King Arthur Movie Tristan

Happy Sunday everyone. I hope you are all enjoying your weekend.

I thought this past WG's topic was another fun one: Reading from the Decades

So today's Weekly Geeks is about examining a book (or books) which were published in your birth decade. Tell us about a book that came out in the decade you were born which you either loved or hated. Is is relevant to today? Is it a classic, or could it be? Give us a mini-review, or start a discussion about the book or books.

I was born in the 70's, 1976 to be exact. It seems this was a great decade for one of my favorite authors, Stephen King.



I prefer his older work, and below are a few of my favorite Stephen King novels, all published by the master of horror during the 70's.



I do think these books are ageless, they can scare the crap out of you no matter what decade we are in. These are more than just scary stories, there's heart and soul to the characters he creates and I think that is one of the reasons so many people love his work. He also has a way of delving deep into our innermost fears, and making them come to life within his books. A story that stays with me long after I've read it is one of the reasons I enjoy his novels so much.



I think these books can be considered classics. Nobody can tell a good scary story like he does, and I think King really set the standard for writers in the horror genre.








The Dead Zone, 1979 This one is both scary and sad, with a bittersweet love story in the midst of all of it.








Salem's Lot, 1975 This book gave me nightmares, and that's just what I expect when reading a good King novel. If you want a good vampire story, look no further.








The Shining, 1977 This is one of my favorite King novels. The way he made the Overlook Hotel into a menacing, living, entity in this novel had me hooked on every page, and had me sleeping with the lights on.






The Stand, 1978 One of his most famous novels. I haven't read this one yet, but I have it sitting on my shelf. I'll get to it one day.

I believe these stories exist because we sometimes need to create unreal monsters and bogies to stand in for all the things we fear in our real lives: the parent who punches instead of kissing, the auto accident that takes a loved one, the cancer we one day discover living in our own bodies. If such terrible occurences were acts of darkness, they might actually be easier to cope with. But instead of being dark, they have thier own terrible brilliance it seems to me, and none shine so bright as the acts of cruelty we sometimes perpetrate in our own families. To look directly at such brilliance is to be blinded, and so we create any number of filters. The ghost story, the horror story, the uncanny tale-all of these are such filters. The man or woman who insists there are no ghosts is only ignoring the whispers of his or her own heart, and how cruel that seems to me.

-Stephen King

What about you? Have you read Stephen King?