Has This Happened To You?

  • This message board permanently closed on June 30th, 2020 at 4PM EDT and is no longer accepting new members.

booklover72

very strange person
Jan 12, 2014
731
2,995
51
Dublin
Has reading Stephen King ruined you for reading anyone else? I'm trying to read widely as Mr. King says but nothing grabs me like his work does. Any suggestions?
Try James Herbert - he writes some really graphic horror novels. Sorry he did. he passed away last year. the novels are quite short but truly frightening. I read one called 'The Dark' and wouldn't leave the light off for a few days. be warned he wrote graphic scences about men and women and what they do. but he was frightening. RIP James.
 

booklover72

very strange person
Jan 12, 2014
731
2,995
51
Dublin
No question about it, there is no writer I like better, but I read a LOT, and all over the place. What I found is that it's his style that grabs me--conversational, slightly earnest, earthy, with realistic characters. It's writers like that that grab my heart: Steinbeck, Alcott (Don't laugh! I have a whole theory about the similarities in their styles :D), Wharton, Twain, McMurtry (earlier rather than later, here), even Shakespeare. Writers with similar humor would be Irving, Roddy Doyle. His childlike wonder: Bradbury, Gaiman (who led me to Pratchett--he's hilarious, so we're back to humor). Then there are all the fine writers who write in counterpoint to Mr. King--precise where he's expansive, cooler where he's emotional. They all balance together and against a King-sized (heh-heh) yardstick in my head/heart. But I read them all, because reading good writing both builds your skills and the lexicon you draw upon (for writery types) and enriches your mental and emotional playground as a human being. SO figure out how Mr. King is feeding your inner animal, then search for writers that can do something similar. Eventually, you'll catch on something in them that leads you to someone else, and that person will lead you elsewhere, and then... Oh, the places you'll go! :)
hi just saw you like Roddy doy
No question about it, there is no writer I like better, but I read a LOT, and all over the place. What I found is that it's his style that grabs me--conversational, slightly earnest, earthy, with realistic characters. It's writers like that that grab my heart: Steinbeck, Alcott (Don't laugh! I have a whole theory about the similarities in their styles :D), Wharton, Twain, McMurtry (earlier rather than later, here), even Shakespeare. Writers with similar humor would be Irving, Roddy Doyle. His childlike wonder: Bradbury, Gaiman (who led me to Pratchett--he's hilarious, so we're back to humor). Then there are all the fine writers who write in counterpoint to Mr. King--precise where he's expansive, cooler where he's emotional. They all balance together and against a King-sized (heh-heh) yardstick in my head/heart. But I read them all, because reading good writing both builds your skills and the lexicon you draw upon (for writery types) and enriches your mental and emotional playground as a human being. SO figure out how Mr. King is feeding your inner animal, then search for writers that can do something similar. Eventually, you'll catch on something in them that leads you to someone else, and that person will lead you elsewhere, and then... Oh, the places you'll go! :)
hi

You like roddy doyle, roddy is just down the road in kilbarrack from me - i'm irish. did you see/read the commitments. because of the jargon used in the film/book audiences outside of ireland had to be given a dictionary to find out what they meant. lol. i read anything too - from Mark twain, oscar wilde, tolstoy, forysth, clancy herbert etc. but take a wild guess as to who i alwasy come back to?
 

Neesy

#1 fan (Annie Wilkes cousin) 1st cousin Mom's side
May 24, 2012
61,289
239,271
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
hi just saw you like Roddy doy

hi

You like roddy doyle, roddy is just down the road in kilbarrack from me - i'm irish. did you see/read the commitments. because of the jargon used in the film/book audiences outside of ireland had to be given a dictionary to find out what they meant. lol. i read anything too - from Mark twain, oscar wilde, tolstoy, forysth, clancy herbert etc. but take a wild guess as to who i alwasy come back to?
Hey - that is cool that you are in Ireland!
 

skimom2

Just moseyin' through...
Oct 9, 2013
15,683
92,168
USA
hi just saw you like Roddy doy

hi

You like roddy doyle, roddy is just down the road in kilbarrack from me - i'm irish. did you see/read the commitments. because of the jargon used in the film/book audiences outside of ireland had to be given a dictionary to find out what they meant. lol. i read anything too - from Mark twain, oscar wilde, tolstoy, forysth, clancy herbert etc. but take a wild guess as to who i alwasy come back to?

