Keeping up with the King: On reading and watching Stephen King

I'm a lapsed Stephen King fanatic. I want to be more across his recent work than I am...I'm making plans...

I surprised my son yesterday by having read more Stephen King books than he (or I) realised. He started reading King with a vengeance last year, and over the summer he powered through many of the tomes I still haven’t touched (Salem’s Lot, Dead Zone, Firestarter). And we both read Christine - starting at the same time. But Oscar left me for dead, reading it in two days. I got distracted and took several months. My problem, these days, is I’ve got too many books on the go. Oh yeah, and not enough time…

But we counted the books last night - Oscar’s read about 18 King books, all novels. Impressive given a) he’s 11 and b) he’s achieved this in less than a calendar year.

I’ve read close to 40 books by Stephen King - because I’ve read most of the short story collections and the non-fiction entries, as well as a really decent chop of the 80s and early 90s novels. And I’ve started getting back on board with some of the ones I missed way back, and some of his recent crime novels and so on…

But I want to be better.

So I am thinking that next year might be my Year of King. Maybe I’ll only read Stephen King for a bit - so I can sweep up the ones I want to read but haven’t. This is a long list - as I’m really about halfway through his bibliography. And I have some slog: Most of the Dark Tower, big-big novels like Under The Dome and Desperation, the newer material like 11.22.63, Billy Summers and FairyTale; and I haven’t yet read some of those late-70s books I named up above…

So my work is there - cut out for me.

I made a list of 71 movies and mini-series’ that are taken from his writing. And Letterbox’d tells me I’ve seen 57 or those 71, or 80% - so I’m doing better there. Obviously, one or two (or 9 or 10) of them are adaptations of books I’m yet to read and I want to hold off in the hope…

But maybe I’m just kidding myself.

Still, I’ve read more than I thought actually. And Oscar was impressed. Of course, that’s the real achievement these days!