 8 - 2002
The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla - 2003
The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah - 2004

The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower - 2004
Faithful - 2004
- BONUS: 20th Century Ghosts (Joe Hill) - Jan 2005
- BONUS: Josie and Jack (Kelly Braffet)  - Feb 2005
- BONUS: We're All in This Together (Owen King) - 2005

The Colorado Kid - 2005
Cell - 2006
Lisey's Story - 2006
Blaze - 2007
Duma Key - 2008

Just After Sunset - 2008 
Stephen King Goes to the Movies - 2009
Ur - 2009
Under the Dome - 2009
Blockade Billy - 2010

Full Dark, No Stars - 2010
Mile 81 - 2011
11/22/63 - 2011
American Vampire (with Scott Snyder) - 2011
"Throttle" (with Joe Hill) - 2012

The Dark Tower: The Wind Through the Keyhole - 2012
A Face in the Crowd (with Stewart O'Nan) - 2012
"In the Tall Grass"  (with Joe Hill) - 2012
"GUNS" - 2013
Ghost Brothers of Darkland County - 2013

Joyland - 2013
The Dark Man: An Illustrated Poem - 2013
Doctor Sleep - 2013
Mr. Mercedes - 2014 
Revival - November 2014

Finders Keepers - 2015
The Bazaar of Bad Dreams - 2015
End of Watch - 2016

I realise that I've not written a post since The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, and since my copy of Secret Windows arrived today, I should probably get on with that.

Hearts in Atlantis is a series of loosely interconnected stories and novellas set in the sixties, at the time of the Vietnam War.  The titular Hearts in Atlantis is about a college student who becomes addicted to playing Hearts and risks dropping out.  The theme of the collection is failure, and the idea that the baby boomer generation didn't live up to their potential.  There are a few links to The Dark Tower, mostly in the first novella, Low Men in Yellow Coats.

I started writing this post quite a while ago; since then, I've finished Secret Windows, which is a collection of introductions and various other bits of collected writing from Stephen King.  I quite enjoyed it, particularly his thoughts on fantasy.  He pointed out that fantasy stories are about gaining and losing power, except for the bad ones which are about someone who just maintains their power.

I've just started The Plant, and I'm quite disappointed that it's unfinished because I'm enjoying it!

After this project - probably after I've finished my degree - I think my next project will be to read the entirety of the sci-fi masterworks series.  That or the fantasy masterworks.  That way, I'll complete my collections as well.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 28th Year, Week 27-29 of 52

Four books in three weeks!  An audiobook, one on Kobo, two on Kindle.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 28th Year, Week 26/52

Ghost Girl was a library book; very, very, silly, but also quite sad.

Riding the Bullet was pretty short - about half an hour - but gripping.  It's a love and a ghost story, built on cliches but somehow original.

In Which We Discuss the Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

This post has been a long time coming, and I apologise for that.  I read - or rather, listened to - this book between the 11th and 13th of September this year. 

Sports Memorabilia

I first read it around 2010, and I remember liking it.  There's a lot I didn't get though.  I don't think I knew that Tom Gordon is a real person, for instance, and I didn't realise it took place on the Appalachian Trail.



 I'm currently doing a virtual walk of the Appalachian Trail - you just go here and tell it how many miles you've walked, and it tracks how far along you are - so it was pretty interesting to read about it with a little more knowledge.

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is fairly short;  I remember it as being 200-300 pages, and the audiobook is only 6 hours long.  That might be one of the reasons I like it; Stephen King makes it worth the journey, but I have a very short attention span.

Here's an update of the list!

- 15/6/13

Carrie - 1974 -  June 15th 2013
'Salem's Lot - 1975 - June 30th 2013
The Shining - 1977 - July 28th 2013
Rage - 1977 - July 31st 2013
Night Shift - 1978 - August 28th 2013
The Stand - 1978 - March 20th 2014
The Long Walk - 1979 - March 23rd 2014
The Dead Zone - 1979 - June 2014
Firestarter - 1980 - August 16th 2014


- 15/6/13 to 17/8/14 - 9

Roadwork - 1981 - 23rd August 2014
Danse Macabre - 1981 - 7th September 2014
- BONUS: Small World (Tabitha King) - 10th September 2014
Cujo - 1981 - 20th September 2014
The Running Man - 1982- 22nd September 2014
The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger - 1982 - 30th September 2014
Creepshow - 1982 - 1st October 2014
Different Seasons - 1982  - 24th October 2014

- 17/8/14 to 25/10/14 - 8 (17)

Christine - 1983
Pet Sematary - 1983
Cycle of the Werewolf - 1983
The Talisman - 1984
Thinner - 1984 

- 25/10/14/14 to 14/07/2015 - 5 (22)

Skeleton Crew - 1985
It - 1986
The Eyes of the Dragon - 1987
The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three - 1987
Misery - 1987 

