Okay, so this is not a book review of The Shining, but I just spent several days in Colorado with my girls, and son-in-law, visiting my 21 year old who lives there. I did not know (or I should say, remember), that the Stanley Hotel was in Colorado. We were driving up to Estes Park, and I said “Wow, that looks just like the Stanley Hotel, to which 3 of my kids said….”Um, it is Mom.” To which I completely freaked-geeked out so of course we had to stop. If I had realized this, I would have scheduled one of their tours. We did wander around inside where we were allowed, and I have to admit, using the restroom was really creepy. Two of my girls refused to go inside. I was also the only one in the vehicle who had ever seen the movie, so I bought copies of it when I returned home to send to the kids who haven’t seen it 🙂
Have you ever visited or stayed here? I do not think I could sleep there to be honest.
I am still writing, and reading. I am currently taking the week off from work because my youngest, my last high school freshman, has major pre-band-camp practices all week.
I know I don’t usually get too personal here, but I am pretty sure my followers know I am a single Mom of four daughters.
Last Thursday; I put my 2nd oldest, my 20 year old, on a plane to move to Colorado. All my girls and I were able to have a last night together and a sleep-over at my oldest daughters house, and I had a panic attack as soon as I walked in her apartment. It’s been a long time since I slept somewhere other than my bed, but we swam, hit 3 different drive-thru restaurants so we could all get what we wanted to eat, and played Mario Cart for hours.
My anxiety had been 150% this week coming up to her leaving, and I thought it would stop once she got there; but it has not…
So I’ve been working on stuff for my Etsy store.
Not impressed….
Yes; I had a problem with the first W
Still working on the book boxes; trying to get the 3-D effect on the paint.
I haven’t given up on my cozy mysteries; but I have Stephen King’s Outsiders, and Bill Clinton and James Patterson’s The President is Missing. I officially got the diagnosis that my Nook has died; and honestly, I don’t care about the books, but I am really pissed about my Townspeople who are dying in my app….
As soon as I get caught up on Castle Rock, Shameless, and the Kardashians, I will be right on it!
I wonder how many of us Mr. King has put on the path of reading, that we may otherwise had not found without his writing?
Were you reading Carrie, or It, or The Shining, when you knew if your parents had any idea of what was in that book, they would hit you upside the head with it?
Which book by Stephen King made you decide you absolutely had to be a writer?
And which book have you read over-and-again?
I’m going to spare you the biography on him, as I see there are a lot of posts in honor of Mr. King today. I will say I have read many of his books, but not all of them; yet.
My favorite:
I cannot explain what it is about this book that makes me love it so. It could be the actual story; it may be something that was going on in my life at the time I first read it that it gave me an escape from. There really is no other connection within the characters, plot, or even environment where it takes place that would connect with me. But I absolutely love this book the most!
The time Stephen King made me cry:
Yes, this book made me physically, ugly-sob cry, and I would never have thought he could do that to me, and it came out of no where! Some of his best writing, in my humble opinion. I have not read this one in quite some time, so I am thinking a good reread over the  Thanksgiving holiday is due.
My Favorite Series:
Yes; I devoured this series by getting each book the day it was released, and having it read within 24 hours. I am currently experiencing extreme sadness that I have no access to the station showing the television show.
So Stephen King, I sincerely wish you the happiest 70th birthday, and cannot thank you enough for the countless hours of joy you have brought me for the past 33 years since I discovered your writing.Â
Oh: and for scaring the shit out of me on many occasions where I sat up in bed for the night, with the lights on, and my tv playing loud so I couldn’t hear the noises inside my house. You are truly a master at your art, and for that, I am forever grateful!
Before I post my author, and I will tell you, I was arguing with myself for days; if you could have dinner with one author, living or not, who would it be?
I am expecting some familiar names, and please do not let that stop you from posting, because I would honestly love to have dinner with JK Rowling, Stephen King (hold the meal), or Mr. Patterson.
I would have loved to have had a face-to-face with Mr. William W. Johnstone, whom stoked my fire for writing when I wrote to him as a young teenager, obsessed with his books, and he replied, and we had a friendly relationship for several years.
That book right there; Sweet Dreams, put me on the path to loving books for the rest of my life!
And now I have a personal library in my house, and I am constantly hunting for the books I loved as a child. Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators? They are gold now, because I cannot find a single one under $30.00, and my local library does not even carry them anymore 😦
I love my classics: Sleepy Hollow, Pet Cemetery, Dr. Sleep, and oh so many more scary Halloween stories. But the stuff you find now is all children’s books.
Wait….What???
No one is writing sitting-on-the-edge-of-your-bed-with-every-light-on-in-the-house stories?
It seems not, my friends.
What have you read that has completely kept you awake? Blown your mind? Made you change religions?
Okay; all joking aside. I can no longer watch scary movies, but I will always pick up a scary book.
Edgar Allen Poe? You can never go wrong. Halloween is a great time to pick up Sherlock Holmes if you never have before.
I would love to know what you are reading that keeps you up at night. That way I can stay up too!
Finally! I managed to get this book finished, and I was not disappointed. Bill Hodges is still not finished with Brady Hartsfield. Apparently, Brady is not even close to being finished with Bill, Â either.
You’ll find familiar faces here from the first two stories (Mr. Mercedes, and Finders Keepers), as well as some new characters. The story focuses on Hodges and Hartsfield both being able to put an end to the twisted ties they have to each other.
Which says a lot, because Brady Hartsfield is supposed to be in a vegetative state. A Doctor at the hospital sees the perfect opportunity to use Brady as a guinea pig for an experimental drug for those suffering from brain injuries. Apparently the drug should be approved, because it seems to work. Whether the extra benefits Brady experiences are due to the medication or not is questionable.
