I think I'm becoming a Stephen King fan.

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I'm in the process of reading Misery, and I have Different Seasons, The Dead Zone, The Running Man (yes, that one), and The Dark Half. As a writer, Misery appeals to me, because my interpretation of it is that it's about the burden of being a writer and the pressure of creating a book (I'm a witness to that!), and the pages just keep turning. I have yet to read the other books, but already I get the feeling that I have good taste in books. I kind of prefer psychological terror over the supernatural, but it won't hurt for me to try.

He's been my favorite author since I was eight. The protagonist in The Dead Zone is my favorite literary hero. The Running Man is just chilling in how King seems to have predicted the emergence of Reality TV (it was written back in the 1970s, before he wrote Carrie). My favorite book of his has to be It, followed by The Stand.

The Shining is also good in that regard. One of the main characters is a tormented writer.

He does do some good storywriting & not just in horror genre (Shawshank Redemption being the obvious example). His short story collections are certainly good to try, as the thriller/supernatural mix may seem better (as in, if a story doesn't appeal at least it won't last long!). Not to everyone's taste, but that's fine as long as it's based on not liking the writing style or the content rather than literary snobbishness.

Having just seen the vid of him speaking about taxing the rich at a union rally in Florida, on a separate thread, I did wonder if that's what you meant by starting to like him. He seems a humane human.

Pet Sematary is incredible, as are Carrie, 'Salem's Lot, and The Shining. He also writes incredible general fiction, such as Hearts in Atlantis.

Salem's Lot was the very first Stephen King novel I had ever read - back when I was in High school. In fact, I had a biology teacher who told me to quit reading it in class. It has remained maybe my favorite of his books. Terrible movie adaptions, though. Same with Pet Sematary; I had envisioned this chilling novel-to-movie in my head, and what I got instead was something that was almost word-for-word loyal to the book, but hardly captured the books horror filled spirit. Thinner was very good, and so were a number of his short stories. I admit, I haven't read anything of his in recent years, because I thought many of his later works, such as It (which I could never finish because it was just so damn boring), and Needful Things, hardly lived up to his earlier stuff. I am thinking of giving the King another try.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Most of Kings recent books bore me. It is as though he has decided he needs to waffle on about human condition. Also "It" was so annoying. It started off good but then it seems like he just gave up and said "Hey there is nothing scarier then a spider so i will make the antogonist the biggest spider in the world. that will scare people." The girl who loved tom gordon was 4 hours of my life that i wasted as well.

My favourite book is Apt pupil. The movie was shocking. My next fav is the eyes of the dragon.

I also highly recommend The Langoliers to watch. I think it is really funny.

Stephen King novels are like porn. They're the kind of books you hide in a cardboard box under your bed.

I have always loved Stephen King.

In another thread you were disliking the characters in Bret Easton Ellis's novels. No wonder Stephen King appeals to you. I think he is better at writing real people than any other popular writer.

I like King. The Dark Tower is one of my favorite fantasy/sci fi series. I've probably read all of King's works, definitely one of my favorites

I am also currently reading The Stand. It's pretty good thus far.

I love his work and I've only been reading two of his books.
I'm almost done with Cujo and that's one of my favorite books
now. I'm working on IT, huge book.