- 14/7/15 to 18/10/2015 - 5 (27)

The Tommyknockers - 1987
Nightmares in the Sky  - 1988
The Dark Half - 1989 

- 18/10/2015 to 22/12/2015 - 3 (30)

Four Past Midnight - 1990
The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands - 1991 
Needful Things - 1991
Gerald's Game - 1992
Dolores Claiborne - 1992
Nightmares and Dreamscapes - 1993

- 22/12/2015 to 24/4/2016 - 6 (36)
 
Insomnia - 1994
Rose Madder - 1995
The Green Mile - 1996
Desperation - 1996
The Regulators - 1996
Six Stories - 1997
The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass - 1997
Dark Tower: Little Sisters of Eluria (Legend) - 1998
Bag of Bones - 1998
Storm of the Century - 1998
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon - 1999
  
- 24/4/2016 to 14/11/16 - 6 (47)
 
Hearts in Atlantis - 1999
Blood and Smoke - 1999

"Riding the Bullet" - 2000  
On Writing - 2000 
Secret Windows - 2000 
The Plant - 2000      
Dreamcatcher - 2001

Black House (with Peter Straub) -2001
Everything's Eventual - 2002
From a Buick 8 - 2002
The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla - 2003  
The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah - 2004

The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower - 2004
Faithful - 2004
- BONUS: 20th Century Ghosts (Joe Hill) - Jan 2005
- BONUS: Josie and Jack (Kelly Braffet)  - Feb 2005
- BONUS: We're All in This Together (Owen King) - 2005

The Colorado Kid - 2005
Cell - 2006
Lisey's Story - 2006
Blaze - 2007
Duma Key - 2008

Just After Sunset - 2008 
Stephen King Goes to the Movies - 2009
Ur - 2009     
Under the Dome - 2009
Blockade Billy - 2010

Full Dark, No Stars - 2010
Mile 81 - 2011    
11/22/63 - 2011
American Vampire (with Scott Snyder) - 2011
"Throttle" (with Joe Hill) - 2012

The Dark Tower: The Wind Through the Keyhole - 2012 
A Face in the Crowd (with Stewart O'Nan) - 2012
"In the Tall Grass"  (with Joe Hill) - 2012
"GUNS" - 2013
Ghost Brothers of Darkland County - 2013

Joyland - 2013
The Dark Man: An Illustrated Poem - 2013
Doctor Sleep - 2013
Mr. Mercedes - 2014      
Revival - November 2014

Finders Keepers - 2015
The Bazaar of Bad Dreams - 2015
End of Watch - 2016

Cool, I'm 47 books through!  That's  51% !  I'm more than halfway through!  And it only took three years!  I'll be done before the end of the decade at this rate!

The next one is Hearts in Atlantis, which will, hopefully, be another short-ish one.  Six short stories/novellas.  I've not read it before, although one of the stories was also included in Six Stories.

In Which We Discuss Bag of Bones

Bag of Bones was first published in 1998, shortly before my 10th birthday. It has a lot in common with Rebecca, another book I read a few years ago, although it treats the core elements differently.

This is one of the many novels in which the main character is a writer. If I recall correctly, this was the book where I first found out that King’s novels weren’t published in written order, though it might have been Lisey's Story; sometimes, he wrote too prolifically and would stash a few, as the character Mike Noonan does. When I started this project I did consider making the effort to find out the order in which the novels were actually written and to read them in that order, but I came to the conclusion that that would be unreasonably difficult.

The other day I thought about the fact that Shakespeare’s plays begin to have happier, more optimistic endings as he got older. That was one of the reasons I wanted to read an author’s work in chronological order; to see how it changed as they aged. When I did this with Lisa Jewell a few years ago there were a number of changes. What stood out most was her concern about children, after she had her own.

King’s writing is so prolific that I actually find it harder to step back and see trends. It’s like trying to watch a plant growing by staring at it for every hour of the day. There are trends; for instance, Rage and Carrie, both about teenagers, were written when King was younger – although The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, which focuses on a young girl, was published in 1999, when King was 52 and presumably written when he was at least in his 40s. His children make a difference as well; many characters are openly based on King’s family, and he does have a gift for observation.

I remembered Bag of Bones wrong; the first time I read it, it felt like it was a lot more about Sara and a lot less about Maddie. This time, I was waiting for the whole bit with Maddie to get out of the way so we could get to the main story about Sara. I was about three hours from the end – audiobook – when I finally twigged that Maddie was part of the main story.

The audiobook includes an interview with King on the topic of audiobooks. When he first wanted to listen to them, very few unabridged recordings were available, so he would pay his children $18 for each ninety-minute tape recording of a book he wanted to have read. It really is no wonder that King’s two sons, Owen King and Joe Hill, both grew up to be authors.

