Stephen King | Raging Biblio-holism

End of Watch

June 20, 2016 by Drew

The Short Version: Brady Hartsfield was put into a coma at the end of Mr. Mercedes. In the years since, he has come out of it but remains nearly vegetative – or so it would appear. But Brady has his old nemesis, Bill Hodges, on the brain and that brain has achieved some decidedly psychic capabilities. When otherwise healthy individuals begin committing suicide, Hodges is drawn into the case – a race against time not only to save those he loves, but […]

Categories: Fiction, Horror, Literature, Mystery • Tags: Bill Hodges, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Crime, End of Watch, Fiction, Horror, Literature, Mystery, Reviews, Stephen King, Thriller

Finders Keepers

June 22, 2015 by Drew

The Short Version: In 1978, Morris Bellamy killed reclusive author Joseph Rothstein and took both his money and his unpublished notebooks. But he gets sent to jail for another crime and so the notebooks and the money sit, untouched – until a young boy finds them in 2014. But Bellamy gets his freedom that year too and he wants what he’s waited all these years for… The Review: So while this is nominally the second book in a trilogy, the connective tissue […]

Categories: Crime, Fiction, Literature • Tags: Bill Hodges, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Crime, Fiction, Finders Keepers, Literature, Mr. Mercedes, Reviews, Stephen King, Thriller, Writing

Selected Shorts: Make Something Up with Chuck Palahniuk

May 21, 2015 by Drew

my terribly messy scribblings all over the program… Have you ever been to a Chuck Palahniuk reading? The last one I went to, I got hit in the face with a bag of Almond Joy (hurled by Mr. P himself), inflated a beach ball, and caught a severed arm. So. Didn’t quite know what to expect at a slightly more refined event – but I knew Palahniuk would find a way to meld his delightfully weird sensibility with whatever he was […]

Categories: Events, Features • Tags: Alex Hurt, Becky Ann Baker, Charles Baxter, Chuck Palahniuk, Clive Barker, Events, Features, Make Something Up, Make Something Up: Stories You Can't Unread, Mark Richard, Matthew Love, New York City, Recaps, Sam Underwood, Sarah Steele, Selected Shorts, Stephen King, Symphony Space

Revival

November 29, 2014 by Drew

The Short Version: As a young boy, Jamie Morton befriends the new town priest, Charlie Jacobs. After a terrible accident, Jacobs leaves the town – but not before exposing Jamie to his secret obsession: electricity. Several times over the ensuing half-century, Morton and Jacobs cross paths on the road to a harrowing showdown that may well rip open the very fabric of our world. The Review: I think my affection for and adoration of Stephen King is probably pretty well-known at this […]

Categories: Fiction, Horror, Literature • Tags: Arthur Machen, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Electricity, Fiction, Frankenstein, Horror, Literature, Lovecraft, Religion, Reviews, Revival, Science, Stephen King

Mr. Mercedes

June 5, 2014 by Drew

The Short Version: Early one spring morning in 2009, a silver Mercedes plows through a crowd of job fair applicants – killing eight, maiming several more. The perp is never caught. A year later, when the lead cop on the case has retired and is starting to get listless, he gets a strange letter from Mr. Mercedes – a taunt, meant to goad him into suicide. But instead, it resparks the man’s engine and the two begin circling towards their […]

Categories: Fiction, Horror, Literature • Tags: BEA14, Fiction, Horror, Mr. Mercedes, Stephen King, Thriller

Doctor Sleep

October 16, 2013 by Drew

The Short Version: In 1977, The Overlook Hotel burned to the ground. The caretaker, Jack Torrance, died but his wife and son managed to escape the blaze – although whether they ever truly escaped what happened there is up for debate. Young Danny, now Dan, has turned to drinking to dull his shine – but right around the time he decides to get clean, a young girl named Abra is born. Abra’s shine is infinitely more powerful than Dan’s and […]

Categories: Fiction, Horror, Literature • Tags: A Visit to October Country, Danny Torrance, Doctor Sleep, Fiction, Horror, Joe Hill, Literature, NOS4A2, Stephen King, The Overlook Hotel, The Shining, The True Knot

The Wind Through the Keyhole

May 1, 2012 by Drew

The Short Version: There are many levels to the Tower, friends, and sometimes the wheel of ka turns us to places we’ve already been and times we’ve already known – but to see moments we missed before. After escaping the strange OZ in Mid-World but before they reached Calla Bryn Sturgis, Roland and his ka-tet weather a brutal superstorm in the remnants of yet another ghost town. To keep them warm as the starkblast blows, Roland tells them a story […]

Categories: Fantasy, Fiction, Horror, Literature, Sci-Fi • Tags: Fantasy, Fiction, Horror, Literature, Sci-Fi, Stephen King, The Dark Tower, The Wind Through the Keyhole, Western

11/22/63

November 26, 2011 by Drew

The Short Version: Jake Epping is an average thirty-something teacher in rural Maine in 2011. However, after finding a ‘rabbit-hole’ in time, he ends up back in 1958 with the mission of stopping Lee Harvey Oswald from killing President Kennedy. Except the past doesn’t want to be changed – and it will throw everything it can, including a lovely Texas librarian, in his way to stop him from reaching his goal. Because despite his best intentions, history might be just fine as it […]

Categories: Fiction, Horror, Literature, Sci-Fi • Tags: 11/22/63, Fiction, Historical, Literature, Stephen King

Under The Dome

December 25, 2009 by Drew

I have always liked Stephen King. So many people see him as a schlocky pulpy horror writer but I honestly can’t think of one book that is JUST that. Actually, no, okay, Cell was one of those books. That was great. But anyway, especially in what we have to call his “later phase” – post car crash or so – he has written some of the most affecting modern English novels of the last twenty years. Bag of Bones started […]

Categories: Cannonball Read II, Fiction, Horror, Literary Challenges, Sci-Fi • Tags: Book #12, Cannonball Read II, Fiction, Horror, Sci-Fi, Stephen King, Under The Dome

Raging Biblio-holism

The overwhelming urge to collect, consume, and consider books

Tag: Stephen King