I do! I first heard about him from a friend that lives outside of Dublin (Naas). She's a huge fan, and got me reading him :) He has so many I love, and my kids laugh their heads off at The Giggler Treatment.
 

skimom2

Just moseyin' through...
Oct 9, 2013
15,683
92,168
USA
Hi booklover72 - I am reading a book called Under the Dome (still) - it is a re-read and I put it down a while back and then stopped reading. I will pick it up again this evening before bed

I need to do that, Neesy. I really was 'meh' about the whole thing the first time, but my son has since read it & loved it. Made me think that maybe I wasn't in the right frame of mind the first time.
 

Shoesalesman

Well-Known Member
Aug 12, 2010
1,814
4,093
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Doesn't sour me on other authors, but I get tired of SK if on an extended run of titles, back to back to back. Only read about four SK books a year, about one each season. Same with Dean Koontz, same with Agatha Christie. Spacing each writer out allows time to savour & internalize each story and each individual style, plus at the rate in which Dean and Stephen are releasing books, I'll be reading new titles well into the future, let alone the ones I haven't gotten to yet.

I love knowing that I won't get to MY last SK/DK book for YEARS to come. Goodness forbid, when I finally catch up and hold the last book I need to read from either of these writers in my hands, when we no longer see new material being released, I may just put it on the mantle and not read it. Seems silly, but I don't want to reach the end.
I'll just specify in my Will that it... and a flashlight... gets buried with me. :m_scary:
 

Neesy

#1 fan (Annie Wilkes cousin) 1st cousin Mom's side
May 24, 2012
61,289
239,271
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Doesn't sour me on other authors, but I get tired of SK if on an extended run of titles, back to back to back. Only read about four SK books a year, about one each season. Same with Dean Koontz, same with Agatha Christie. Spacing each writer out allows time to savour & internalize each story and each individual style, plus at the rate in which Dean and Stephen are releasing books, I'll be reading new titles well into the future, let alone the ones I haven't gotten to yet.

I love knowing that I won't get to MY last SK/DK book for YEARS to come. Goodness forbid, when I finally catch up and hold the last book I need to read from either of these writers in my hands, when we no longer see new material being released, I may just put it on the mantle and not read it. Seems silly, but I don't want to reach the end.
I'll just specify in my Will that it... and a flashlight... gets buried with me. :m_scary:
Gee - that is kinda creepy! I like the way you look at things
 

skimom2

Just moseyin' through...
Oct 9, 2013
15,683
92,168
USA
Doesn't sour me on other authors, but I get tired of SK if on an extended run of titles, back to back to back. Only read about four SK books a year, about one each season. Same with Dean Koontz, same with Agatha Christie. Spacing each writer out allows time to savour & internalize each story and each individual style, plus at the rate in which Dean and Stephen are releasing books, I'll be reading new titles well into the future, let alone the ones I haven't gotten to yet.

I love knowing that I won't get to MY last SK/DK book for YEARS to come. Goodness forbid, when I finally catch up and hold the last book I need to read from either of these writers in my hands, when we no longer see new material being released, I may just put it on the mantle and not read it. Seems silly, but I don't want to reach the end.
I'll just specify in my Will that it... and a flashlight... gets buried with me. :m_scary:

In Trying to Save Piggy Sneed, John Irving posits almost the same thing. :) There is a single Dickens he hasn't read, and he hopes to keep it to his deathbed, for his last read.

There is nothing King that I haven't read (I have no self control--lol), but maybe in the future I can leave something unread... NAH! :D