@Loki
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sheetsadam1 — 5 months ago(October 09, 2025 01:35 AM)
That is a promising touch for sure… I mentioned it the other day as one of the greatest Appalachian films.
1.
Harlan County USA
(1976, Barbara Kopple)
2.
Wanda
(1970, Barbara Loden)
3.
Matewan
(1987, John Sayles)
4.
Spring Night, Summer Night
(1967, Joseph L. Anderson)
5.
Lawless
(2012, John Hillcoat)
6.
The Devil All the Time
(2020, Antonio Campos)
7.
Coal Miner's Daughter
(1980, Michael Apted)
8.
Cold Mountain
(2003, Anthony Minghella)
9.
Where the Lilies Bloom
(1974, William A. Graham)
10.
The Deer Hunter
(1978, Michael Cimino)
Honorable mention:
Justified
(2010-2015)
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Celestia Bloodshed — 5 months ago(October 09, 2025 10:22 PM)
i've only seen 2, 6, 7, 8 & 9 from this list and liked them all pretty much. Matewan and Harlan County are the ones i really wanna catch up with tho.
back to
The Flamethrowers
tho, now that i'm 3/4 through it i can say that after a challenging start, the novel becomes much more accessible later on. maybe it's just that i got used to Kushner's style or whatever, but i can't put it down as it is. she's a great writer and i love the images she creates with her style which is really quite something else, but i'm not sure how much depth especially her main characters have here. as of now, i can't see or feel much of that and i'm finding myself not really caring about any of them tbh…
cursed, scarred & forever possessed -
sheetsadam1 — 5 months ago(October 09, 2025 10:51 PM)
Yeah, I sort of got that vibe with
Creation Lake
too. The lead character was kind of the least interesting of them.
I'm still working my way through
Halloween Party
. I set it aside for a virtual movie night yesterday evening, but should finish it pretty soon. Classic Agatha Christie so far!
After that… George R.R. Martin vampire book or revisit some Laird Barron short stories?
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sheetsadam1 — 5 months ago(October 10, 2025 12:14 AM)
With this in mind and given that it is October… complete chronological list of all King books with my rankings.
Carrie
(9.5/10)
'Salem's Lot
(10/10)
The Shining
(9/10)
Rage
(7.5/10)
Night Shift
short story collection (10/10)
The Stand
(10/10)
The Long Walk
(8/10)
The Dead Zone
(8/10)
Firestarter
(7/10)
Roadwork
(7.5/10)
Danse Macabre
nonfiction (8/10)
Cujo
(8/10)
The Running Man
(8/10)
The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger
(7.5/10)
Different Seasons
novella collection (10/10)
Christine
(7.5/10)
Pet Sematary
(10/10)
Cycle of the Werwolf
(6/10)
The Talisman
w/ Peter Straub (8.5/10)
The Eyes of the Dragon
(7/10)
Thinner
(6.5/10)
Skeleton Crew
short story collection (9/10)
It
(10/10)
The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three
(9.5/10)
Misery
(9.5/10)
The Tommyknockers
(3/10)
SOBRIETY
The Dark Half
(6/10)
The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands
(8/10)
Needful Things
(9/10)
Gerald's Game
(6.5/10)
Dolores Claiborne
(8.5/10)
Nightmares and Dreamscapes
short story collection (8/10)
Insomnia
(7.5/10)
Rose Madder
(8.5/10)
The Green Mile
(9/10)
Desperation
(6.5/10)
The Regulators
(7/10)
The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass
(10/10)
Bag of Bones
(8/10)
The Girl who Loved Tom Gordon
(6/10)
Hearts in Atlantis
novella collection (9.5/10)
VAN ACCIDENT
On Writing
nonfiction (10/10)
Dreamcatcher
(3/10)
Black House
with Peter Straub (7/10)
Everything's Eventual
short story collection (7.5/10)
From a Buick 8
(6/10)
The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla
(6/10)
The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah
(5/10)
The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower
(2/10)
Faithful
nonfiction with Stewart O'Nan (1/10)
The Colorado Kid
(2/10)
Cell
(4/10)
Lisey's Story
(9.5/10)
Blaze
(6.5/10)
Duma Key
(7/10)
Just After Sunset
short story collection (7/10)
Under the Dome
(7/10)
Full Dark, No Stars
novella collection (10/10)
11/22/63
(10/10)
The Dark Tower: The Wind Through the Keyhole
(8/10)
Joyland
(8/10)
Doctor Sleep
(8/10)
Mr. Mercedes
(7/10)
Revival
(10/10)
Finders Keepers
(5/10)
The Bazaar of Bad Dreams
short story collection (6.5/10)
End of Watch
(5.5/10)
Gwendy's Button Box
with Richard Chizmar (3.5/10)
Sleeping Beauties
with Owen King (5/10)
The Outsider
(9.5/10)
Elevation
(6/10)
The Institute
(6/10)
Later
(6/10)
If It Bleeds
novella collection (8/10)
Billy Summers
(8/10)
Gwendy's Final Task
with Richard Chizmar (1/10)
Fairy Tale
(7/10)
Holly
(7.5/10)
You Like It Darker
short story collection (7/10)
Never Flinch
(5.5/10)
Hansel and Gretel
with Maurice Sendak (7/10)
@Celestia Bloodshed
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Celestia Bloodshed — 5 months ago(October 10, 2025 12:36 AM)
wow thank you for this list! that's a ****load to catch up on…!!
