How I discovered Stephen King by S. C.

[scastro]

I was at a library in Bloomington, Indiana when I came across a book titled "Insomnia." Due to the fact that I had insomnia and I couldn't sleep at night, I gravitated towards the book. I saw the name Stephen King and told myself, Stephen King's parents were geniuses because Stephen comes from the greek word Stephanos, which means crown, so Stephen King is basically the crowned king, so I figured that if Stephen King was half as clever and witty as his parents, then the book had potential to be good. So because I had insomnia and the clever name of the author is how I discovered Stephen King. I will say that I realized the man was a genius when I read The eye of the dragon, which is a classic in modern literature in my mind.

[GNTLGNT]

Forget "The Big Lebowski", SK is THE DUDE!...

[Wayne C. Rogers]

I discovered SK in the latter part of the seventies when Salem's Lot came out. I was managing a bookstore in North Carolina. Carrie had already been out in paperback for a year, but I hadn't read that. Salem's Lot had just come out in paperback with its black cover and the impression of a child's face on it with a drop of red blood dripping from the fang. A close friend of mine who shared my reading taste came into the store to pick up another book. He asked me if I'd read Salem's Lot yet. I shook my head. He then ordered me to start reading the book that night because it would scare the living **** out of me. That got me curious. I bought a copy of the book, got off work at five, went home, made a sandwich, and started reading Salem's Lot. I stayed up through the night reading it, until the novel was finished, and it did scare the living **** out of me. The next day, after work, I went to another bookstore and found one copy of The Shining in hardcover on its shelf. I bought that and read it in two days because I was still exhausted after a night with no sleep. I then started telling all the customers in my store about this new author named Stephen King and that Salem's Lot and The Shining were must reads for fans of horror fiction. The thing is that people who normally wouldn't read a horror novel picked up Steve's book and purchased it. As they say, "The rest is history".

[smooth operator]

Once upon a time, I practically lived in the library. I picked up a little book called Carrie. I was hooked. I still am, and I am glad to be.

[randallFlaggfan1]

For the longest time, I simply couldn't "get into" reading. But in the summer of '93, Sai King's Misery changed all that.