What is interesting is that relatively few of King’s characters are LGBT, despite the fact that his daughter Naomi is openly gay. Naomi’s life is less open than her brothers’, as she is less of a public figure. Perhaps King also considers her life to be private. I didn't realise, until I read this article, that she's a wheelchair user.  I'm not sure at which point in her life she began using a wheelchair, but it would be interesting to see if King's characters start using them more after that point.  So far, I think it's only been Paul Sheldon in Misery.

The next work of King’s is The Storm of the Century, a TV series for which he wrote the script. I’ve decided that while I will try to watch the series, I won’t try to hunt down the script to read it. I’ll be moving on to The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon – another book I’ve read before.

In Which We Discuss Wizard and Glass and the Little Sisters of Eluria

Wizard and Glass and Little Sisters of Eluria are a novel and a short story set in the world of the Dark Tower. Wizard and Glass was published in 1997 while Little Sisters was published in the Legends anthology in 1998.

I actually read Legends way back in 2004 or so because it also included the Discworld short story, The Sea and Little Fishes. I hadn’t read any of the Dark Tower books at that point, so it didn’t make a huge impression on me, aside from creeping me out a little. The one that did make an impression was Terry Goodkind’s Debt of Bones; maybe I should actually read his Sword of Truth series!

Both stories are set in Roland’s past, for the most part; Little Sisters entirely, and Wizard and Glass almost entirely, apart from the opening and ending. At some point in Wizard and Glass the characters travel to the world of The Stand, while the titular Little Sisters speak in Tak’s language at times.

After this point, King took a brief break from the Dark Tower; the next book in the series, Wolves of the Calla, wasn’t published until 2003. So, the next book I’ll be reading – or listening to, rather – is Bag of Bones, another book I’ve read before.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 27th Year, Week 51/52

Five books last week!  That's30th July to the 3rd of August.

Two were audiobooks I've read before; Kind of Cruel and Blind Faith.  I also reread The Gift of Fear, which is the kind of book you need to review every so often.  It's pretty useful, to have it reconfirmed that you can and should trust your own instincts, over being 'polite'.

The Regulators and Six Stories were both new to me, and I wrote a longer post on them here.

In Which We Discuss Desperation, The Regulators, Six Stories, and the Dark Tower

Warning!  Spoilers for the Chronicles of Narnia Below!

Desperation and the Regulators were a very interesting concept that I’ve not seen done elsewhere.  They were published at the same time in 1996, one openly written by King, the other purporting to be by his long-dead alias, Richard Bachman, the manuscript having been found by his widow and published posthumously.  Both include the same characters – including Cynthia, of Rose Madder – though they’re in slightly different situations, with, for example, parents swapping places with children in one nuclear unit.

In Desperation, a small town is slaughtered en mass by the sheriff who then begins luring other victims in.  One of the characters, David, made a vow to God when a friend of his didn’t die, and is thus enlisted as God’s representative, to save the town.  His thoughts on this reminded me a lot of Neil Gaiman’s The Problem with Susan, a story about the elder Susan Pevensie after her family die at the end of the Narnia series.  

In Good Omens – by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman – it is stated that, if God is omniscient and all-powerful, there cannot be a war between good and evil.  There can only be one long, unfathomable game of solitaire.  Both Susan and Desperation reminded me of that; both point out that their respective gods could have prevented the accident in the first place, but didn’t.  Not a tame lion.

The Regulators involves an autistic boy who is given reality warping powers by the same unpleasant being who is behind the events of Desperation.  I do wonder if the Regulators isnt’t real at all; if, instead, Tak has just moved the world sideways, into one in which he can try something new.  We see in Wizard and Glass, after all, that sideways worlds exist.  As well as in that short story where Little Tall became the home of the zombie apocalypse.

I found Desperation to be one of the more horrifying of King’s novels, on the basis of one single line.  Long before the events of either book, there was a cave-in which trapped seventy Chinese workers.  No one tried to get them out, and when asked why, a character explains “because they were Chinese”.  The line’s delivered as a criticism of the people of the time, not as a justifiable reason, or at least, that’s how I took it.

Six Stories is a special edition of, well, six stories, published in a limited run of 1100 volumes, each signed by King.  I cheated; the stories were later published in Everything’s Eventual and Hearts in Atlantis, so I read those versions instead.  They’re heavily edited, in some cases, but I viewed this as an acceptable compromise, given the difficulty and expense it would take to track down one of those limited editions. 

Although I’d read Everything’s Eventual before, and thus had read five of the six stories, the only one I really remembered was Autopsy Room 4.  Possibly because of my fear of locked-in syndrome (I’m also cleithrophobic and trypophobic – don’t google image search that last one).  I quite liked Luckey Quarter [sic], I think because it was slightly more optimistic than King’s normal work.