i think i mentioned already that i have
Misery
&
The Stand
waiting in my shelf for me to read. i do keep on glancing at Misery especially every now and then, so i guess that will be the first one i'm gonna start, soon.
one thing tho: i get the "Sobriety" time mark, but what does "Van Accident" have to do with King's subsequent output?
also this,
Faithful nonfiction with Stewart O'Nan (1/10)
just curious, what is wrong with this one? i've read
The Speed Queen
by Stewart O'Nan last year and really liked it… so i'm just curious who is to blame for that low ranking? lol
on another note, Pynchon's new novel is out now since a couple of days ago, are you going to get it and planning to read it?
cursed, scarred & forever possessed -
sheetsadam1 — 5 months ago(October 10, 2025 12:47 AM)
So he was hit by a van while walking back in 1999 and afterwards he was addicted to prescription opioids for a time and kept threatening to retire once he'd wrapped up The Dark Tower series (quite badly, tbh). It kind of explains how wildly inconsistent he was in those years immediately following. He recently had a surgery as a result of the aftereffects of the accident and walks with a cane these days, but I think that he and the fans both have lower expectations these days… And are pleasantly surprised when he still delivers a home run now and then
Yes, the new Pynchon is on my list. Hopefully I'll get to it in November. Along with
Notes from Underground
and probably returning to Barbara Kingsolver again.
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Celestia Bloodshed — 5 months ago(October 10, 2025 01:03 AM)
oh okay, i see. yeah that's the sort of background context i needed here
you know, i sort of wish you'd go with
Crime and Punishment
as your first Dostoevsky novel instead of
Notes from Underground
bc as fascinating as a study of a soul Notes from Underground is, it's really just the author rambling on about how miserable things are with and around him. Crime and Punishment has character arcs and exciting plotlines ruling supreme and works much better as a novel that keeps you on the edge of your seat for the entire time. so, i really HOPE you'll like Notes from Underground and are not going to be discouraged exploring more from the writer if you will end up not liking it. so, you've been warned lol
on the plus side, Notes is a shawty. Dostoevsky usually operates on much larger scales, and his big 5 novels are the ones where he truly shines. still, my fingers are crossed.
cursed, scarred & forever possessed -
sheetsadam1 — 5 months ago(October 10, 2025 01:36 AM)
I'll keep that in mind…
The Brothers Karamazov
is the one I'm really looking forward to, based on everything I've heard about it. But I want to work my way up to that one.
I picked
Notes from Underground
first partially because it's short and also because I was told it influenced
Taxi Driver
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sheetsadam1 — 5 months ago(October 10, 2025 12:50 AM)
just curious, what is wrong with this one? i've read
The Speed Queen
by Stewart O'Nan last year and really liked it… so i'm just curious who is to blame for that low ranking? lol
I've never read anything else by O'Nan. But this book is just a collection of emails they sent to one another over the course of a Boston Red Sox season. And, not being a baseball fan, I barely understood a single word of it
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sheetsadam1 — 5 months ago(October 10, 2025 01:33 AM)
Yes lmao. I've even read bootleg versions of some early short stories he's never published in one of his collections (although two of them were incorporated into Creepshow). He's basically the main person (wait… Maine person
) I credit for my love of reading, so…
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sheetsadam1 — 5 months ago(October 16, 2025 02:38 AM)
And at least two more to catch up on
(and, yes, I'll definitely be revisiting
The Talisman
and
Black House
soon… and
The Dark Tower
maybe?
