The Shining
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Narrated by:
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Campbell Scott
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By:
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Stephen King
About this listen
Before Doctor Sleep, there was The Shining, a classic of modern American horror from the undisputed master, Stephen King.
Jack Torrance's new job at the Overlook Hotel is the perfect chance for a fresh start. As the off-season caretaker at the atmospheric old hotel, he'll have plenty of time to spend reconnecting with his family and working on his writing. But as the harsh winter weather sets in, the idyllic location feels ever more remote...and more sinister. And the only one to notice the strange and terrible forces gathering around the Overlook is Danny Torrance, a uniquely gifted five-year-old.
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An excellent narrator and an excellent story.
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LIKE A DULL AX THROUGH A CALF'S BRAIN
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On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed. What if you could change it back? In this brilliantly conceived tour de force, Stephen King - who has absorbed the social, political, and popular culture of his generation more imaginatively and thoroughly than any other writer - takes listeners on an incredible journey into the past and the possibility of altering it.
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I Owe Stephen King An Apology
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Overall
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Performance
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On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day in Chester's Mill, Maine, the town is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. Planes crash into it and fall from the sky in flaming wreckage, a gardener's hand is severed as "the dome" comes down on it, people running errands in the neighboring town are divided from their families, and cars explode on impact. No one can fathom what this barrier is, where it came from, and when - or if - it will go away.
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Glad I Listened to 11-22-63 First
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Four seekers have come to the ugly, abandoned old mansion: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of the psychic phenomenon called haunting; Theodora, his lovely and lighthearted assistant; Eleanor, a lonely, homeless girl well acquainted with poltergeists; and Luke, the adventurous future heir of Hill House.
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Well written horror tale
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Evil is alive in Libertyville. It inhabits a custom-painted red and white 1958 Plymouth Fury named Christine and young Arnold Cunningham, who buys it. Along with Arnold's girlfriend, Leigh Cabot, Dennis Guilder attempts to find out the real truth behind Christine and finds more than he bargained for: From murder to suicide, there's a peculiar feeling that surrounds Christine - she gets revenge on anyone standing in her path. Can Dennis save Arnold from the wrath of Christine?
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Skipping Issues
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A dark and sweeping adventure, Dreamcatcher is set in the haunted city of Derry - the site of Stephen King's It and Insomnia. In it, four young boys stand together and do a brave, good thing, an act that changes them in ways that they hardly understand. A quarter-century later, as grown men who have gone their separate ways, these friends come together once a year to hunt in the woods of Maine.
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King Fans Will Love Dreamcatcher
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Cujo is a 200-pound Saint Bernard, the best friend Brett Camber has ever had. One day Cujo chases a rabbit into a cave inhabited by sick bats. What happens to Cujo, how he becomes a horrifying vortex inescapably drawing in all the people around him, makes for one of the most heart-stopping novels Stephen King has ever written.
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Gut Wrenching, SOAP OPERA
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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A Boy and his Dog at the end of the World
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By: Stephen King
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The Tommyknockers
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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Better Than Expected King Goes Sci-Fi, Dark, Weird
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The master at his scarifying best! From heart-pounding terror to the eeriest of whimsy - tales from the outer limits of one of the greatest imaginations of our time! Trucks that punish and beautiful teen demons who seduce a young man to massacre; curses whose malevolence grows through the years; obscene presences and angels of grace - here, indeed, is a night-blooming bouquet of chills and thrills.
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Excellent narrators for classic King collection
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Critic reviews
Featured Article: Misery—Book vs. the Movie
In the pantheon of adaptations of the works of Stephen King, of which there are literally dozens, there is one that stands out at the top: Misery, the 1990 film directed by Rob Reiner, starring James Caan and Kathy Bates. The movie still holds the distinct honor of being the only adaptation of a Stephen King book to win an Oscar. That accolade went to Kathy Bates, who won an Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her show-stopping portrayal of Annie Wilkes. Bates also won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture: Drama for her shattering performance.
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American Radical nightmare!
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They're watching. They've wiretapped the apartment. They've got their daughter. They told them they'd hurt her if they spoke about it. They told them, "Don't say a word...." Or else....
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Yeesh. Good story. But..
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The profoundly original and wildly entertaining short stories of a legendary Twilight Zone writer. It is only natural that Charles Beaumont would make a name for himself crafting scripts for The Twilight Zone - for his was an imagination so limitless it must have emerged from some other dimension. Perchance to Dream contains a selection of Beaumont's finest stories, including five that he later adapted for Twilight Zone episodes.
