Have you ever walked into a book store (most likely Barnes and Noble considering they’re the only ones left) searching for a good book. You don’t exactly know what you want, just something new to read. Preferably within your favorite genre. Maybe romance, horror, science fiction, mystery, fantasy or something else in the constantly multiplying universe of genre. If you’re like me you tend to just roam. You go through every shelf. You know you’re not going to pick up a cook book but it’s cool to see the different types of covers people can come up with. I like to search through the Fantasy/Science fiction section the most. Somehow, there’s always a new read there. I go to Barnes and Noble a lot and there’s always a new book I haven’t seen before. But the likely hood that I’ll buy it is slime considering I have a vast magnitude of other books to pick from. I don’t like to buy more than one book at a time, so I have to choose wisely. Although, I’ve broken that rule many times. The reason why I try to get only one book is because my shelf will fill up faster than a beach in a hurricane. Most of the time when I break that rule its for one author: Stephen king.
To a degree, I would say I’m an avid reader of Stephen King. The reason why I say “to a degree” is because I only really started reading him a few years ago and have only read 4 of his books. However, I’d saying reading only four of his creations is a good starting number considering he comes out with a book a year leading him to have more than 50 published novels along with plenty of short story collections. Not to mention some of his bigger named books are fairly long. For instance, his story The Stand is 1,200 pages long and IT runs just behind at 1,168 pages. But, I couldn’t be happier reading his stories. Never mind the length or the amount he puts out, I like to try and keep up with his newest works because of how enjoyable they are. Some, including me, recognize his prose as fantastic and inspiring leading me to want to read more. However, if how things are written isn’t up your ally then you need not worry because his premises are utterly amazing! Ranging from horror to hard boiled crime to fantasy to post-apocalyptic to even the mixing of genres in his Dark Tower series which can be considered western, fantasy, science fiction, mystery, and post-apocalyptic all at once. The man doesn’t like to stop at one genre and stick to it. He likes to look at all his choices and use them to their fullest extent.
At the moment, I’m reading the third book in the Dark Tower series called The Wastelands. The series doesn’t appear to be a daunting task to read, however when you realize there are seven books with steadily increasing numbers in pages with each book you start to realize what you’ve gotten yourself into. A big ol' world of wonder! If you’ve ever found yourself wanting to read a western or even a horror but can’t bring yourself away from the mythical worlds of fantasy then look no further. These books have it all. Cowboys, wizards, great cities of magic, mythical beasts, epic battles, a world that seems to bear no end while supplying vast amounts of mysterious places to explore. I'm not asking you to read the whole series, as I am doing, but to merely give the first book a try. It’s a measly 288 pages that was made not even 8 years after his career began.
For one of his modern books I recommend Mr. Mercedes part one of three. It’s a mystery surrounding the case of a murderer that killed several dozen people by plowing through them with, you guessed it, a Mercedes. Here comes Detective Hodges to the rescue! That is until he retires and the case goes cold. As he sits in his chair watching T.V, the Ret. Det. contemplates suicide having not much left to do in his life considering he has no job and his wife left him. But lo and behold comes a letter through the mail slot addressed to Mr. Hodges. He opens it to find he has more to live for at the end of his rope as Mr. Mercedes taunts him.
These are only two small examples of his increasing library of literature. If you want something smaller in comparison to his bigger books like Under the Dome, The Stand, Insomnia, or IT then look at his first book Carrie, a supernatural horror standing at 199 pages, or Joyland, a mystery crime novel, that’s less than 300 pages. And, even if that’s a bit much for you then check out his short story collections like The Bazaar of Bad Dreams, which includes plenty of stories no longer than 20 or 30 pages.
I admit that I haven’t read a lot of his stuff, but I am enthralled with what he has already given me. If you were to look at my Amazon wish list you would see plenty of books that pertain to Stephen King. I have a lot to catch up on and while I don’t intend on reading all of his works I do want to read most of them. I encourage you all to peruse your finest book stores and look for the K section in literature and fiction. You won’t be mistaken if you pick up The Shining, I assure you.
