What was your first encounter with a King book...?

**Damaja** · July 17th, 2009

Mine was IT.. And it got me in trouble at school!!

I was in roughly grade 4 (4th grade for all you America siders) and it was what is called a "composite class" meaning it also had grade 5's and 6's in it aswell. I happened to notice that a grade 5 friend of mine was reading IT, but he had it tucked away in the cover of a comic book so the teacher couldn't see what he was reading. I was intrigued with this book, and asked if I could borrow it when he was done. So about a week later, he gives me the book and I take it to class with me for "silent reading" time. Teacher comes over and snatches the book from me and tells me theres no way someone of my age should be reading it, and that she'll be calling my mother to tell her what her sons reading blah blah blah. So my mother comes to the school and sides with me (hey its not often a mother will do that against a teacher!!) and tells the teacher that I can read whatever I want and to mind her own business. So every day after that, I sat there with a smile on my face and read IT during "silent reading" time while the teacher looked on in defeat.
Sorry for the length, I just wanted to share this story of the beginning of my King journey!

**Haunted** · July 17th, 2009

What a great story!!!!! And you have a special Mom fer sure fer sure.

My first experience was Salem's Lot and ever since then I am there when the bookstore opens on the day that a new Mr. King is released!!!!

He either scares the bejeeebeees out of me or makes me laugh me arse off!!! He reminds me of all those things I grew up with!!!

**JohnDalglish** · July 17th, 2009

Hi,

It was Night Shift for me, my mother got it out of the library on the day it was published in the UK and she phoned me at 2 a.m to say 'You've GOT to read this!'

Which I did on the following day and then went straight to the bookstore to pick up Carrie and Salem's Lot, and I've never looked back either.

Long days and pleasant nights

**Raq** · July 17th, 2009

I started with Desperation when I was something around 12, and it bored me as hell...but than when I was around 17 I've read Salems Lot and I got addicted ;d.
Of course meanwhile I've read some Masterton, Koontz and other writers stuff

**Jake Featherston** · July 17th, 2009

In the summer of 1985, my dad got arrested (some worthless punk from the neighbourhood stole a bicycle, got caught riding it, and was let go by the San Jose cops by claiming my dad was a drug dealer, which he wasn't; by the time the cops showed up, my dad had just gotten home from work, and me and some of my teenage friends were drinking beer & smoking pot in the garage, so he was arrested - despite having literally just walked in the front door - for contributing to the delinquency of a minor; the charge was eventually dismissed by the courts), and since my parents were divorced, the cops took me to the Santa Clara County Children's Shelter. I didn't like it there, so I escaped after nine days. During the nine days I did spend there (at age 14), I found an old, tattered copy of The Shining, which I read. By 1989 or so, I'd read every book he'd ever published (other than some of those obscure, limited edition ones, I suppose), and I've kept up ever since. I already have the first request in for Under the Dome, to be activated as soon as my local library manages to procure a copy.

**michal** · July 27th, 2009

Pet Semetary which I picked up at our local library when I was 11. Thank God our open-minded librarian never band a child from reading anything he or she fancied (other than Crime and Punishment which she mercifully plucked out of my hand when I was 10 telling me there will be time enough to feel depressed when I'm older).

I was running in the darkness for many nights after reading it.

**kingricefan** · July 27th, 2009

Way back when I was in school, the movie Carrie had been released in the theaters (yes, this makes me over the age of 40!!), a friend at school had a paperback copy of the book and said I should read it. Now, being one who always went against the grain of things, and since most of my peers had seen the movie version and were all talking about it (especially the opening sequence involving naked girls! How scandalous!), I opted to not read the book, saying I just wasn't interested. Then a year later when I was hospitalized for depression (and ironically it was for a large part due to the constant harrasement by my so-called peers in school, just like Carrie White had to deal with!) someone handed me a paperback copy of 'Salem's Lot. Man, I devoured that book! (No pun intended, but take it anyway!

) Sai King took me away from my troubles and had me spellbound. I will never forget holding that all-black book with the embossed female face on the cover with one red drop of blood falling down the side of her mouth and flipping thru those pages as fast as I could! I was enthralled! Mr. King has been there for me all these years, thru the good and the bad just as I've been there for him also thru the good and the bad (books, that is!) and I hope we will both continue this partnership for some time to come.

**Ophelia** · July 28th, 2009

Damaja, that's hilarious!

My first King book was Misery and I was ten years old. I think I borrowed it from my oldest sister, who was 19. I empathized with Paul so much, (his name was Paul, right?) the whole book felt like a nightmare and I was trapped in the middle of it. I wanted to go back to my happy little world of cartoons and Rainbow Brite, but that dang book wouldn't let me go. I hated it but I couldn't put it down.

I have a strange phobia of being trapped. Not just claustrophobia in the physical sense, but in every other way too. So if I feel trapped in another person's "misery" I go absolutely bonkers until there is some resolution to the problem.

So the fact that I was trapped in the middle of a book that was both unreal and perfectly believable speaks to SK's rawkin' writing.

**Srbo** · July 29th, 2009

I wrote about this already, but, this is how it was...

Civil War going on, the year was 1993...and there was a terrible battle going on to conquer a village. It was going on for over two months, barely any food and water, nothing but the smell of death around you.
And the bodies, everywhere...

Finally, we did it, the surviving people from the village surrendered, some fled, and we walked into it.
I was looking for food and clean water, barely alive.
Some were looking to plunder and steal whatever they could from the houses, sad to say.

So, I walked into a house to see if there was anything to eat...but I found a maybe 14-15 year old girl laying on the floor, dead. A shrapnel had taken half of her head off.
Oddly, on the table beside her was a book.
I still can`t explain why people do the things they do in moments like that, but I just picked up the book, saw the writers name on it, didn`t know who he was and put it my backpack anyway.
I left the house crying like never before, didn`t even look for food anymore.

Some time later, about two weeks or so, I was looking for something in my backpack and came across that book...I somehow forgot about it, or I simply didn`t want to think about it.
I pulled it out and started reading...it was Steve`s The Stand.

And just after a few read pages, started to cry all over again...

**Todash** · July 29th, 2009

On a rare weekend away from home with one of my older brothers, I picked up his copy of The Shining and started to read it. I was 11 or so. He asked me if I was sure I could handle it. I said yeah, sure, with an "I'm not a kid anymore" air.