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Contents
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That there is darkness at the heart of the Yuletide season should not surprise. Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol is filled with scenes that are unsettling. The hideous children - Want and Ignorance - beneath the robe of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. In the finest versions of this story, the best parts are the terrifying parts. Best-selling author and editor Christopher Golden shares his love for Christmas horror stories with this anthology of all-new short fiction from some of the most talented and original writers of horror today.
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Some good, some clunkers. Some fun, none scary.
- By Max Trivial on 12-24-18
By: Christopher Golden - editor, and others
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Dark Memories
- By: Jeffrey S. Savage
- Narrated by: Jason Tatom
- Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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There are things in the darkness, things much worse than the tracks and abandoned pieces of equipment that trip the children up and gash at their feet and legs, things that brush silently past them, touching their faces before disappearing again....
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EZRA QUIT GOING TO CHURCH
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 05-11-17
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Rabbit, Run
- By: John Updike
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 12 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Rabbit, Run is the book that established John Updike as one of the major American novelists of his - or any other - generation. Its hero is Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom, a onetime high-school basketball star who on an impulse deserts his wife and son. He is 26 years old, a man-child caught in a struggle between instinct and thought, self and society, sexual gratification and family duty - even, in a sense, human hard-heartedness, and divine Grace. Though his flight from home traces a zigzag of evasion, he holds to the faith that he is on the right path.
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A Thinking Man's Novel
- By L. Berlyne on 01-12-09
By: John Updike
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The Fireman
- A Novel
- By: Joe Hill
- Narrated by: Kate Mulgrew
- Length: 22 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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No one knows exactly when it began or where it originated. A terrifying new plague is spreading like wildfire across the country, striking cities one by one: Boston, Detroit, Seattle. The doctors call it Draco Incendia Trychophyton. To everyone else it's Dragonscale, a highly contagious, deadly spore that marks its hosts with beautiful black and gold marks across their bodies - before causing them to burst into flames. Millions are infected; blazes erupt everywhere. There is no antidote. No one is safe.
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GOD'S WAITING ROOM; AKA FLORIDA
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 04-25-17
By: Joe Hill
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The Mask
- By: Dean Koontz
- Narrated by: Natalie Ross
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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So young, so sweet. She appeared out of nowhere, in the middle of traffic, on a busy day. A teenager with no past, no family - no memories. So blond and beautiful. Carol and Paul were drawn to her - she was the child they’d never had. A dream come true. And then Carol’s nightmares began - the ghastly sounds in the night…the bloody face in the mirror…the razor-sharp ax.
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Awful narrator
- By Snooker14 on 05-11-10
By: Dean Koontz
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How Like a God
- By: Brenda W. Clough
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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What would it be like, to get absolute power? Would you wear a cape and fight crime? Rule the planet? Or perhaps you would be like Rob Lewis, and watch your world collapse around you. Does absolute power corrupt absolutely? Rob is going to find out.
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At one point the main character rapes at 13 year old girl
- By Richard Davis on 05-29-21
By: Brenda W. Clough
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Southern Gods
- By: John Hornor Jacobs
- Narrated by: Eric G Dove
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Recent World War II veteran Bull Ingram is working as muscle when a Memphis DJ hires him to find Ramblin' John Hastur. The mysterious blues man's dark, driving music - broadcast at ever-shifting frequencies by a phantom radio statio - is said to make living men insane and dead men rise. Disturbed and enraged by the bootleg recording the DJ plays for him, Ingram follows Hastur's trail into the strange, uncivilized backwoods of Arkansas, where he hears rumors the musician has sold his soul to the Devil.
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Big, Bold and Bright
- By John on 08-23-11
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Last Call
- By: Tim Powers
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 19 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Scott Crane abandoned his career as a professional poker player 20 years ago and hasn’t returned to Las Vegas, or held a hand of cards, in 10 years. But troubling nightmares about a strange poker game he once attended on a houseboat on Lake Mead are drawing him back to the magical city. For the mythic game he believed he won did not end that night in 1969—and the price of his winnings was his soul. Now, a pot far more strange and perilous than he ever could imagine depends on the turning of a card.
