Tag / Stephen King

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Prolific Authors 2013

bookshelfWay back in December of 2011, I took our first look back at the authors I have read the most dating back to high school.  Since that time, I’ve read 34 books from 31 different authors.  I don’t think there is going to be much movement since then, but it’s time to take another look and see if my “favorite” authors have changed much in that time.  Once again, we will be limiting ourselves to the now 47 authors from whom I have read more than one book.

Author Name Current Total 2011 Total Difference
Nancy Holder 13 13 0
Christopher Golden 12 12 0

No change to these two, who owe their totals mostly to Buffy and Angel tie-in novels.

Greg Rucka 12 11 1
Stephen King 10 9 1

Both of these long time favorites increased their total by one book.  Rucka’s newest is due out next summer and is already pre-ordered.

Michael Jan Friedman 8 8 0
Brad Meltzer 8 7 1

Brad Meltzer pulls into a tie for the top 5 with another author of tie-in novels, mostly Star Trek: TNG and Lois & Clark. Continue reading →

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Book 6 (of 52) – Horns: A Novel

Horns: A Novel - Joe Hill

Horns: A Novel – Joe Hill

While reading other people’s lists of books they’ve read in this elusive challenge, I kept coming across the name Joe Hill, who just so happens to be the middle son of Stephen King.  When Amazon had a special on the Kindle-edition of this, his second novel, for $1.99, I figured what better time to see if the apple had fallen far from the tree.  I must admit that, at first, I wasn’t really feeling it with this book, but eventually I was drawn in and liked it enough to pick up Hill’s first novel when it was available for the low, low price of $1.99.

Horns: A Novel tells the tale of Ig Perrish, who, a year after being blamed for the rape and murder of his girlfriend Merrin Williams, awakes one morning to find a devil’s horns growing out his head and diabolical powers at his command.  He uses those powers to find out who is truly responsible for Merrin’s death and to gain vengeance for it.

Hill’s style, at least the one he used for this book, took a while for me to get in to.  Once I did, though, I ripped through the book, finishing the last half of it in the past 2 days.  I’m looking forward to reading more of his work, with his first novel waiting in my Kindle app and his latest due out next month.

by jim

The Year In Books

With the year coming to an end, it is time to take a look back at the books I’ve read this year, 24 in total and 18 if you exclude the graphic novels.  Of those 24, 6 were graphic novels, another 6 were non-fiction, and 3 were TV show tie-ins.  Overall, I did a good job of clearing out the “to-read” drawer, as 9 of the 18 books came from there.

The 8 authors that I read for the first this year were:
Eliot Asinof
Hugh Delehanty
James Patterson
Len Berman
Marcos Breton
Phil Jackson
Ray Bradbury
Sammy Sosa

Amber Benson, Brian K. Vaughan, and Pia Guerra were the only authors I read multiple times in 2012.

Greg Rucka’s Alpha and Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl were the only books released in 2012 that I read in 2012.

I revisited the work of 5 authors that I had not read since the previous century:
Stephen King 1993
John Grisham 1996
Scott Adams 1997
Ketih R.A. DeCandido 1999
Mel Odom 1999

Finally, the breakdown by month.  Being off for most of December certainly helped pad the total a tad bit. Continue reading →

by jim

30 Day Picture Challenge Day 23 – A Picture Of Your Favorite Book

A picture of my favorite book?  That means I would have to decide on what my favorite book was.  For a while, it was The Stand, by Stephen King.  Then, it might have been The Black Dahlia, by James Ellroy.  More recent favorites have included Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games, 11/22/63 by Stephen King, Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, and Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.  At the end of the day, I guess it doesn’t matter which is my favorite, since they are all represented in the photo.  Oh, and in case you couldn’t tell, I am in desperate need of a new bookshelf.  If only I had room for one.

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Book 5 (of 52) – 11/22/63

Stephen King - 11/22/63

Imagine stumbling across a wormhole which allowed you to travel back in time, to September 1958.  Anything you did in the past affected the future, until you traveled back in time again and reset everything.  Could you invest the five years necessary to save President Kennedy from an assassin’s bullet?  Even if it meant giving up everything, and everyone, you’ve ever loved?  School teacher Jake Epping finds out in Stephen King’s gripping tale of time travel, patriotism, and the unintended effects of mucking with the past.

I first read King’s work during my freshman year of high school.  In fact, I remember reading Pet Sematary after finishing my Biology final, waiting for the class to be dismissed.  11/22/63 marks my 10th King work, but the first since 1993.  It is a great story about two men on a mission, one a man out of time, the other a man out of place.  Their lives will intersect on the fateful November morning, unless the past is able to defend itself against an interloper and the interloper doesn’t become too complacent in the new life he has made for himself in 1960s small-town Texas.  The only reason it took me so long to get through it is the 842 page count.  If this is indicative of King’s more recent output, then perhaps I won’t wait another 19 years before reading him again.

by jim

52 Books in 52 Weeks – 2012 Edition

It’s time to start year three off the goal to read a book a week for the entire year, totalling 52 books in 52 weeks.  In year one, I only made it to 8 books.  Last year, I managed to double that, which was good, but still far short of the goal.

I’m going to give it another shot this year.  I got a few new books for laying around, so I’ve got a pile to start with.  As a reminder, the rules I am using are:

  1. You can count a book as read as long as you have completed the book in 2012 and at least 50% of that reading takes place in 2012
  2. Any book counts as long as you’re not embarrassed to count it.
  3. Poetry collections do indeed count.
  4. Re-reading a book is okay as long as it isn’t done this year. (Reading Twilight twice in 2010 only counts as 1 read)
  5. Audiobooks also count.

Not sure where I will be starting off.  I did get a few new graphic novel hardcovers for Christmas that I may try to sneak in to get a head start.  Or, I could dive in to the 900 page opus that is Stephen King’s latest.

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Prolific Authors

Since I haven’t finished a book in a while (although I should get one done soon), I thought I would take a look back at the authors I have read the most.  Since I started keeping track, I have read books by 181 different authors, but we will only be looking at those whom I have read more than once.

Author Name Total
Nancy Holder 13
Christopher Golden 12

Most, if not all of these are due to Buffy and Angel tie-in novels.

Greg Rucka 11
Stephen King 9

Strange that these two are bunched together, as I have read all of Rucka’s non-tie-in work, and I haven’t read anything by King in years. That may change next year, though. Continue reading →