Books

I have been through just about everything I could find before around 2010 and a few of his newer ones and in my opinion I would just read everything.

Of course his supposed Opus are the dark tower books (which is what originally drew me in) and there are a fair few other books based around that world and gives nods to each other, some bigger than others.

Ones that I enjoyed a lot personally though (dark tower aside) are Talisman, Black House, Desperation, Needful Things, Cell, Under the Dome and definitely 11/22/63.

My least favourites were probably Cujo and Misery but people seem to rate them so that is more personal I think.

I feel people either love or hate Stephen King. I was the same as you, absolutely loved his work from the get go and devoured everything I could.

Personal favorites:

IT

11-22-63 - not horror based mostly but cool concept.

Dark tower books - these are his holy grail, everything connects to them.

The stand - I just love the feel of this book, it just feels right.

Seriously try the dark tower books. I've reread them multiple times and it's such a great experience.

I started a publication-order read through (skipping any Dark Tower entries and saving them for the end) a while ago, and i have made it half-way through Four Past Midnight (1990), so I will limit my recommendations to his earlier works.

I love all his short story/novella collections, but if i had to pick one to recommend it would probably be Different Seasons, though Skeleton Crew is up there as well.

For the novels, a few of my less well-known or less commonly recommended favorites (in publication order, since i'm looking at my e-reader history) are The Dead Zone (especially poignant in the current state of politics), Roadwork (very compelling story of a guy's refusal to come to terms with a changing world), Christine (the premis sounds dumb, but he really pulled it off), The Eyes of the Dragon (his foray into fantasy), and The Tommyknockers (this along with Cujo were written deep in his cocaine days and it shows, but i couldn't put it down and some of my favorite King moments are in this book).

Any of his well-known ones are fantastic too (a general rule to follow is: if they've made a movie, especially if it was a bad movie, it's gonna be a good read), but I'm gonna shout out The Shinning in particular. The book is very different than the movie; not plot-wise per se, but the character development is so much deeper and more multi-dimensional. If you've seen the movie but haven't read the book, you don't really know The Shinning. No shade against the movie being thrown here, I love them both but for very different reasons.

In the interest of stopping before I list his whole bibliography, I'll end by saying you can safely add any of the Bachmann books to your list, especially since you liked Thinner.

I much prefer his shorter works to the big bloated novels he wrote mid-career which have a tendency to waffle on.

Personal highlights for me: Carrie, The Shining, Night Shift, Different Seasons, Revival, the Hodges trilogy,

He's written some of my favourite books. I'm a big fan of the Dark Tower Books, a brilliant book series and complete which is a big plus. Under the dome is also a great read, shame about the TV series. Haven't read any of his most well known works though!

I tried, but was unable, to find a video clip of Jon Lovitz portraying Stephen King on SNL. Good stuff.

Love seeing all of the recommendations in this thread! My husband has read almost all of them, he's got about 20 books left (most of which are the Dark Tower books) and his top 5 favorites are 11/22/63, Needful Things, Duma Key, Gerald's Game, and Joyland. His 5 least favorites so far are Dreamcatcher, The Eyes of the Dragon, Hearts in Atlantis, Sleeping Beauties, and Insomnia.

I myself have read The Outsider and and The Institute and immensely enjoyed both. I just finished Song of Susannah, book #6 of the Dark Tower series today, and I can't wait to finish it. It really is an incredible story/saga/epic. I plan on reading much more King but I plan on staying away from the darker stuff, as I'm a lot softer/sensitive since I've had a child lol.

I haven't read Stephen King in probably two decades so this might no longer apply. Family members are BIG fans and I started every one I read expecting to love them. But it turned out how much I liked them was inversely related to the death count. The higher the percentage of characters who died, the less I cared. There's a novella where they're trying to get to Hartford CT (I think it was Hartford, anywhere somewhere around there which is the last place you'd think of as being salvation), I liked that one.

Yes, I realise I am not the norm in this but you did say everyone ;)

Steven King, at his best, is the greatest American novelist of his generation. His character building is unsurpassed and he can definitely turn a phrase. On the other hand, a lot of his books would have benefited from more aggressive editing and he doesn't always stick his landings. That being said, he's been a fixture in my library for decades.

I'm glad to see others recommend 11/22/63, which IMHO is the best "modern" King novel (and maybe his best ever). For less well known books, I read Duma Key recently and liked it a lot. I know it's been mentioned before, The Talsiman is one of my all-time favorite books.

The man sure can spin a good yarn. I always think of him like the person you know who is absolute best at telling a tall tale around the camp fire, riveting everyone's attention. Is it technically perfect writing all the time? Nope. Is it trying to be fancy literature? Nope. Is it telling a story that holds onto your attention, leaving you sitting in a car listening to an audiobook for half an hour after you arrive home? Yep! He's a storyteller supreme. Some criticize him for weak endings, but he will sure drag you all the way to that ending.

I enjoy a variety of his writing. Growing up, I only thought of him as a "horror writer", because that's what made it to film. Then I found The Eyes of the Dragon in the library (which is a fantasy novel), and discovered that Mr. King can write more than horror. I truly enjoyed Hearts in Atlantis, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, The Dark Tower, and his "Hard Case Crime" books The Colorado Kid, Joyland, and Later. Joyland really is a great little gem of a book.

Then, his writing drew me into some of his horror works after all. Things like Firestarter (loved), Carrie (didn't love), The Shining (loved), and Salem's Lot (solid and interesting for it's place in vampire fiction). I also enjoyed his more recent book The Institute as well.

I'm not his biggest fan, and I see issues in the details of his writing from time to time (far too many hours spent in Literature classes), but I have tremendous respect for him as a storyteller, and as a writer who can capture the effect of a good storyteller so well so much of the time. To me this overcomes the criticisms some make of his work.

Thinner is one of my favourites by him!

The normal favourites are IT, The Stand, The Shining etc. But my absolute favourite of the ones I have read is Salem's Lot.