Annnnd wow. Just. Wow. There's just absolutely no comparison to the book with the Kubrick hack movie. Don't get me wrong, the movie was slightly terrifying in its own right (the creepy twins, hello) but, the book is just so much better.
Epic story.
For one thing, Jack LOVED his family. To read his agony over being a worthy father, to not be like his own, makes it heartbreaking that the hotel used that against him to work its will. I got more of a sense that the hotel was truly alive from the book, too. The movie seemed to make it out that it was just a haunted place, but the book turned it into this demonic hellmouth (10pts for a Buffy reference) that was feeding on the Torrence family. I especially loved that toward the end there was a reference to all that paperwork, the history of the hotel, going up in flames. That really was a huge piece of the story, one of the first instances where we got to see the hotel working to bring Jack over. I could go on and on, but I won't because I'm sure most of you are yawning like Yeah, we know! But, I'll just say lastly, I never expected a SK novel to make me emotional, but I became so while reading IT and now when I finished The Shining, Danny and Dick on the dock at the end. SK is phenomenal at writing human emotion, but especially that of little kids.
Epic story.