) He also touches on the van accident here.
Stephen King currently has two novels on his to-do list. After that? Well, his Constant Readers will have to wait and see as the legendary writer contemplates a well-deserved break.
“I’m trying to clear my desk as much as I can,” King, 78, tells USA TODAY. “At my age, you're off the warranty. You can't take anything for granted.”
This year has enjoyed a slew of adaptations of his works, from movies (“The Monkey,” “The Life of Chuck,” “The Long Walk” and upcoming “The Running Man”) to TV series (“The Institute” and this month’s “It: Welcome to Derry”). Plus the master of horror also dipped back into his detective side for the novel “Never Flinch,” the latest case for his fan-favorite sleuth Holly Gibney.
King’s planning one more book starring Gibney that he hopes to write this winter. “I love Holly,” he says. “Right now I am rereading ‘The Outsider’ because I have a way into this last Holly book so I need to refresh myself with that.”
Before that, he still has work to do on his next novel, a third book in a series with his friend, the late Peter Straub, that began with 1984’s “The Talisman” and 2001’s “Black House.” At the end of the sequel, King says it was made “pretty clear” that the fantasy world of the “Talisman” books, the Territories, is also the Mid-World of his “Dark Tower” tomes, so he plans to “button up” both series with the new tome.
Straub had given King some ideas for their third book before his death in 2022. “I kept putting it off when Peter was alive,” he says. “Peter had stuff to do, too. I mean, it wasn't all on me. But I would say, ‘Well, this time, this time…’ and time ran out for Peter. That made me feel really bad."
King wants to take some time off “while I'm still healthy,” he reveals. “You can't guarantee anything once you get past the age of 75, 76. So you've got to be a little bit careful. Anything can happen to anybody. I got hit by a van while I was in my prime, so to speak. I might have another 10, 15 years, but you can't count on it, that's all.”
King’s output has always been prodigious but it’s been especially remarkable in his later years. Other writers have been inspired: In a recent interview about his new novel “King Sorrow,” his son Joe Hill admitted he wants to be a “book-a-year guy” like King. “He’s a force, man. My dad (sneezes) and then he pulls out the tissue and goes, ‘Oh wow. Look, there's a novel there.’ ”
What’s his secret? “The thing is, I try to entertain myself,” King says. “I sit down like at quarter of 6 in the morning before anybody's up, and before my wife's having her first cup of coffee and she's in another part of the house. I really enjoy those three or four hours where I can play in a kind of a fantasy world. It's kind of nice.”
Don’t worry, folks, King’s not retiring tomorrow. As he says, “I’m a busy guy.” However, the author admits he’d “like to stop before I start to drivel. Like, repeat myself. I feel like I've still got a little more space to explore, but I have to watch out and not become a bore. I hate that idea, of being a boring person. I'd like to still surprise people a little bit.”
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LorqVonRay1999 — 3 months ago(December 26, 2025 10:31 PM)
Banned where?
Yeah, his books were banned in my grade school library. And high school. No problem with that.
But, oddly enough, the bookstore about eight blocks away carried many of his novels. They had to be purchased.
They were also in the public library.
And have they never been available at the cheapest prices on Amazon? Barnes and Noble? Target?
King is whining about something that really doesn't affect anyone's desire to purchase his books. -
Twizlee — 5 months ago(October 12, 2025 12:15 PM)
I'm flying through Freida McFadden books.
The Housemaid
The housemaid's Secret
The housemaid Wedding (super short)
The Wife Upstairs
Do Not Disturb
I just started The Housemaid is Watching and someone suggested The Teacher. -
Celestia Bloodshed — 5 months ago(October 25, 2025 09:49 PM)
currently re-reading this trilogy (in English, i only read the translated into German version before)
so i can finally start
Songbird & Snakes- then
Sunrise on the Reaping
, both of which i criminally haven't read yet.
cursed, scarred & forever possessed
- then