I’ve already started Wizard and Glass, the next book published by King, and the fourth part of the Dark Tower Series.   Then I’ll reread Little Sisters of Eluria, and there’ll be a long, long stretch before I get to Song of Susannah, which was published in 2004, immediately before The Dark Tower.  The final (or, at least, most recent) book of the series was published in 2012.

Interesting, the first book I read in 2016 was the first book of King’s published in the 1990s; Four Past Midnight.  There are only six books left in the decade after Little Sisters of Eluria; Bag of Bones, Storm of the Century, Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, The New Lieutenant’s Rap, Hearts in Atlantis, and Blood and Smoke.   The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is pretty short, especially for a King novel, and Hearts in Atlantis only contains six stories.  The New Lieutenant’s Rap is also a short story.  I’ll aim to finish those by the end of this year.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 27th Year, Week 46/52

Six books last week; that's the 23rd to the 29th of June.

Four were rereads.  Lorna Doone is one of my favourite novels and on this readthrough I realised something that makes it even better.  John Ridd is explicitly writing as man in his fifties.  When he describes himself and Lorna and teenagers, and says things like he never again saw a spring flower without thinking of her, he isn't saying that as a teenager, but as a man in his fifties about the woman he's been married to for thirty years.

Catching Fire is the second book of the Hunger Games trilogy.  I named my hedgehog after Johanna; I love her, especially as portrayed by Jenna Malone in the movie.

Making Money and Trigger Warning are both books I've read before.

I'd never read Desperation before now but I really enjoyed it.  I need to write a proper post about it, though that may need to wait until I've finished The Regulators.

Finally, I read When Marnie was There after watching the Studio Ghibli movie.  I felt like the movie was simpler and more beautiful.  I also liked the mix of cultures in the movie; Marnie remained English though the setting and other characters were updated to Japan.

In Which We Discuss Insomnia, Rose Madder, and the Green Mile

I've been getting really behind on these posts, huh?

Recently, I've read Insomnia (on Kindle) and listened to Rose Madder and The Green Mile as audiobooks, hence the speed.  Audiobooks always go quicker, now I've gotten used to listening on 3x speed.

All three were books I'd read before.  Insomnia only once; I remembered being surprised that someone as old as Ralph could be the protagonist, something James Smythe echoes in his own article on the book.  I also hadn't read any of the Dark Tower series when I first read this book, so all of those references went totally over my head.  They're a lot more meaningful now, and I'm sure that will be even more true once I've read all of the Dark Tower novels.

Rose Madder, as I've mentioned before, is my favourite of Stephen King's novels.  I've read and listened to it several times.  I love the life-building aspect of it, how Rose escapes and builds something good for herself.  I also love Blair Brown's performance.

I'd forgotten how horrifying The Green Mile was, particularly Delacroix's death.  I have the film on dvd as well, though I've not rewatched it yet.  Hearing the description was somehow worse than watching it or just reading it.  Delacroix, despite being a rapist and a murderer is the closest thing the novel has to a clown, and his death is utterly heartrending.

The Green Mile was published, Dickens-style, as a series of short novels, with the ending unknown even to the author as they were written and published.  I've always liked Dickens; for his tenacity - there's a lovely story in How to Win Friends and Influence People about how, as a poor teenager, he wrote his first novel and sent it to a publisher in secret, because he was so embarrassed about thinking his work might be good enough to be published -and for the fact that he was always blatantly in it for the money, at least in part.  I don't think creating art for the money is a bad thing.  Nor do Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, or Terry Pratchett.  I like that Dickens responded to audience reactions as the novel went along, and that he set up his own magazines to self-publish.  Dickens was a pretty cool guy.

There's a reference to Dickens in Rose Madder.  I remember noticing it, but I can't recall what it is.  I remember it seemed interesting, in light of the Dickens-style publishing of The Green Mile.  I also hadn't realised that Dickens was a big deal in America, especially at the time he was publishing, not until I listened to the introduction.

I've started keeping a bullet journal, which I love, so I've added a Stephen King page (or three) to it.  It's taking me about a year and a half to read a decade of his writing, so I should be done by 2020 - apart from the books he'll write between now and then!

The next one is Desperation; I haven't read it before.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 27th Year, Week 43/52

Five books last week - 2nd June to 8th June.

Ghost Moth, Silent Scream, and The Double Clue (the book with no image) are books I all read for bookclubs which I didn't end up attending.  I didn't really get Ghost Moth; I didn't understand why Katherine had any dilemma.  She wasn't really into her fiance, so why not just leave him for the guy she liked?  There was never an explanation given for that.

The Double Clue was the first collection of Hercule Poirot stories I've ever read.  I'm definitely a Holmes girl, but they were pretty good!

