kaikara

The Stand
Dark Tower Books
The Mist

M Riesenbeck

The Stand.

Followed closely by The Green Mile.

hotsexyboi

Dolores Claiborne
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
IT
Pet Semetary

Shinobi

The Stand
Salem's Lot
The Dark Tower books

In that order

Keith6601

It
The Stand
Salem's Lot

I have to give love to The Long Walk as Bachman as well. Does Darabont still have the rights to that?

woody5254

I hope so, I would love to see that made into a movie.

Holger Czukay

Funny, my first post on a DVD forum ends up being about books!

I was introduced to Stephen King through film, as I assume most 90's kids were. I read The Shining when I was 12, and I liked it but most of the themes went way over my head. Didn't get back to King until a year ago after a discussion of IT at work. My dad collects King (and Koontz, and Straub, and Asimov, and Morrell, and....) so I borrowed his paperback of IT, and read around 10 more of King's books within a year.

Misery is my favorite. I read it in a single day. It's really a book about writing popular novels. Doesn't hurt that it's also scary as Hell. He's really good at describing claustrophobic situations. Which leads to another favorite, and one I believe is overlooked, Gerald's Game.

Pet Sematary, 'salem's Lot, and The Shining naturally round out the top.

goodwill

I haven't read a lot of his books, but I'm surprised that Bag of Bones hasn't been mentioned at all (unless I overlooked it somewhere)... It's my favorite...

argh923

Bag of Bones is actually one of - if not THE - least favorite books of mine.

collven

I gotta go with Pet Sematary and It. PS was the first book of King's that I read and it scared the pants off of me.

As for It, that's just an excellent book all around. There are very few authors that write children as well as King.

boredsilly

The Mist is my favorite story, and if you haven't you owe it to yourself to check out the audio version. It's really fantastic.

I just started The Stand - Uncut, and it's almost ridiculous how much information is packed into this book. I usually don't like books that are this long winded, but The Stand is working for me so far.

JAA

I strongly agree. King always seems to capture childhood nostalgia in a very powerful way.

DeanoBKN

I seem to be the only fan of Thinner around here!

My favorites include Thinner, Christine, Misery, The Green Mile, and The Mist.

kms_md

the stand (uncut)
different seasons
needful things

JAA

Blasphemous! The original version is the only version that should be on any self-respecting King fan's shelf.

kvrdave

I will say that The Jaunt, The Long Walk, and Rage were fantastic. My personal favorite is The Stand. And this will sound stupid to many people, but I really enjoyed Rose Madder. Especially when a few characters from Desperation (I believe) showed up.

writer106

My favorites are Salem's Lot and Carrie.

GatorDeb

I want to read all of his books. Would you go through them chronologically or picking out the best and reading those first? I want to leave The Stand and the Dark Tower series for the end, as they are so long.

Randy Miller III

Mi faviort iz Pet Cemetary.

JAA

I've been a King fan for many, many years. I truly envy your virgin status. You are in for a wonderfully entertaining ride. So, do it right . . . chronologically.

lopper

The second book in the Dark Tower series is probably my all time favorite King book, followed closely by Salem's Lot.

Currently I'm chewing my way through It. I'm really enjoying the book so far, but it's a much longer read than I'd anticipated. At this point, it's in my top ten, and we'll see if it cracks the top five.

Wolf359

Another vote for Talisman.

This thread makes me want to revisit some of his older books. I haven't read much of his recent stuff, just hasn't seemed up to his glory days. Cell was just barely ok.

Xander

Yeah, another vote for Chronologically. You can probably leave the Dark Tower books aside for the end, but be aware that MANY of his books reference the Dark Tower world, or are involved in some way. So if you save those til last, you are missing a lot of cool references in other books.

GatorDeb

Reading Carrie right now

Razrbac77

To me, The Dead Zone is his most overlooked masterpiece.