Recently finished The Green Mile, really liked it. I didn’t cherish the ending as much as I expected to, but it still left me feeling happy and warm.
Tried to watch the movie with the Mrs and couldn’t finish it. First, it’s goddamn 3 hours long. Second, as usual, it’s just far inferior to the book. The movie covers so much of the book’s content in such a cursory way that it felt unfair. Like I didn’t hate Percy when watching the movie but I absolutely loathed him in the book. The nuances of his vile character just cannot come through in brief snippets on-screen.
I’m onto The Long Walk now. It’s easy, and fun, and necessary after an emotional book like Green Mile. I guess I expect it’ll get heavier, and darker, but that’s alright.
I’ve been in a complete reading funk for months now, i haven’t finished the last few books and none of the series I’m waiting on new releases from have been published. Maybe I should give Stephen King books a chance, if I prefer fantasy type stuff any recommendations for where I start? The Stand? Dark Tower?
I like books like there were the take a point in time and trace stories though that time. This time it’s the Fifties and it’s about liberal politics so there is a lot of defeat in the book. The book segments that are the best are the Gay Rights Movement and the Civil Rights Movement with a shout out to my favorite underrated civil rights icon Pauli Murray. The more underdeveloped parts were the environmental movement with the exception of coverage of the vitriol that Rachel Carson got.
I went into this with a lot of doubt. It’s a writerly novel about a white middle aged writer. Just a perfect set up for a navel gazing novel, and yes it’s very writerly, but it managed to charm me with its little bits and jokes and good descriptions. I ended up really enjoying this book
My experience w SK is limited but people on Reddit go nuts over The Dark Tower series, which I think is as fantasy-driven as he gets.
The Stand is incredible, but not fantasy imo. I couldn’t put it down. It’s like 1,100 pages though.
You might consider trying Misery or The Shining to start, they are shorter and easier to get through. But are quintessentially King. His descriptions of the protagonist’s pain in Misery….ooofffffff.
I tried a few non fiction history things and then started Musashi but got bored with them. I have a really hard time starting new books or series but if i get into I’ll go nuts reading until I finish so length isn’t a big deal.
I read and enjoyed The Shining as a little kid, that’s probably my only King experience. I’ll try Dark Tower first.
Finished The Gunslinger. I liked the world and the characters but King goes overboard with the descriptions for me, got a little tedious at times. I’ll continue with the next book though.
A history of the black panthers but from an anti-imperial point of view. The through line is that the Black Panthers were able to widen their base by appealing to disaffected blacks and white liberals. The book argues that they were able to do this by temporarily sidelining black nationalist separatists in their ranks who were naturally drawn to the black panthers. They also were able to appeal by linking the condition of blacks to other “oppressed” people like the anti imperialist movements in other countries and being against the Vietnam war.
Unfortunately repression from authorities and assassinations split the Black Panthers into the moderate and the black separatist factions and the internecine fighting doomed the Panthers.
A sociologist and former fashion model takes readers inside the elite global party circuit of “models and bottles” to reveal how beautiful young women are used to boost the status of men
An interesting exploration of the models and bottles party circuit. Nothing mind-blowing, but interesting hearing it explained in sociological terms. It goes through how and why rich people throw these kids of expensive models and bottles parties and also how and why clubs do it. It also focuses heavily on the promoters, who they are, what their purpose is in the party infrastructure, and what methods they use to get women to go to clubs while also usually not paying the girls for being in a place for a few hours.
I thought it was an interesting peek into that kind of life.
Book one is the worst of them all compared to the sheer spectacle and unrelenting Kingyness of the sequels.
The Argument at the beginning of each subsequent book summarizes everything up to that point. They’re well worth reading as part of the whole or, if you find one book or another suddenly got boring or wtf is King doing with this one, you can always skip to the next book’s Argument and see if you now “get it” and want to finish or can move on to the next book with a clear conscience.
Having said that, the audiobooks are INCREDIBLE, so if you need a way to make even a bad Dark Tower book into a good experience, look for the ones narrated by Frank Muller, who unfortunately passed away after a motorcycle accident.
Stephen King suffered his own accident that nearly cost him his life. After Muller’s accident, he worked with Pat Conroy, John Grisham, and Peter Straub to establish the WaveRider Foundation for freelancers like Muller who did great work but never had a stable income and then got hit hard because of the accident.
From the desk of Stephen King:
In the summer of 1999, I was struck by a careless driver and nearly killed while taking my daily walk. It was ten months before I was able to work productively again. Some years later, a good friend of mine, audio reader Frank Muller, suffered terrible head injuries as a result of a motorcycle accident. He never worked again. My luck was infinitely better than Muller’s, but the two events set me thinking about the uniquely perilous situation of many freelance artists.
I never admitted how bad my circumstances are until recently. I’m going to apply for a grant with ol Steebo while I wait for the gears of disability to finish their rotation
I did a re read a few summers back. Book 1 is fine. It starts to pick up in book 2. I enjoyed going back through all 8 books and the several short stories that are all inter connected.
Plus the graphic novels!!! Omg the comics are so good I’d just read those. Especially the stuff set in Roland’s youth that are basically an epic fantasy series that keeps everything you love about Stephen King while being written by other people who know how to pace a story from beginning to end.