Silent Scream is set in the Black Country, and I do wonder if it was self-published.  The story-telling is excellent, but the author's grammar isn't brilliant.  She uses commas incorrectly quite a few times, and she's got a really irritating habit of referring to people as "males" and "females" outside of biological concepts.  i.e., "the female corpse" would work, because you're identifying the characteristics of something that is now inanimate, in a biological context, but "the female walked into the room" sounds weird, because you're now talking about a human, in a social context, while identifying her biologically.  It's a weird tic.

The Devil Wears Prada is a book I keep reading, even though it annoys me.  Something about the experience appeals to me, clearly.  I got the audiobook this time.

The Green Mile I'd read before, but I'd forgotten how utterly horrifying it was, particularly Delacroix's death.  While we know he's a rapist and a murderer, that's offscreen; onscreen, he's the closest thing we have to a clown, which makes it particularly heart-rending, quite apart from the sheer horror of what happens to him.

I have this as both an audiobook and a kindle book (because I forgot about one when I bought the other) but I only listened to the audio.  I really need to write an update for my Stephen King project; I'm three books behind!

In Which We Discuss Nightmares and Dreamscapes

Nightmares and Dreamscapes is a collection of twenty-four short stories, first published in September of 1993, though many of the individual stories were published earlier, at least one as early as 1971.  I first read it in 2010, and I was surprised to find I'd forgotten a number of excellent stories from this volume.

I remembered a few - Dolan's Cadillac, Chattery Teeth, Popsy, Dedication, and Sorry Right Number all stuck with me.  I did manage to totally forgot about Stephen King's take on Sherlock Holmes, and about The Moving Finger, which is spectacularly creepy.

In 1993 Stephen King was forty-six.  By this point he was over his severe addiction phase and in the process of managing it.  His eldest daughter was twenty-three while his youngest son, Owen, was sixteen.  The collection includes an essay on twelve-year-old Owen's experience with little league, something which isn't really a thing in Britain.  We play rounders.  I actually don't know the rules of baseball, which really affected my enjoyment of the essay.  I did enjoy reading about the coach, who pointed out that having been part of a team with kids from different walks of life, in a situation where all that matters is what you do, is something that stays with you.  That was lovely.

I also liked learning that, like Stephen King himself, Owen King was over six feet tall as a teenager.  I don't know many people, other than myself, who reach their full growth before their teens.  I'm only 5'6, but that was pretty big for a twelve-year-old.

I've now finished 36 books out of 93, which puts me 39% of the way through this project.  It's only taken me three years so far.

- 15/6/13

Carrie - 1974 -  June 15th 2013
'Salem's Lot - 1975 - June 30th 2013
The Shining - 1977 - July 28th 2013
Rage - 1977 - July 31st 2013
Night Shift - 1978 - August 28th 2013
The Stand - 1978 - March 20th 2014
The Long Walk - 1979 - March 23rd 2014
The Dead Zone - 1979 - June 2014
Firestarter - 1980 - August 16th 2014


- 15/6/13 to 17/8/14 - 9

Roadwork - 1981 - 23rd August 2014
Danse Macabre - 1981 - 7th September 2014
- BONUS: Small World (Tabitha King) - 10th September 2014
Cujo - 1981 - 20th September 2014
The Running Man - 1982- 22nd September 2014
The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger - 1982 - 30th September 2014
Creepshow - 1982 - 1st October 2014
Different Seasons - 1982  - 24th October 2014

- 17/8/14 to 25/10/14 - 8 (17)

Christine - 1983
Pet Sematary - 1983
Cycle of the Werewolf - 1983
The Talisman - 1984
Thinner - 1984 

- 25/10/14/14 to 14/07/2015 - 5 (22)

Skeleton Crew - 1985
It - 1986
The Eyes of the Dragon - 1987
The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three - 1987
Misery - 1987 

- 14/7/15 to 18/10/2015 - 5 (27)

The Tommyknockers - 1987
Nightmares in the Sky  - 1988
The Dark Half - 1989 

- 18/10/2015 to 22/12/2015 - 3 (30)

Four Past Midnight - 1990
The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands - 1991 
Needful Things - 1991
Gerald's Game - 1992
Dolores Claiborne - 1992
Nightmares and Dreamscapes - 1993

- 22/12/2015 to 24/4/2016 - 6 (36)
 
Insomnia - 1994
Rose Madder - 1995
The Green Mile - 1996
Desperation - 1996

The Regulators - 1996
Six Stories - 1997
The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass - 1997
Dark Tower: Little Sisters of Eluria (Legend) - 1998
Bag of Bones - 1998

Storm of the Century - 1998
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon - 1999
The New Lieutenant's Rap - 1999
Hearts in Atlantis - 1999
Blood and Smoke - 1999

"Riding the Bullet" - 2000  
On Writing - 2000 
Secret Windows - 2000 
The Plant - 2000      
Dreamcatcher - 2001

Black House (with Peter Straub) -2001
Everything's Eventual - 2002
From a Buick 8 - 2002
The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla - 2003  
The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah - 2004

