StephenKingman

I had a kind of frustrating day of book activity- went to the local bookstore to buy both Apartment 16 and Encounter at North House Road, two horror books i discovered through rave reviews on this very forum , so i asked the assistant did they have the books and after 5 minutes of tapping keys in her laptop, she said "Sorry, never even heard of the books, they are not on any system" !, so i went home and tried to order both off amazon but they are both out of stock!! What gives, i know the books are relatively new but its not usually this hard to order books, unless they have both been flying off the shelves due to rave hype but that seems unlikely. If any member has read these books please let me know how you got hold of them thanks.

This isn't a problem for me as i currently have 115 books on my TBR list, so whenever i get to the end of a book, i know i have many more waiting for me on my shelf, to be picked up and read whenever the mood takes me. And the best thing is the books are a mixture of genres from classics to comedy and thrillers, good times

Yeah, as Michelle says, check out the King thread, the last few pages have been about discussing the novel and any spoilers are hidden

100 pages into The Girl Who Played With Fire now and its just as good, if not better, than the first book, so far. There is a real sense of a massive interweaving plot being built. I also noticed that this book is thicker than the first one and looking up at my bookshelf, the third book is even thicker again! Looks like i will be kept busy with reading for the next week or two

I agree with your opinion in the spoiler bar but for me, if there had been more hints of supernatural themes throughout the book then the ultimate ending would not have been such an unpleasant surprise but the way it is, the ending was completely at odds with the themes of the preceding book- isolation, social barriers breaking down, primal urges and paranoia, and it had no relevance to the lives of the characters or the plot. I know some people will say to just enjoy the journey and not the destination and the ultimate explanation for the Dome was irrelevant but i strongly disagree with that-King put a very high concept out there with the plot of this book and to end it in such a cheap way spoiled the book for me, i hope he can regain his skill for fantastic endings in his next novel.

I just was gobsmacked that after the guts of 900 pages trapped within this mysterious Dome, with the inhabitants of Chesters Mill gradually becoming feral and imploding that the actual explanation for the Dome was So, as you can see, i hated that ending. Gah, think ill have a drink to calm down!

Oh i wont spoil it but i would like to know what you made of it when you have finished, its after getting very mixed reviews.

The ending was absolutely terrible in my honest opinion, a complete cop out and after the high quality of the preceding story i was expecting a great ending for the story and a decent explanation for what the Dome was, what i got was just woeful. A great book but loses a lot of marks for that ending

Yes, recently i have just been in bookshops to browse and then walk away with nothing- my TBR list is fairly high so i dont want to add to it even more as i only read one book at a time. I used to buy a book every single time i went onto The Book Centre but i usually either regretted the purchase afterwards or else spent so long getting aroound to reading it that the novelty has worn off. Its a serios waste of money,too- buying books on impulse. Im trying to trim down my TBR list before i purchase more books.

<gets hammer out> Ha, everyone is entitled to their opinion but on this issue we will have to agree to disagree! I felt the novel was actually frightening, as in genuinely 'i-feel-like-im-right-here-in-the darkened-empty-room-217-and-the-wind-is-howling-outside-and-oh-sweet-jesus-whats-that-noise-coming-from-the-bath' horrifying and the story of The Overlook slowly but surely wrapped its evil form around your psyche until you could take no more and wanted to put the book down. The movie had great acting but stubbornly refused to explore the history beyond the whole 'evil caretaker slaughtered family and they may still linger here'. None of the hedge creatures, none of the boiler room debacle etc. Not true to the source.

Actually, not vastly different at all. Obviously they had to make a few cuts here and there for the sake of the movie run time but by and large the movie is very similar to the story and if you read the story first you would likely think "Thats nigh on impossible to film" but they managed to pull it off!

Thanks! I am already a few chapters into the next book and im liking the story already, i agree that Salander is a unique and fresh heroine and Larsson made a great impact with his her and Blomkvist, shame he died before he could see the impact his novles had.

Excellent film but has very little correlation with the source material. Kubrick made a film about domestic breakdown which just happened to be set in a haunted hotel, whereas King wrote a book about a haunted hotel and the history of evil and murder associated with it, which just happened to have a young family as the main characters. The book is all about the hotel, the movie all about the family. King hated the movie and although i do like it, i agree that it bears little resemblance to the novel.

Just ordered a copy from amazon as this really seems like my cup of tea! Does anyone here know if Encounter at North House Road is any good, im looking at reviews and it seems mixed, i couldnt find a thread for it so im not derailing honest, if anyone can let me know if it is supposed to be any good that would be great!

Just finished this book today and i was very impressed-a great plot, unforgettable characters and a central mystery that messed with your mind, a very satisfying ending, too. At first i was a bit overwhelmed by all the different members of the Vanger family and had trouble keeping up with who lived where and who was related to who but the book changed pace, almost Dan-Brown-style halfway through and the 2 separate plot streams came together seamlessly and i couldnt put the book down until the last page. Tomorrow i start Girl who Played with Fire.

Just finished Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and it was fantastic i would rate it 9 out of 10, a real absorbing page-turner that steps up a few gears near the end of the mystery, thoroughly enjoyed it and will start the next book in the trilogy later this week. Salander and Blomkvist are not easy characters to forget!

Its King, that could mean anything, dont take it so literally!

People are fascinated by the darker side of human nature and hence the popularity of crime books, movies etc. Serial killers in particular horrify people but they view them with amazement i.e. they wonder how on earth can these people act out their horrific impulses when most 'normal' people manage to repress.

I also enjoyed this book very much and the plot intrigued me, i read it in just over 2 days and it is one of King's shorter books but very well written. Yes, it wasnt as scary as his classic works but it moved along nicely and i was rooting for Trisha

Have you ever read a book that you really enjoyed, only to discover later on whilst reading reviews or discussing the book with a friend, that the book had a hidden political, societal or other message contained within its characters and setting that simply went over your head and you failed to grasp it? For example when i first read Animal Farm by Orwell 10 years ago, i simply took it for what it was- a group of disgruntled and unmotivated animals fight back, nothing more nothing less, i now see its a parody of communism and political life! And im sure i have read many books over the years which had a secret code or a point to make about something or other but i was too engrossed in the plot to find out. What about you, dont be ashamed have you ever read a book and missed the message completely?

200 pages into Girl With The Dragon Tattoo now and i have to say im enjoying it very much but am finding it a bit hard to remember all of the names in the Vanger family history! There are brothers and cousins and uncles etc and a lot of them live on the small island where the story is set and i just hope i dont get to the end only to not remember who half the characters are.

I usually give up when the plot hasnt moved and the characters have not developed in a sufficient amount of time or else if the book is really boring and i cant get into it. Also, if the book has been slowly building to an exciting event, only to dash your hopes and go straight back to plodding descriptions, then im finished with it. Bag of Bones was the hardest book i have read in my life, literally NOTHING happened from page 1 to the end and i very nearly ditched it on several occasions.

It depends a lot, some days i will not read anything due to tiredness, long hours, not in the mood etc then other days like today im pushing 150 pages ha. I always try to read as much as i can during the week but was never great at reading just before bed as usually im too tired to concentrate!

Probably a bit late to the party but....i have just read 100 pages of The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo by Larsson. I saw the trilogy on sale recently in my bookshop so i snapped them up and now im starting the first book, so far its very intriguing and i hope they live up to the huge amount of hype around them but i will wait and see.

Eh? Why was mcflash banned, he seemed an ok poster and sent me a few friendly PMs, whats going on??