It was The Shining for me as well...about 1986 or so....my mother was an avid fan and I picked up one of her books, it so happened it was this one. I loved it and that summer I read quite a few others, including Cujo, Carrie, Night Shift and Firestarter.
I'm not sure if it was Carrie or It.
Just like pol, afterwards I read pretty much the rest of King (up to that point), all in a row.
I also started with Pet semetary - Stef (saidelgado) let me borrow it when I was about 14 and I loved it so much that I went out and got any book by SK I could lay my hands on
I remember that I tried reading The Stand and IT when I was a kid, but I wasn't able to finish them. Now that I am thinking about it, I think that the first King novel that I actually finished was The Waste Lands, with The Gunslinger following that. And then just about everything else has followed.
I read "It" first....still one of my favorites.
This might seem oddly anticlimactic, but my first was Four Past Midnight. After that, I tried reading IT, but that scared the blue hell out of me and I didn't finish it at that time. All I could read for weeks after that was the Bible, but then that scared me even worse (yet somehow bored me at the same time), so then I picked up The Lord of the Rings (this was way before the movies). After that, I read some of The Stand, took a break from it to read 'Salem's Lot, during which I also finished IT, then went back to The Stand. It gets a little blurry after that, but I think I read Pet Sematary next, and never looked back. . .
We place no reliance
Upon virgin or pigeon;
Our method is science,
Our aim is religion!
-Motto of Aleister Crowley
It is one of my all time favorite books. I didn't read it until I was 28 or 29 and it still scared the bugs outta me.Originally Posted by funky dredd
I read "It" first....still one of my favorites.
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Lalalalaaaa, lalalalaaa
sugarpop <3
I read The Shining when I was 15 or 16...it scared me so much but I wanted more King, so I read Cujo and Firestarter, I think, soon after that.
The rose speaks of love silently, in a language known only to the heart.
Like Crack for Kids
I read Cujo when I was in third grade. It was the first novel I'd ever read, and my teacher let me count it as whatever the total number you needed was for Book-It. Oh yeah, that little Pizza Hut personal pan pizza was all mine...
"Smile... It is a fine day..."
Mine was Christine. I was about 12 or 13 and I was on holiday with my parents and borrowed it from some other kid on the campsite. It scared the crap outta me, but even at that age I was drawn to his narrative and the depth and realistic dialogue of his characters.
Cujo.
Have you heard of people with short fuses? Well, I have no fuse at all, and there's a thousand could testify to it if I hadn't stilled their tongues for good.
You can't ignore my girth.
I actually love Rose Madder, it's one of my favorites, and I've never understood why it was so meekly reviewed.I read about half of Skeleton Crew first off but my first novel was alot more recent - Rose Madder. I know its not one of his best ones but I had just pegged him as mainly horror and wasn't that interested and was surprised when i discovered he is more fantasy than anything else. I think he's grossly mislabeled. The 2nd was Eyes of the Dragon, then the Gunslinger and then Desperation I think and then all of the others
My first was the shining in 5th grade, followed by The Stand in the summer of 6th and 7th, and that is what really got me.
"So many vows. They make you swear and swear. Defend the King, obey the King, obey your father, protect the innocent, defend the weak. But what if your father despises the King? What if the King massacres the innocent? It's too much. No matter what you do, you're forsaking one vow or another."
I'm llke The Nameless. I can remember it like it was yesterday. I was 13, in Catholic school, and my best friend lent The Shining to me. I read it at home, because if the nuns had caught me, I probably would have ridden the short bus to hell.
I was completely, totally hooked, and have been ever since. I have every paperback that has come out, including a soon to become rare edition of The Bachman Books, because SK has said he will never again publish Rage, the story about the kid that holds his classroom hostage (after Columbine, he said he was done with it).
"People, especially children, aren't measured by their IQ. What's important about them is whether they're good or bad, and these children are bad." ~ Alan Bernard
"You needn't die happy when your day comes, but you must die satisfied, for you have lived your life from beginning to end and ka is always served." ~ Roland Deschain
Wow at all the Shining folks! I'm in that group too.
It's peanut butter jelly time!