The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower - 2004
Faithful - 2004
- BONUS: 20th Century Ghosts (Joe Hill) - Jan 2005
- BONUS: Josie and Jack (Kelly Braffet)  - Feb 2005
- BONUS: We're All in This Together (Owen King) - 2005

The Colorado Kid - 2005
Cell - 2006
Lisey's Story - 2006
Blaze - 2007
Duma Key - 2008

Just After Sunset - 2008 
Stephen King Goes to the Movies - 2009
Ur - 2009     
Under the Dome - 2009
Blockade Billy - 2010

Full Dark, No Stars - 2010
Mile 81 - 2011    
11/22/63 - 2011
American Vampire (with Scott Snyder) - 2011
"Throttle" (with Joe Hill) - 2012

The Dark Tower: The Wind Through the Keyhole - 2012 
A Face in the Crowd (with Stewart O'Nan) - 2012
"In the Tall Grass"  (with Joe Hill) - 2012
"GUNS" - 2013
Ghost Brothers of Darkland County - 2013

Joyland - 2013
The Dark Man: An Illustrated Poem - 2013
Doctor Sleep - 2013
Mr. Mercedes - 2014      
Revival - November 2014

Finders Keepers - 2015
The Bazaar of Bad Dreams - 2015
End of Watch - 2016

After Insomnia I'll be reading Rose Madder, my favourite of Stephen King's work.  I have the audiobook, which is an amazing performance.  I also have The Green Mile as an audiobook and as a Kindle book, because I forgot about one of them when I bought the other.  I normally avoid doing that, but now that I have at least I can experiment with Amazon's whispersync feature.  Then another three I've not read before, after which I can finally get on with The Tower series.

In Which We Discuss Dolores Claiborne

When I was younger - between the ages of nine and sixteen - I used to be off school a lot.  When that happened, my grandmother would take me to Bearwood with her, and we'd look in all the charity shops up and down the high street.  I'd come away with piles and piles of books, which I'd start on in the pub, over a coke while my nan had a lager and caught up with her friends.

Dolores Claiborne was one of these.  I remember reading it and getting through the first hundred pages before we left, and I think I finished it later that same evening.  It's told in the second person, in one long confession by Dolores herself, something Stephen King hadn't done in long fiction before.  It's a pretty short book, somewhere between 200 and 250 pages, and it gave me a real bad case of the gottas.

Dolores Claiborne is linked to Gerald's Game via the eclipse that both Dolores and Jessie witness, during which they receive odd glimpses of one another.  I'm not sure which of the books I read first - it really makes no difference - but I think it was this one.

James Smythe points out that this is only Stephen King's second novel with a single viewpoint, the first being The Body.  I hadn't realised that - though obviously I noticed the second person aspect as being unique.   I also hadn't really noticed the dialect the story was told in; I knew it was there but it didn't impinge on my experience.  Of course, one of my favourite books is Lorna Doone.

Stephen King is very good at keeping track of multiple characters in an overarching third person narrative, but, like Gerald's Game, it's where he limits himself that his skill really becomes apparent.  I also feel that Stephen King writes excellent women.  I've noticed that authors with daughters tend to be better at it, though I've not done any sort of formal survey so this observation might just be a coincidence.  I'm thinking of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman when I make that sort of statement.  As well as having a daughter Stephen King was raised by a single mother, and is married to a woman with five or six sisters, so he's definitely had the opportunity to observe women in their natural habitat; he doesn't see them as being exotic beings or people very different from men, which we're not, in many ways.

I also like the discussion and use of the word 'bitch'.  It's used in a reclaiming way; sometimes being a bitch is all you've got to hold on to.  It's not a word I'd use on anyone else, who isn't fictitious, but I love bitches in fiction.  Strong women, who do what they need to do.

The book - which was the best-selling American novel of 1992 - was made into a movie in 1995, starring Kathy Bates who also appeared in Misery.

The next book Stephen King published was Nightmares and Dreamscapes, a collection of short stories that I've also read before.  After that it'll be Insomnia, followed by The Green Mile, both of which I've also read previously.  Then we'll be back on to a long string of books I've not read before, starting with Desperation.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 27th Year, Week 33/52

Seven books last week!  That's the 24th to the 30th of March.

I found the first three Georgia Nicolson books in The Works for 50p each.  Actually, they had the other six or seven in the series as well, but I found they stop being fun after the first few.  That or I grew out of them.  I first read them when I was fifteen, so it may be that the first three snuck into my field of view just in time.

The Works sells books which couldn't be sold in bigger stores - that's why they're so much cheaper.  I think someone must have put in a order for all the books when Louise Rennison died, expecting them to sell.  Sad.