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Powers is Under-represented on Audible
- By tim on 01-18-11
By: Tim Powers
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It
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- Length: 44 hrs and 55 mins
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Welcome to Derry, Maine. It’s a small city, a place as hauntingly familiar as your own hometown. Only in Derry the haunting is real. They were seven teenagers when they first stumbled upon the horror. Now they are grown-up men and women who have gone out into the big world to gain success and happiness. But the promise they made 28 years ago calls them reunite in the same place where, as teenagers, they battled an evil creature that preyed on the city’s children.
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A Classic with a Top-Notch Performance!
- By Nicole - Audible on 06-19-17
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'Salem's Lot
- By: Stephen King
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- Length: 17 hrs and 36 mins
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Writer Ben Mears has returned to his hometown of Jerusalem's Lot with the hope that moving into a delapidated mansion, long the subject of town lore, might help him get a handle on his life and provide inspiration for a new book. But when two young boys venture into the woods and only one comes out alive, Mears begins to realize that there may be something sinister at work.
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A Great Performance of an Excellent Story
- By Tami on 10-02-12
By: Stephen King
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Pet Sematary
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Michael C. Hall
- Length: 15 hrs and 41 mins
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When Dr. Louis Creed takes a new job and moves his family to the idyllic, rural town of Ludlow, Maine, this new beginning seems too good to be true. Yet despite Ludlow's tranquility, there's an undercurrent of danger that lingers...like the graveyard in the woods near the Creeds' home, where generations of children have buried their beloved pets.
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THIS is what Audible was made for!
- By Nate_D on 04-03-18
By: Stephen King
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Misery
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Lindsay Crouse
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Paul Sheldon is a best-selling novelist who has finally met his number-one fan. Her name is Annie Wilkes, and she is more than a rabid reader - she is Paul's nurse, tending his shattered body after an automobile accident. But she is also furious that the author has killed off her favorite character in his latest book. Annie becomes his captor, keeping him prisoner in her isolated house. Annie wants Paul to write a book that brings Misery back to life - just for her. She has a lot of ways to spur him on.
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Great job
- By Whitney on 05-06-16
By: Stephen King
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The Stand
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 47 hrs and 47 mins
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This is the way the world ends: with a nanosecond of computer error in a Defense Department laboratory and a million casual contacts that form the links in a chain letter of death. And here is the bleak new world of the day after: a world stripped of its institutions and emptied of 99 percent of its people. A world in which a handful of panicky survivors choose sides - or are chosen.
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My First Completed Stephen King Novel
- By Meaghan Bynum on 02-20-12
By: Stephen King
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Carrie
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Sissy Spacek, Margaret Atwood
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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An unpopular teenage girl, whose mother is a religious fanatic, is tormented and teased to the breaking point by her more popular schoolmates. She uses her hidden telekinetic powers to inflict a terrifying revenge.
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The best of Stephen Kings books, and to think he a
- By Angelia Chisolm on 09-26-12
By: Stephen King
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It
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Steven Weber
- Length: 44 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Welcome to Derry, Maine. It’s a small city, a place as hauntingly familiar as your own hometown. Only in Derry the haunting is real. They were seven teenagers when they first stumbled upon the horror. Now they are grown-up men and women who have gone out into the big world to gain success and happiness. But the promise they made 28 years ago calls them reunite in the same place where, as teenagers, they battled an evil creature that preyed on the city’s children.
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A Classic with a Top-Notch Performance!
- By Nicole - Audible on 06-19-17
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'Salem's Lot
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Ron McLarty, Stephen King
- Length: 17 hrs and 36 mins
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Overall
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Writer Ben Mears has returned to his hometown of Jerusalem's Lot with the hope that moving into a delapidated mansion, long the subject of town lore, might help him get a handle on his life and provide inspiration for a new book. But when two young boys venture into the woods and only one comes out alive, Mears begins to realize that there may be something sinister at work.
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A Great Performance of an Excellent Story
- By Tami on 10-02-12
By: Stephen King
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Pet Sematary
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Michael C. Hall
- Length: 15 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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When Dr. Louis Creed takes a new job and moves his family to the idyllic, rural town of Ludlow, Maine, this new beginning seems too good to be true. Yet despite Ludlow's tranquility, there's an undercurrent of danger that lingers...like the graveyard in the woods near the Creeds' home, where generations of children have buried their beloved pets.
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THIS is what Audible was made for!