I really enjoyed Rose Madder too JB I think it was the opening chapter that grabbed me from the get go, this horrible domestic violence situation that was different to the short horror stories I had read so i was intrigued and kept going and that was probably the moment when I went from knowing about King to really enjoying King - I was surprised when the cross-characters from RM / Desperation / The Regulators didn't make an appearance in DT. Cynthia was definitely someone that featured across several books (the two-toned punk chick).
The Talisman is also an awesome book. That definitely sealed the deal for me, and out of all of this other books it would have to be the most DT-like in scope and story.
"You can lead a whore to culture but you can't make her think." - Duma Key
zoneseek@thedarktower.com
My first King book was Needful Things. Still one of my favourites.
Cujo
My first King was Delores Claiborne, on audiobook. I was in the fifth grade, and we were taking a trip to Texas, and we drove from Southern Oregon to Texas. On the way there, we listened to Delores Claiborne on the tape deck, and I really enjoyed it. The part where Delores kills her husband is a LOT creepier when you're young, it's late at night, and you're driving through some unknown desert. I suppose Desperation would have been much creepier, though, but hearing Joe scream out his wife's name gave me chills.
First novel I read myself? Pretty sure it was Insomnia. I saw it sitting on my Mom's shelf, and thought if I could read a book that long, that'd be an impressive feat for a fifth grader. And when I finished it, I was hooked. My best friend had a few King paperbacks, so I borrowed It, and that became my all time favorite novel. I've read It more than 19 times for sure. I tried reading The Stand before either of those, but it was too hard for me to get into at such a young age. And, in all honesty, at my reading level, I didn't pick up on half of what was going on in It or Insomnia, but I've reread both enough times that now I know what's up.
Skeleton Crew was my first SK book when I was under the age of 12. I think I was 8 or so. My grandmother is a huge SK fan, so I found her paperback copy of SC and read a story each time I visited her. And so I was hooked.
My favorite bands can kick your favorite bands' asses.
The horizon is right and motionless like the EKG of a dying woman.
My first King book was The Stand. I first tried to read it when i was 13 but could not get into it. Then i picked it up when i was 19 and didn't put it down. Then i read insomnia and The Gunslinger, which got me into the DT series. Whilst waiting for WotC, SofS and TDT, I read other King books, including Deperation, Hearts in Atlantis, Eyes of the Dragon and Rose Madder.
My first SK book was Pet Sematary when I was 11, quickly followed by The Shining. After that I was hooked and couldn't tell you in any sort of chronological order what I read after that, but I've read 20 or so of his books by now I think. A few I have yet to get to are Rose Madder, Desperation, Dolores Clairborne, The Stand, and I need to finish IT, but I think that will be a project this summer. I am currently re-reading through TDT and I'm in SoS right now.
As the scorpion said to the maiden as she lay dying, "You knowed I was poison when you picked me up." Jonas, WaG
We're all mad here!--The Cheshire Cat
I picked up a paperback copy of The Stand and was immediately sucked into the King vortex. I had NEVER been so oblivious to my own surroundings as I was when I read that book. I myself was living in the post-superflu era. It was just an incredible experience. Following The Stand, I read Salem's Lot, which I liked a lot, but did not hold me like my first experience. Only when I read It did I have a similar experience and then The Dark Tower series was perhaps the ultimate experience. But, I have to tell you, it was PAINFUL waiting and waiting after having read Wizard and Glass until King finally got around to completing the DT story.
Dragline : Nothin'. A handful of nothin'. You stupid mullet head. He beat you with nothin'. Just like today when he kept comin' back at me - with nothin'.
Luke : Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
Like Dave I first read a paperback version of The Stand back in 1979 or 1980 and I have been hooked ever since. Firestarter was the first hardback I ever got and there has been no looking back! :-)
DT Spoiler - Enter at your own risk!
Spoiler:
I'm not positive but, I believe The Stand was the first one I ever read. Since the first though I have almost always been reading or rereading a King book.
Rach, seriously, Rose Madder, Desperation, Dolores Claiborne (forgot about this in the top 5 thread, which it would definitely be in mine now that I think about it - very subtle and well done), IT and The Stand need to be read.
"You can lead a whore to culture but you can't make her think." - Duma Key
zoneseek@thedarktower.com
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