I also read the Artemis Fowl books as a teenager, but I'd not read the graphic novel before.  I feel like it loses something in the translation; the scene with Butler and the troll is less badass without Foaly's commentary, and the secret code from the bottom of the pages is missing.

I also read Dolores Claiborne as a teenager.  That's one I need to write a longer post on, since it's part of my Stephen King project.  You won't be seeing any more posts for a bit; the next one, Nightmares and Dreamscapes is over 900 pages.  I've also read that one before - again, as a teenager if I recall correctly.

I didn't read The Naughtiest Girl in the School as a teenager; I actually read it when I was seven.  It was the first book I ever read, in fact.  This was the abridged audiobook, with a full voice cast.  It was quite nice actually hearing the piano pieces - I'd totally forgotten about that.

The Darkest Minds was a new one to me; another audiobook, one that my partner recommended.  It picked up a lot near the end, but I'm not feeling a huge urge to listen to the sequels.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 27th Year, Week 31/52

Six books lasy week; three more seasons of Clare in the Community, Needful Things and Gerald's Game, and Wuthering Heights.

Wuthering Heights was the only book was was new to me.  I got it as an audiobook on Audible's daily deal for £2.99, and it was listening to it as an audiobook that got me through it.  I found the opening quite slow and I didn't like a lot of the characters.  It seems to be that Cathy and Heathcliff deserved one another, and it would have saved everyone else a lot of trouble if they'd just fucked off together early on.

I liked Heathcliff more towards the end.  He began to remind me of Snape, if Snape were a sociopath.

I've written a longer post about the Stephen King books here.

Clare in the Community is a radio series starring Sally Phillips.  I love basically everything she's in.

In Which We Discuss Needful Things and Gerald's Game

Reading Needful Things took me a while.  It's a book I've read before and one that I enjoy, but it's also nearly a thousand pages long.

Needful Things is a story about the time the Dark Man took a holiday from bugging Roland and decided to open a little curio shop in Castle Rock.  Shenanigans ensue, in the forms of pranks played as payment for one's hearts desire.  There's an interesting commentary on the advertising industry, something King has said was intentional - he tried to distil the worst elements of the 80s into the plot.  I particularly like the way each person talks themselves into the sale, not on the merits of the item itself but based on the life they believe they will have once in possession of the item.  In at least one case this is heartbreaking; a man believes that once in possession of a fine fox tail to tie to his car's aerial he will drive that car over to a regular AA meeting every week.

The pranks people are asked to play seem innocent at first; they're on people whom the pranker is ambivalent about and don't seem too harmful.  But, in the mind of the prankee they increase paranoia and existing rivalries, until the town reaches a glorious implosion.

The trailer for the movie makes the whole thing seem comedic, and, on reflection, there is a line of dark comedy in there.  Very dark.

I enjoyed the book both when I first read it and now.  It's something of a sequel to The Dark Half and The Sun Dog and also includes characters from The Dead Zone and The Body.  The latter is Ace Merrill, the main bully, who is said to have spent some time in Shawshank between books.  I particularly liked Alan Pangborn and his relationship with Polly, who ends up spending some time thinking about Cujo when she's up on the old farm where that book took place.  At the end of the book, Gaunt moves on to the town where The Library Policeman took place.

A number of these characters also show up in Gerald's Game, or at least at the end.  Most of the book involves one woman, in a room, for three-hundred pages.  These restrictions really allow King's talent as a story-teller to shine.  There's nothing to hide behind; no distractions. Just one woman and her story, and King handles it masterfully.  The flashbacks are used to great effect; in this article, Gladstone points out whatever the chronology is doing the narrative is always moving forwards.  Flashbacks are part of that, no matter when they actually take place, and King handles that like a boss.

The novel also explores the limit of the human body and mind; what can we cope with?  What can we live through?  It really is a masterpiece; I don't think I ever read it in less than two days.

Jessie Burlingame is excellently written, as a fully realised female character.  King even manages some commentary on uniquely female experiences which rings true; possibly due to the women the novel is dedicated to, his wife and her sisters.

Jessie's also an expert at splitting her psyche, assigning different experiences to different segments.  This allows us to have some conversation during the three hundred pages in which she is alone, as she is forced to deal with these issues.  It's a similar technique to that used by Mark Vorkosigan in Mirror Dance, when dealing with being tortured, and it can also be a useful mental trick for making decisions about more mundane issues.

James Smythe's post on Needful Things points out that a huge theme of the novel is about how destructive needs can be if not overcome.  His post on Gerald's Game covers his own experience of first reading the novel at thirteen.  I think I was a little older; closer to seventeen or eighteen.

Stephen King's next published novel is Dolores Claiborne another book that I've read before and enjoyed.  I actually read it before Gerald's Game; the two are linked by an eclipse.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 27th Year, Week 28/52

Ten books last week - 18th February to 24th February.

