The Shrine

<div style='font: 10pt georgia; text-align: left; '>So we didnt have power for about 12 hours last night. Big storm thru the area, the winds knocked down trees and powerlines. Blew the siding off out neigbors house. Both of our houses are fine however (current and new house).</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>Good choice!</div>

<div style='font: 10pt georgia; text-align: left; '>Yeah Ive been meaning to start it...I used to be a big SK fan, but I went into the fantasy genre.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I only read one Stehen King book, and that was a long time ago, "It". I remember not really enjoying it, so I haven't read any since, but I am running out of things to read and I want to try something, which Stephen King books would you most highly recommend?</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Had a weird one here too. a hailstorm whenm it's 92 outside......color me confused</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>i never really liked him much.....For some reason I've just found a lot of his work to be.....well....crap</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Tahoma; text-align: left; '>If you want to start with something you're familiar with, though, pick up Different Season. Its a compilation of 4 good short stories:

Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption
Apt Pupil
The Body (the movie Stand by Me)
The Breathing Method

In fact most of his short story compilation books are good, Four Past Midnight, Skeleton Crew, Night Shift...

A good non-horror book is Hearts in Atlantis or The Long Walk.

I think hes a gifted writer. When you read a lot of his books you tend to notice that things get rehashed a bit (places, names, mannerisms), but it isnt that annoying. Contrary to popular belief he isnt just a writer with basic skills that throws blood into his books, it is easy to see his advanced techniques and skills at storytelling with just about anything he writes.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt georgia; text-align: left; '>Its been a long time...but like Flip said, The Stand is an excellent book, probably my favorite. The Green Mile is very good too.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt georgia; text-align: left; '><b>Link:</b> <a href="http://www.thelouisvillechannel.com/new ... il.html</a>

Heres a link to the story...check out the pictures slideshow..most of those pics are in my neighborhood.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>Jesus. Is that an outboard motor stuck in a telephone pole?</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>If you didn't like IT then you probably won't like much King.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt georgia; text-align: left; '>Talking to some ppl who live near me..apparently the elec. co doesnt expect power to be restored to them until monday.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>Desperation because, from a technical standpoint, it's a very tightly written book. You can tell King's finally matured past his "diarrhea of the mouth" tendencies. The momentum barely stops for a second in this book. And it's a great, weird supernatural thriller besides.

The Regulators (by King's pseudonym, Richard Bachman) I recommend for it's experimental style and its hilarious social commentary on suburban/pop culture and children's entertainment. It's got an incredibly dark, but also an incredibly smart sense of humor (which is a nice change of pace from King's corny and often irratiting, "hit you over the head with it"-style jokes). This is one of my favorite King books to date, actually.

These two books are connected together too, though in a strictly irrational way.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Tahoma; text-align: left; '>yikes, that stinks. That was a ton of damage.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Hmmm, could be interesting, would you mind giving me a little synopsis of the plot of each?</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>I'd write you these myself, but I gotta go mow the lawn.

<I><B>Desperation</b></i>

<I>In the Beginning...there was the Highway, and the Highway was Dry and Dusty. An eclectic group of travelers along a desert highway in Nevada get stopped by a very large local police officer, who initially seems friendly, normal, and all business. But, the more you get to know him, the more strange he seems. Is he really just a local cop? Is the alcoholic writer just an alcoholic writer? Is the twelve-year-old boy, with a newfound but strong sense of religion, just a normal boy? What about the local copper mine? What about the lady mining engineer?

In some ways, this is "The Stand" revisited, with a disparate group banding together to fight an evil and supernatural force. It is a bit formulaic, especially early on. But, "God is in the details," and "Desperation" is a mine rich with interesting twists, themes, subthemes, and characters. ...David Carver (the boy) has hidden depths that turn this story into a near-epic. Good versus evil is the oldest plot (see the Book of Exodus in the Bible if you're unconvinced) but "Desperation" is definitely is definitely not your typical good guy battles bad guy story.</I>

<B><I>The Regulators</i></b>

An evil creature called Tak uses the imagination of an autistic boy to shift a residential street in small-town Ohio into a world so bizarre and brutal that only a child could think it up. It's as two-dimensional and gaudy as a kid's comic book, but for this reviewer, The Regulators is a gripping adventure tale about what happens when a mind fixated on TV (especially old Westerns and a cartoon called MotoKops 2200) runs amok. As Michael Collins writes in Necrofile, "[Stephen] King offers his readers a glimpse of the true evil of popular culture ... which has no design or intent, only an empty need to sustain itself. King is, I think, about the canniest observer of what America is, and that he generally writes horror ought to give us pause from time to time."</div>