What made you first read a King novel?

[tbone]

Hello all, I just found this website a cple days ago, never thought to look up a fan page. Well for me I was about 15 or 16(I'm 36 now), and I was listening to the "Among the Living" cd by a band called Anthrax. In their liner notes they explained the song "Skeletons in the Closet" was inspired by Apt Pupil and the song "Among the Living" was inspired by The Stand. Scott Ian their guitarist suggested their fans might want to check out these books for themselves. Misery was the first King book that I ever read, read the Stand after that and have been a fan ever since.

[houghchrst]

I was about 14, 15 and totally into reading dog and horse stories. Misty of Chincoteague and Big Red and while those are both, to be fair, great books they were a far cry from The Shining which my mother was reading at the time. My mother who was afraid of the dark and had to sleep with the light on after seeing Jaws and The Exorcist. She had gotten to the chapter where Danny was exploring and going to room 217 and was struggling to read it yet she was grinning like a mad fool as she was talking about how scary it was/is. I thought, I want me some of that!

So......The Shining was my first 'big girl' book and my first introduction to Stephen King. As soon as she was done I got it with a warning. I too struggled with the same chapter. I got to Danny with his hand on the doorknob and had to stop. For a day or two I am sure I walked around with that same mad grin on my face before pushing on but I was hooked by the first page. Stephen King has been numero uno on my list of authors since then.

[Demeter]

The name of his first book I laid my eyes on. I thought "Needful Things" was a cool name for a book so I bought it. There's no turning back now.

[RoamingInsomniac]

Good question. I was never much of a reader as a young person. Actually, I would roll my eyes. I found it much like any other chore. My Nana, the blessing that she is, sent me books for my birthday. Later in the year, my Nana asked me if I had read any of them yet. How can you lie to your Nana??? I said no. She rummaged thru those books, and she pulled out "The Stand". She then handed it to me and said, "You are a smart girl. Read this! And, I expect a report from you afterwords." Yes, my Nana was serious. After contemplating the rest of the day, I started reading it that night. I never went to bed. I finished it the next day.
This was when the book first came out and it was dated ahead. It scared the begeebers out of me! I mean, this was before AIDS and all. What did Stephen King know that I didn't???
I called my Nana and told her about the book. She laughed at me! LOL!!! After that, she sent me every Stephen King book she could find.
I've been a fan since!
My Nana, who is 96 now, loves for me to read to her. I do that a couple times a week. I don't think she understands what I read to her now, God love her, but I still read.

[Eff]

I can see that most of us started young
I read my first King's novel, Tommyknockers, when I was thirteen and had a broken finger. Yes, finger. Apparently I'm extremely annoying when I'm in pain, so my mom bought me a book to make me feel better. She chose Tommyknockers. because in her opinion it had "a cheery cover". And later that cheery cover choice cost her a lot of money, since I couldn't find any of the books in my town library. And that's how it happened. To this day Tommyknockers is one of my favorite, simply because it was the first, but I'm also in love with IT, though I have no idea how in the world I was able to read it - I've always had an irrational fear of clowns. After that book it got worse

[Stefanie]

I have to admit, I dind´t start that young. My first SK novel was "The girl who loved Tom Gordon" I think I was about 18 then. Since then I started reading King novels regularly, until I found "Duma Key" two years ago. It looked awesome, with it´s binding in black, white and red and raised font. It was about art and I loved the characters and the story. Of course it has a special place in my bookshelf, I treat it as a peace of art.
And since then "regularly reading King novels" turned into "mostly reading King novels", fortunately there are lots of them

[MichelleM]

The first SK novel I ever read was Christine about 27 years ago! I walked past a newsagent on the way to work one morning and saw the book on a rack (it was a red cover with the car on the front). I thought it looked good so I went in and bought it. I couldn't put it down and read all the earlier books one after the other!!

[Billiards Girl]

For my 12th Birthday (1992), my dad took me to the bookstore and let me pick out any 10 books I wanted. Misery and It were two of the 10 I chose. I picked those two based solely on their covers. I started with It that winter. Every Friday night when my Dad left for his bowling league, I would turn out all the lights except for one small lamp and I would read myself silly. I loved reading a juicy passage while catching glimpses of the dark hallway out of the corner of my eye. The next summer I bought every King book and have since then. I still reread It every February as a tribute to being introduced to the fabulous Mr. King.

[xkittyx]

I was really young, my mom was preggers with my lil brother and the Dr. put her on bedrest, so she would read a lot, and she always had SK books on the shelf in her room. So a few years later, I think it was 3rd or 4th grade, I stole Tommyknockers off the shelf and took it to the sitters. Lol I didn't make it much past the second chapter, but I was determined. Mom realized what I was trying to do, so we went to the store and picked out Eyes of the Dragon (smaller and slightly more kid-friendly lol). I read it in a day or 2 and was hooked. My next one was Cujo, and even though I didn't understand some things, and some stuff was prolly way too adult for me, I loved it. We then rented the movie and it scared my brother which was kinda funny, but I digress.

[JohnDalglish]

I would read myself silly..

Hi,

Great expression, I'll be using that, thankee!

Long days and pleasant nights