It's actually only seven books; Day of the Dead, Seven Deadly Sins, and Being an Account of the Life and Death of the Emperor Heliogabolus were all books I read a few weeks ago but didn't date for some reason.

I listened to the fourth and fifth Harry Potter books this week.  I thought I'd read the fifth book before, but now I come to listen to it I don't think I can have.  I definitely read Goblet of Fire back when it first came out.  They've very enjoyable.  I'm reading along with the essays on hpcompanion.

Haunted Heart is an biography of Stephen King.  I rather enjoyed it.  The book goes into the way that Stephen King tries to write away his fears.  It's a kind of superstition; if he writes about it it won't happen.  Which explains a lot.  Speaking of Stephen King The Dark: Tower: The Gunslinger is a graphic novel of part of The Gunslinger.  I'd forgotten half of the plot - mostly because I wasn't paying attention - so it was a nice refresher.

I liked The Psychopath Test better than So You've Been Publicly Shamed, I suspect because Jon Ronson didn't read it to me.  He's a much better writer than he is a reader.

I read Big Fish because I loved the film.  The book wasn't as good.  Less clear and fantastical, and more subtle in a way that was less interesting.

I didn't enjoy The Great Unexpected that much either; Sharon Creech's books are always a bit hit or miss for me.

Finally, Goblet of Fire and The Order of the Phoenix.  I'd read Goblet before and I thought I'd read Phoenix but now I've listened to it I don't think I can have.

In Which We Discuss The Wastelands

I am really getting into the Dark Tower series now.  The Wastelands was something rather like the DLR - a cross between a roller-coaster and a train ride.

This third novel in the series has Roland dealing with his newly contradictive memory and the Ka-Tet moving further along the beam towards the tower.  There's also a bright pink, crazy, train, a mechanical bear god and a killing spree set off by 80s music.  It all works, somehow.

Following this, there was a six-year-gap before the next installation was published.  This means I need to read the following before I find out what happens next;

Needful Things - 1991
Gerald's Game - 1992
Dolores Claiborne - 1992

Nightmares and Dreamscapes - 1993
Insomnia - 1994
Rose Madder - 1995
The Green Mile - 1996
Desperation - 1996

The Regulators - 1996
Six Stories - 1997
The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass - 1997

In this case, the bolded books are the ones I've read previously.  Gerald's Game and Dolores Claiborne are part of a loose series, which is thematically similar to my favourite, Rose Madder.  Nightmares and Dreamscapes is another short-story collection.  I've read Insomnia once and Green Mile twice, I think.  The move was pretty good.

Hopefully, those ten books will take less than six years for me to read.  Eight more after that and I'll be out of the nineties!

This has been a very long-running project.  It's taken me almost three years to read thirty-two books, and that's out of a total of ninety-three.  In other words I'm 34% of the way through!

I can (and do) read faster than that, as you can tell from my weekly logs.  But I can't read just one author.

In the afterword, Stephen King seems to indicate that this is his favourite of his own series'.  His magnum opus.  James Smythe points out that this is where the series began to take shape, to find its form.  It's an excellent post.

Onwards to Needful Things which loosely follows the Sun Dog from Four Past Midnight.  I've read it before, about a decade ago, though I don't remember too many of the details.

In Which We Discuss Four Past Midnight

Four Past Midnight is a collection of short novellas, similar to Four Seasons though rather less famous and with a greater focus on horror and the supernatural.  It's Stephen King's 31st published work by my count, in 1990.

I had read it before, although I didn't remember much of it.  I remembered The Langoliers but not the details of Secret Window, Secret Garden which was the very story I picked the collection up for.

The Langoliers focuses on a few people who wake up on a plane with everyone else gone.  I like the Langoliers, the supernatural monsters that turn up halfway through.

Secret Window, Secret Garden was turned into a movie starring Johnny Depp.  That on focuses on plagiarism.

The Library Policeman was also very good; however, I do find it interesting that Stephen King mentions that 'the library policeman' was a fear of his younger son, Owen.  The character who is pursued by it pictures it in that form because he was raped by a man calling himself a 'library policeman' at an early age.  I'm not sure I'd be able to separate the two characters once one had grown from the other.  That's one of the many reasons why Stephen King is a much better writer than I am.

Sun Dog is a weird little story about a camera.  Rather enjoyable in its own way.

James Smythe points out in his article that many people focus on The Langoliers, like I did.  He's also reminded me that Sun Dog is part of a series with Needful Things and, I think, either The Dark Half or The Tommyknockers.  It also features Pop Merril as a main character, Pop being the uncle of Ace from The Body and related to several characters in The Tommyknockers.  A character in the Sun Dog also refers to the divorce and suicide of The Dark Half's Thad Beaumont.

So now, on to The Wastelands, the third Dark Tower novel.  I'm also part of the way through Haunted Heart, a biography of Stephen King which I hope will give me some interesting background.