Open Book Blog Hop – A Reader Lives a Thousand Lives

On By Steven SmithIn Open Book Blog Hop

Welcome back to another Open Book Blog Hop!

Today’s question is “what is your favourite piece of literature and what makes it your favourite?”

And remember to pay a visit to my fellow writers to see what they have come up with. You can find their works here!

Photo by Ksenia Chernaya on Pexels.com

I am going to hold my hands up right now. There is absolutely no way I can answer this with one single book. Ain’t gonna happen! I will be offering up a favourite author, though that’s still easier said than done. So without further ado, I give you my favourite author – STEPHEN KING!

I love the worlds King creates. They are all so rich and vibrant. The detail he puts in is phenomenal, and something I enjoy trying to do in my own writing. I also love the interconnected nature of his worlds. In so many of his books, there are little nods, touchpoints back to other books. He has little threads and themes that run through many of his works, not least the fictional location of Derry, Maine. With that all said, what are my favourites?

The Dark Tower series
This series of books tops my list. If you offered my a pill that would mean I could forget a book (or series of books) to get that enjoyment and thrill of reading it for the first time all over again, this would be it. It’s something very different from his usual supernatural/horror books. A sci-fi western with fantasy and horror thrown in, the story is fascinating. Often described as his magnum opus, The Dark Tower is a firm favourite of mine from King.

The Green Mile
This novel plays to the racial prejudices of the era in which it is set. The abuse of power by corrupt prison guards, decent guards few and far between. The story is heartwrenching. The finale tragic. I love it. The story is filled with raw emotion that gets me every time. And I know a lot of people hate film versions of their favourite books, but Tom Hanks and Michael Clarke Duncan brought the story to life beautifuly.

The Stand
What a beast of a novel this is. Probably the biggest book I’ve ever read. Superficially, it’s a classic good versus evil yarn. The immortal battle for humanity. But it’s more than that. For one thing, it’s pretty ominous in the current world – it starts out when a manufactured virus gets out and wipes out most of humankind. But the real thing is how the survivors handle. With those in the good camp looking to work together, to rebuild society for the better, those in the bad have their heads turned by domination and power. The nuances of the story as some of the characters drift from one side to the other, it really adds depth to the story.

IT
The last book in my not exactly exhaustive list of favourite books by Stephen King is IT. This novel spawned in me a fear of clowns. It’s a truly terrifying piece of work. And yet, somehow, I still love it. I love the way the fears of childhood come back to haunt even in adulthood. I love the way the entity of IT that we all know as Pennywise is eons old. The fear that drives prey animals to run even back in primeval times. But I also love how over the course of the book, the bonds of friendship remain strong enough to defeat such an ancient evil.

So there you have it, just some of my favourite Stephen King novels. It’s by no means exhaustive – I didn’t even get to mention The Shining, Insomnia, From a Buick 8, or Misery which rank highly for me! What is your favourite book, books, or author?

19 thoughts on “Open Book Blog Hop – A Reader Lives a Thousand Lives”

    2. I’m not a King fan because I read his horror stories first and I don’t like horror as a rule. I also can see through the formula, which distracts me, knowing when the plot turns are going to happen.

      But I do like his other genre-writing, including 11/22/63 and the Shawshank Redemption. He seems to move away from the formula when he writes other genres and that rich world-building then becomes enjoyable. And, I get it. Horror paid the bills for decades and he had to crank them out factory-style, hence the formula. With the other genres, I don’t think he expected financial success, so we’re seeing King’s actual talent. My theory anyway.

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      1. Steve Smith

        I love his horrors. They are formulaic and I know that, but I enjoy them.

        The Dark Tower series is something else though. More sci-fi fantasy, and the world building is incredible. It ties a lot of his stories in as well.

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  3. “Running Man” if you’re doing King. At his best when under 5,000 pages. I spent six months one day with “The Stand.” Give me “Firestarter” any day over the verbosity of his Homerian epics.

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    1. You and me both. I love exciting books, books where you’re not sure the characters will survive. I like mysteries where the hair on the back of your neck stands on end from time to time. But I don’t like books where the goal is to make me fear something — like clowns. Clowns are a little weird when you think about it, but IT has made a lot of people actually clown-phobic. I don’t like books that do that.

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    2. Steve Smith

      The Green Mile, The Stand and The Dark Tower series may be options – they aren’t horrors. Plus he has branched out more over the years. Mr Mercedes is more of a thriller/crime for example.

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  7. Hi Steve, Stephen King is also one of my favourite authors. I didn’t like the Dark Tower when I read it in my teens and I’ve never read it again. I would replace the Dark Tower with The Shining, which is my favourite of his books, and The Green Mile with The Long Walk. I also like The Stand and IT as well as Firestarter and Salem’s Lot.

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