Brady is determined to make Hodges, as well as those nearest and dearest to him, finally pay for interfering in his twisted plots of death and destruction. And Hodges has enough on his mind already. Holly and Jerome once again team together with Hodges in what is the perfect ending to this trilogy.
I find myself in my own personal argument about this, because although there are books I have read, and thought the movies were terrible; I also know that so many people decided to pick up and read that book because they saw the movie.
Some easy ones for me that should have never been made? Any Romeo and Juliet movie; ever. Honestly, I never enjoyed the story, so there was zero chance I would like any movie based on this story.
This is strictly my personal-non-scientific-I-watch-too-many-movies opinion; so we will just go with it.
I read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone when the movie was done at the theater, but not released on dvd. I read it in a day, and by that time, the next two books were already out. So it took a while before I got caught up to the book releases and had to wait in line for the remaining books. I loved the movies, as much as the stories.
I absolutely love the Twilight series. The movies were painful to watch because I think Kristen Stewart is the worse actress ever; but I loved the stories. So yes, I did watch, and own, each dvd.
The Hunger Games. I loved the books, but as each successive movie comes out, I find it more unbearable to sit through.
Inkheart. Oh. My. Goodness. I love this story, and the movie. I watch it all the time. I do not know why, but I love watching Brendan Fraser in any movie. Goofy; serious; I just like him. But Inkspell and Inkdeath never made it to film. Journey to the Center of the Earth? Loved him in that. Yes; I own that too.
And Narnia. Oh my favorite, glorious Narnian world. I have heard rumors about The Silver Chair being next to be produced, but the actors are grown, and can no longer fill the roles as they left them.
Another well loved book!
What movie have you loved that you wish was written in a story?
Me? Stephen King’s From a Buick 8.
One of my favorite stories, as you all know, and I would love to see this made into a movie.
Yes, this is what I was finishing up yesterday. I am not positive on the number, but this has to be at least the 8th time I have read this story. I still pulls me in now the same way it did when I first read it.
I consider this “classic” Stephen King. We tend to hear that a lot, and say it often. We compare stories we read now to the first stories Mr. King wrote. We even try to find the timeline of his “drunk” writing, and his “sober” writing. We want him to explain to us how he dare to write something we did not like.
Have I read stories he wrote that I did not like? Absolutely. But it does not mean it is time to put the pen down and do something else. I read a story that he wrote that literally made me cry, it was romantic and horror all at once. I cannot remember the name of the book, and I do not own it. I just remember a man being in love with a younger woman and she was killed in the end…
From a Buick 8 is intense, supernatural, and all about family and friends. A young man is struggling with the death of his father, and it seems like no one can give him the answers he needs. The answers that will allow him to accept what happened, and move on with his life.
No spoilers here, as usual, but we are talking about a car that showed up out of nowhere, with a driver that disappeared, and became the unfortunate property of Pennsylvania State Police Troop D.
It spit out horrors, and tried to pull them each in. And friendships lasted, friends died, and life moved on, with or without answers that one young man so desperately needed.
If you have read this story, I would love to hear what you thought of it!
Another brilliant book by Stephen King. He is in fine form with this sequel to “Mr. Mercedes”. The way this story ended has me nothing but hopeful that there has to be a third installment.
These books have the classic Stephen King feel to me. Fright, suspense, and a touch of paranormal and unexplainable things happening quietly in the background.
Bill Hodges is enjoying his retirement from Detective, and quite successful in his private detective business. This story picks up where “Mr. Mercedes” ended, but the focus has turned to one of the families that was devastated by the actions of Mr. Mercedes.
If you have read “Mr. Mercedes”, then some of these names will be familiar to you. If you have not read it, yet, I cannot recommend it enough. In this installment, we get more of Holly, now Hodges assistant. Jerome and Barbara are still in this story, and we get to meet Pete and Tina Saubers. Their father was seriously injuring in the City Center Massacre, and Pete finds a way to help them with their financial struggles. Although he does nothing illegal, per-se, what he does do has serious consequences for his family. It is up to Bill to save all of them.
If you have gotten to read this as well, I would love to here what you thought of it!
I was told by a few of you that I would love this book, and you were right! This was definitely along the lines of classic Stephen King, and it has set me on a new mission: to read all of the older Stephen King books that are seldom talked about and I have somehow not yet managed to read.
As a side note; I still like “From a Buick 8” the best. I am going to have to pay close attention the next time I read it, which will be soon, to see if I can figure out what exactly it is about that one story in particular that makes me like it so much!
Trisha McFarland goes from being a normal 9 year old girl, with an irritating older brother, and parents who just divorced, to suddenly fighting for her life when she gets lost in the woods. Having a 10 year old daughter myself, I was often wondering what she would do and how she would handle each new situation that Trisha encountered as she walked for miles, trying to find her way out of the woods.
The one thing that saves Trisha’s sanity, at least for the most part, is listening to the Boston Red Sox on her Walkman, and telling herself that when Tom Gordon gets the save, it means she will get saved. This is classic Stephen King all over the place, but how much of it is in Trisha’s scared, starved, exhausted mind, and how much of it is really out there in the woods, watching her?
If you like Stephen King, you will enjoy this story. At less than 300 pages it is a quick read, and the only thing I did not like about it was that the chapters were so very long! I like to try to stop reading at the end of a chapter, but sometimes I just couldn’t because they were so long. I would have to put it down about halfway through a chapter, and then skim through the page before when I picked it up to refresh myself on what was happening since I was in the middle of something big going on in the story line.
I have already started Stephen King’s new story, Finders Keepers, but this one will be a bit longer of a read. I am still trying to get my blog in top-notch working order so I can attach my store, and I do have to go back to work tomorrow!
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