I read Needful Things this summer, and I thought it was good. My favorite Stephen King book is IT.

I second the notion of reading books upon which your favorite films are based. For instance, I really enjoyed The Tailor of Panama as a movie and was thrilled when I read the original John le Carre novel. There's quite a lot of backstory and character insights that weren't carried over to the film, so when I finished the novel I felt like I'd finally gotten the complete story.

Other favorites that have been turned into movies:

Christopher Buckley's Thank You for Smoking
Arthur Schnitzler's Dream Story (adapted into Eyes Wide Shut)
Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park and The Lost World (the latter being almost entirely different from the Spielberg film...and much better for it)

I just bought Rex Pickett's Sideways, but I'm currently reading George Jones's memoirs, I Lived to Tell It All. Which reminds me of another suggestion, actually. I've found that my favorite genre is actually autobiography/memoirs. It's taken over the majority of my reading, just hearing about interesting lives from the people who've lived them. Start with favorite singers or actors, and before long you find yourself hip deep in all kinds of things that you would have previously ignored.

Out of the popular, mainstream authors, Michael Crichton is a consistent favorite: I read even his not-so-good books (i.e. his last ones).

You can't go wrong with Jurassic Park, Sphere, Airframe, or Disclosure. (I would only stay away from Eaters of the Dead).

King is much more hit-or-miss but he has a lot of classics. My favorite is The Dark Half.

I'm not a fan of King, but I adore the Dark Tower series. I think it's safe to dive into those, as long as you're willing to commit to a seven book series.

Also, I cannot recommend Ender's Game enough. That's a whole series unto itself, but you can read the first as a standalone.

And anything by Neil Gaiman is great, especially American Gods and Good Omens (co-written with Terry Pratchett).

If you're looking for something British and humorous, The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy is a classic for a reason. And when you feel ready to tackle headier material, I strongly suggest Frank Herbert's Dune.

Maybe it was a case of having heard entirely too much hype from everyone I'd talked to before I got around to reading it, but I was greatly disappointed by Hitchhiker's Guide. It was mildly amusing, but it struck me as little more than an anti-religious rant vaguely disguised as a comedy. I'll give it another read at some point and see if maybe it was just my state of mind at the time, though.

I tried to read it back in high school and found it impenetrable. I read it again last year and couldn't have been more delighted.

I read it when I was pretty young, and really enjoyed the whole series until my sister took the book away from me while I was reading the last book

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Harry Potter books. Sure, they're technically for kids, and the first few are pretty simple reads, but the last couple qualify as "novels" in any sense of the word, I'd think.

I can't begin to offer any book suggestions without knowing your taste, but I might try this: see what audiobooks your library offers. They usually have them on tape or CD, and the more enterprising branches are even loaning out MP3 downloads these days. Audiobooks are a great way to enjoy denser books that might be a struggle to get into if you aren't used to heavy reading. I mostly get them for when I'm driving, as I spend around an hour in the car every day, but I do find that sometimes I'll listen to the beginning of a book and them get so caught up that I'll just get the book itself and read it, because the narration is going too slowly.

Of course they're novels. I think I can safely speak for many other posters in this thread when I say I didn't suggest them because I don't care about them. Ergo, it never crossed my mind to suggest them. But, hey, if that's your thing then by all means, sit down with the original printed source material and give it a go.

I'd like to know this as well. It's not the first time I've heard the statement either, so I think it's great that you've discovered how much fun reading can be.

Reading can really take you on adventures that you can't go in any other medium.

I'm late to this thread as well, and was kind of wondering the same thing myself. By never reading a novel, did the OP mean EVER or just a novel for pleasure? Because I can't imagine any school system that allows you to graduate from high school without having to have read a bunch of novels along the way. Assuming the OP isn't a pre-teen or something, which on the internet you can never quite be sure isn't the case

Anyway, waaaaay back Stephen King books were among my first "real" novels as well. I agree the older King is the best place to start. His writing was a lot more stream-lined (maybe back then he actually had to listen to editors when they suggest paring things down), and I think that was for the better. I like the Michael Crichton suggestions as well - another "populist" writer, with an easy-to-handle style. I like the Ender's Game and Harry Potter series suggestions for sci-fi and fantasy. In a case like this, I think the mega-popular books are probably a nice place to start - the kind of novels that manage to suck in many people who rarely read. Even though some serious readers look down a bit on books like these, there's obviously something about them that appeals to many people (even though technically they aren't necessarily the best books out there).

Pretty much everything Stephen King has written. I started reading his books when I was like... 7, they are so entertaining.