Tell Us About Your "first Time"

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Neesy

#1 fan (Annie Wilkes cousin) 1st cousin Mom's side
May 24, 2012
61,289
239,271
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
I actually must amend my post. My first actual experience with Stephen King was when Children of the Corn premiered on television when I was in 2nd grade. I didn't realize until years later that the movie was based on a SK short-story, and at the time, had no clue who SK was.

I remember discussing the movie in class with a couple of other kids when my teacher caught wind of our conversation. Apparently she had see (or caught parts of) the movie as well. She proceeded to lecture us in front of the whole class, in the most self-righteous, indignant tone possible.. I shall paraphrase..

"I simply cannot believe your parents let you watch such a gruesome... GRUESOME.... movie... do not speak of such GRUESOMENESS in my classroom again..."

I'm thinking she thought the movie was... gruesome?

It does sound like she was at a loss for words! :laugh: :) Maybe if she read more Stephen King then she could say her vocabulary had "Grew some"! :biggrin2:
 

Gavin Logan

Member
Mar 28, 2014
21
86
40
I was probably about 10 and I stole a couple of SK books from my older sisters bookshelf. I wasn't much of a reader when I was younger but I ended up reading the novella The Langoliers. I loved it back then but have never revisited it since so have no clue how good it is. When I was a kid I had zero appreciation for the written word but I did have a fairly big imagination and I guess it hooked me. I also remember watching the movie with Dean Stockwell shortly after, it was pretty ****! I also stole Insomnia and IT from my sister both of which now reside on my own bookshelf :) Only got around to reading IT a few years ago and still haven't read Insomnia.
I didn't properly love SK until I read Gunslinger and The Shining about 5 years ago, and then I decided I wanted to collect as many of his books as I could!
 

Grandpa

Well-Known Member
Mar 2, 2014
9,724
53,642
Colorado
I can't swear to it. I mean, it wasn't an epiphany where I read a book and think, "OMG! I need to remember this writer!" Because I was reading a lot more back then, and writer names were secondary to story.

But I think the first book by Mr. King that I read was The Shining. And I was about 95% enthusiastic at the time, because I thoroughly enjoyed the bulk of the book, but I thought the ending was overcooked. But he had a writing and narrative style that was thoroughly enjoyable, mostly, so I picked him up, as much as I might pluck a Rex Stout Nero Wolfe book from my parents' collection, or Grandma might snag a Dick Francis novel.

That sounds dismissive. I don't mean it to be. He's written stuff that's on a pinnacle for me, other things that are buried in the basement, but on the whole, I'm completely admiring and appreciative while wishing, in my own ersatz storyteller way, that I could spin a tale a tenth as well as he does.
 

Hall Monitor

All bars serve the Beam.
Nov 7, 2013
187
1,013
New Jersey
I was probably about 10 and I stole a couple of SK books from my older sisters bookshelf. I wasn't much of a reader when I was younger but I ended up reading the novella The Langoliers. I loved it back then but have never revisited it since so have no clue how good it is. When I was a kid I had zero appreciation for the written word but I did have a fairly big imagination and I guess it hooked me. I also remember watching the movie with Dean Stockwell shortly after, it was pretty ****! I also stole Insomnia and IT from my sister both of which now reside on my own bookshelf :) Only got around to reading IT a few years ago and still haven't read Insomnia.
I didn't properly love SK until I read Gunslinger and The Shining about 5 years ago, and then I decided I wanted to collect as many of his books as I could!
Gavin,

If you like the Dark Tower novels, you've got to read Insomnia. Like Black House, it is basically a DT book without the label.
 

jt0565

Well-Known Member
Feb 26, 2007
108
445
58
Denver
I got a late start (age wise) into reading and it was a book by F. Paul Wilson called the Keep. I loved it so much that I wanted to read more horror genre so next I read Koont's Phantoms and loved that too. I was in the process of enlisting in the Army at this point and took Koontz's Watchers to basic training where the confiscated it. I completed it after basic and prior to being deployed to Germany. This was in the fall of 1983 and I already knew who Stephen King was and his genre of choice so I decided to read the Shining on the way over and have been hooked on Sai King since then. The Tower series as you can tell by my avatar are my favorites.
 

Wedgeski

Member
May 19, 2014
9
46
122
I was trying to remember this when I was writing my introductory post yesterday.

I think it was Christine, when I was about 12 or 13. It was a King household anyway with both my dad and sister nutty about his books, so they were all on the shelf, but I found a BCA hardback of Christine in a second-hand book-shop for £1. It felt right that the first SK I read should be my own copy of something, even if pocket-money limitations soon meant I was dipping into my dad's book-shelf after that. :) That book is still on my book-shelf, and its smell evokes memories of that first experience with almost total clarity.

