November ScaredyKIT: Stephen King and Family

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November ScaredyKIT: Stephen King and Family

1sturlington
Ott 14, 2021, 6:43 am

Hello, fellow thrill seekers, it's our favorite time of the year! I'm not talking about Halloween--I'm talking about Stephen King month. Choose anything you like from the King of Horror's vast body of work, or pick something by a member of his family: Joe Hill, Owen King, Tabitha King, or Kelly Braffet. Tell us what you're going to read or reread, and don't forget to add it to the wiki.

2sturlington
Ott 14, 2021, 6:45 am

I have *two* brand-new unread Stephen King novels on my shelf, and I know for sure I will read Billy Summers. I may also get to the other one, a Hard Case Crime paperback called Later.

3Tess_W
Ott 14, 2021, 7:10 am

I have had Joyland on my shelf for sometime. I think the time is now!

4LibraryCin
Ott 14, 2021, 5:07 pm

Have to admit, I love Stephen King, but I don't always have more of his added to my tbr each year. I will do some digging. If I don't have anything new, I might pull out an older one for a reread.

5Tanya-dogearedcopy
Ott 14, 2021, 7:28 pm

I've started reading Firestarter; but at the rate I'm going, I'm sure it won't be until (US) Thanksgiving before I wrap it up! :-D

6JayneCM
Ott 14, 2021, 7:51 pm

I borrowed Elevation from the library so will hang onto it until November.

7LibraryCin
Ott 16, 2021, 10:30 pm

Turns out I have a Joe Hill on my tbr, but it's not at my library. :-(

8sturlington
Ott 26, 2021, 10:23 am

I started the planning thread for next year here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/336260

9Tess_W
Ott 29, 2021, 2:55 pm

I asked for and received Elevation by Stephen King on the same day. Since it was only 4 hours I polished it off in an afternoon. I wouldn't say this was a scary book, but a tale of something "odd." I listened to this on audio. It was narrated by King himself--he did a good job. 3.5 stars

10sturlington
Nov 2, 2021, 4:16 pm

I finished Billy Summers.

I needed a book I could get immersed in right now, and this was just the book. Billy Summers is a hired assassin who is taking one last job. It has a big payout but something about it seems off to Billy. Part of the job is just waiting; he's embedded in a suburban Southern town where he makes friends with the neighbors and starts writing a book about his childhood and his time as a sniper in Iraq. Some readers seem to have found all this setup boring, but I found it immersive and enjoyed reading Billy's story within a story. By the time we get to the job itself, I'm ready to accept the twists that follow. This book deals with some pretty heavy topics, but it's mostly about morality, and it's a pretty suspenseful crime novel to boot.

Since I finished so early, I'm going to go ahead and read Later, too.

11VioletBramble
Nov 2, 2021, 6:42 pm

I listened to The Institute. It was good. Less like Stranger Things than the blurbs and book cover suggest.
I have vols 5 and 6 of Locke and Key by Joe Hill still to read.

12Tanya-dogearedcopy
Nov 2, 2021, 7:18 pm

And as I predicted, I'm still reading, Firestarter (by Stephen King) - This is a story about mistrust in the government and a pyrokinetic little girl who is the unintended result of an experiment both her parents were a part of in the early 1970s. One of the things I'm marveling about in reading King now, is how deftly he creates tone, setting and character. When he writes, he writes contemporarily; but now they read almost like historical novels! In this book, he casually talks about the feel of the plastic rectangle of a motel key, pay phones, and homes with playrooms-- but no mega TVs or anything digital.. Hopefully, I should have this wrapped up before (US) Thanksgiving!

13Kristelh
Modificato: Nov 3, 2021, 8:00 pm

I read a novella, book 1 in a series, Gwendy's Button Box. Stephen King wrote this but had a hard time with the ending so the story was finished in collaboration with Richard Chizmar. A coming of age story that has a dab of horror but mostly this is about what a young person deals with in those years.

14Tanya-dogearedcopy
Nov 8, 2021, 12:54 am

I finished Firestarter (by Stephen King) - This is the story of a little girl who has pyrokinetic abilities and who is pursued by a US government agency called, The Shop in the interests of national security. King plays on the general mistrust of US agencies like the FBI and the CIA which had started taking a hard hit in the public eye since Watergate (which had occurred just a few yers before this novel was published.) Ergo, the villain is not the little girl but rather The Shop... King creates a world: its values, a setting and characters with remarkable clarity & detail. Fast paced and with thriller elements in it, this is my latest favorite novel of his (which I say after every King novel I read, LOL)!

15sturlington
Modificato: Nov 10, 2021, 10:39 am

I also finished Later, which was much shorter than Billy Summers.

This is a story about a boy who can see dead people. Yes, King is recycling ideas here, and none too subtly either, but I really like the narrator's voice. It also interested me that King took a fresh look at an idea from an older book of his--I won't say what, to avoid spoiling fans. All in all, this is a fast-moving, entertaining tale that I think really fits the Hard Case Crime series, and it tickled me that part of the plot revolves around a literary agency.

EDIT for bad typo

16Kristelh
Nov 11, 2021, 4:57 pm

I've had the first few books of the Dark Towers series on my shelf for ever so I decided to finally get one read. So I read The Gunslinger. I found it hard to engage in the story but with audio I plowed through. So what I've learned by checking on-line. This novel is a fix-up novel meaning it combines some short stories. Maybe that's why it doesn't seem to grab.

17LibraryCin
Nov 11, 2021, 10:21 pm

Locke & Key: Heaven and Earth / Joe Hill
3 stars

This graphic novel has a few short stories, mostly surrounding the house that was the centre of the Locke & Key books. Only one of the stories features the children in the main series. The last third of the book is mostly photos of the authors in places that inspired the fictional setting of the series.

I liked the short stories – the first one was the best one, in my opinion. The photos weren’t as interesting, but were ok and the book finished off with full page illustrations of the children in the series with other things in the background (the back of the book tells me these are additional covers). Overall, I’m rating it ok.

18lowelibrary
Nov 22, 2021, 6:59 pm

A simple Stephen King read this month. Cycle of the Werewolf