On my sister's advice I moved through the more tightly plotted novels (Dead Zone, Firestarter) after that, before hitting the real epics. In the summer of 1987 I finally got around to It, which I think is still my favourite.
 

krwhiting

Well-Known Member
Jan 5, 2015
258
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57
I first read King in college. 1987. I read It. Scariest reading experience of my life. I had a very frightening experience as a young kid in which a clown-like figure played a part, and this book was like King new all about it. It gave me nightmares. But the writing was so good that I started reading other books of his. Plus I loved horror movies and ghost stories both, so King's work seemed like a natural direction. Then add to that the great quality of the prose and use of language. Good stuff.

Kelly
 

samhain

Well-Known Member
Jan 12, 2012
307
172
Connecticut
I was around 9 or 10 when I found a paperback copy of 'The Shining' amongst my Dad's book collection. I didn't read it at that time, but the blank face that was pictured on the book's shiny (pun intended) silver cover seem to unnerve me. A few years later, at the age of 14, I was walking by a Waldenbooks in my local shopping mall and saw the paperback of 'Cujo' on the "New Release" kiosk at the front of the store. I bought it, loved it, and went back to the same store to pick up all of the previous releases I had missed up to that point (which included purchasing my own copy of 'The Shining' with the same creepy cover). To this day, Stephen King is the only author whose books I still venture out to buy on the day of their release.
 

Sliced Bread

Well-Known Member
Jan 6, 2011
145
574
44
From Scotland, live in Ireland
I think around 12 or 13, I'd outgrown the kids section of my local library and my dad bought me a paperback copy of "Pet Semetary" which he'd read himself and enjoyed. I raced through that then moved on to "Misery" and then "Christine", which became my favourite book as a teenager, I read it so many times. That was me hooked for life.
 

80sFan

Just one more chapter...
Jul 14, 2015
2,997
16,167
Pennsylvania
I was 12 years old and I had a crush on a boy in my class. I wanted to have something to talk to him about and one day I noticed him reading "Cujo". I was already an avid reader, but at that time I mostly read teen girl books.
I pretended to be interested in "Cujo" and asked him if I could borrow it when he was done. It was love at first read (for Mr. King, not the boy...haven't seen him since the 80s lol).
 

KimberlySn

Active Member
Jun 29, 2015
44
246
44
York Haven, PA
I was 12 years old and tired of reading the same teen girl books from the school library. I was talking with a family friend who was an avid reader and somehow my love of Pet Semetary (the movie) came up. I think I knew who SK was but maybe didn't know that he wrote it. So I decided to get the book and read it. I just couldn't do it. I think I had the movie too much in my head and couldn't deal with the differences of the book. I don't know.

I still wanted to read something different so I tried Carrie next and was in absolute love. I remember the summer between 7th and 8th grade I read Carrie, 'Salem's Lot, Christine, Skeleton Crew and a bunch more. We lived in a smallish town and going to the bookstore wasn't something I could do every other week and we didn't have a nearby library. I saw a commercial for the Stephen King Book Club and begged my mom to let me sign up. That is where I got the majority of my hb SK books. I'm still mad at myself, at the time the DT series didn't interest me so I would send those books back when they sent them to me. Now here I am, all these years later trying to fill my library with all the ones I sent back :/
 

Susan Hood Parker

Well-Known Member
Jun 13, 2015
50
188
Think was in my late teens, I'd read everything could get my hands on for years, different generes. Can't remember now if it was Carrie or The Stand I read 1st, loved 'em both, then Christine, Pet Semetary, Fire Starter was in there someplace, Gerald's Game, like candy, hard to stop. The Bachman books, etc.
 

chief4db

When it doubt, run!
Feb 11, 2015
733
2,676
whatsamatteru. usa
I was 40 lol. A reader but never read king. Jfk nut and when 11/22/63 came out even though it was fiction it was Jfk so I said why not. Hooked and 2 years 31 king books later having a blast. 11/22/63 was my first time but not not 1st finished so not sure which book broke cherry. I was half way done and going on a 4 day long weekend vacation. Told my wife to pack 112263. Well next day heading to the beach and my dopamine was flowing hard bc couldn't wait to get into it on the beach. Well it wasn't packed and I freaked. Well my wife went to the bookstore and went to the king section to buy me a new one for a vacation gift. We always buy each other a vacation gift. Well she read thru a lot of the covers and bought me the long walk. So I was disappointed but still happy bc I had something to read. So I finished tlw in the 4 days and then later finished 112263. So I will give the judgement to u guys. Is it the first book u read or the first book u finish. Also I read more pages of 112263 than tlw at the time I was on probally page 650 of 112263 which is already more than the whole book of tlw.
 

Pucker

We all have it coming, kid
May 9, 2010
2,906
6,242
62
I was starting to feel old at 31.

Don't take this the wrong way, but this^ made me chuckle.

My "first time" was with Annie Wilkes.

I had this friend who was not much of a reader (although he knew I was), and he got laid up with two broken legs and someone with a pretty good sense of humor gave him Misery to read during his convalesence. He loved it and offered it to me when he was done. I think I finished it in two sittings and when my girlfriend saw it she told me all about how awesome (this was the '80s, remember) The Stand, had been. So I read that, too.

And off I went.