- By Nate_D on 04-03-18
By: Stephen King
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Misery
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Lindsay Crouse
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Paul Sheldon is a best-selling novelist who has finally met his number-one fan. Her name is Annie Wilkes, and she is more than a rabid reader - she is Paul's nurse, tending his shattered body after an automobile accident. But she is also furious that the author has killed off her favorite character in his latest book. Annie becomes his captor, keeping him prisoner in her isolated house. Annie wants Paul to write a book that brings Misery back to life - just for her. She has a lot of ways to spur him on.
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Great job
- By Whitney on 05-06-16
By: Stephen King
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The Stand
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 47 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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This is the way the world ends: with a nanosecond of computer error in a Defense Department laboratory and a million casual contacts that form the links in a chain letter of death. And here is the bleak new world of the day after: a world stripped of its institutions and emptied of 99 percent of its people. A world in which a handful of panicky survivors choose sides - or are chosen.
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My First Completed Stephen King Novel
- By Meaghan Bynum on 02-20-12
By: Stephen King
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Carrie
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Sissy Spacek, Margaret Atwood
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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An unpopular teenage girl, whose mother is a religious fanatic, is tormented and teased to the breaking point by her more popular schoolmates. She uses her hidden telekinetic powers to inflict a terrifying revenge.
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The best of Stephen Kings books, and to think he a
- By Angelia Chisolm on 09-26-12
By: Stephen King
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The Green Mile
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Frank Muller
- Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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At Cold Mountain Penitentiary, the convicted killers on E Block await their turn to walk the Green Mile and keep a date with the electric chair. Paul Edgecombe has seen his share of oddities in his years working as a guard on the Mile, but he's never met anyone like John Coffey.
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An excellent narrator and an excellent story.
- By Bryan J. Peterson on 03-21-10
By: Stephen King
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Needful Things
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Stephen King
- Length: 25 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Leland Gaunt opens a new shop in Castle Rock called Needful Things. Anyone who enters his store finds the object of his or her lifelong dreams and desires: a prized baseball card, a healing amulet. In addition to a token payment, Gaunt requests that each person perform a little "deed", usually a seemingly innocent prank played on someone else from town. These practical jokes cascade out of control, and soon the entire town is doing battle with itself. Only Sheriff Alan Pangborn suspects that Gaunt is behind the population's increasingly violent behavior.
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Please! No Distracting Keyboard Music
- By Andrea on 04-23-16
By: Stephen King
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Cujo
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Lorna Raver
- Length: 14 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Cujo is a 200-pound Saint Bernard, the best friend Brett Camber has ever had. One day Cujo chases a rabbit into a cave inhabited by sick bats. What happens to Cujo, how he becomes a horrifying vortex inescapably drawing in all the people around him, makes for one of the most heart-stopping novels Stephen King has ever written.
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Gut Wrenching, SOAP OPERA
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 12-26-16
By: Stephen King
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11-22-63
- A Novel
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Craig Wasson
- Length: 30 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed. What if you could change it back? In this brilliantly conceived tour de force, Stephen King - who has absorbed the social, political, and popular culture of his generation more imaginatively and thoroughly than any other writer - takes listeners on an incredible journey into the past and the possibility of altering it.
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I Owe Stephen King An Apology
- By Kelly - Write Well Academy on 04-16-12
By: Stephen King
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Dreamcatcher
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Jeffrey DeMunn
- Length: 22 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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A dark and sweeping adventure, Dreamcatcher is set in the haunted city of Derry - the site of Stephen King's It and Insomnia. In it, four young boys stand together and do a brave, good thing, an act that changes them in ways that they hardly understand. A quarter-century later, as grown men who have gone their separate ways, these friends come together once a year to hunt in the woods of Maine.
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King Fans Will Love Dreamcatcher
- By Murray Zetterholm on 03-06-03
By: Stephen King
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Under the Dome
- A Novel
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Raul Esparza
- Length: 34 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day in Chester's Mill, Maine, the town is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. Planes crash into it and fall from the sky in flaming wreckage, a gardener's hand is severed as "the dome" comes down on it, people running errands in the neighboring town are divided from their families, and cars explode on impact. No one can fathom what this barrier is, where it came from, and when - or if - it will go away.
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Glad I Listened to 11-22-63 First
- By Russell on 02-09-12
By: Stephen King
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The Tommyknockers
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Edward Herrmann
- Length: 27 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Writer Bobbi Anderson becomes obsessed with digging up something she's found buried in the woods near her home. With the help of her friend, Jim Gardener, she uncovers an alien spaceship. Though exposure to the Tommyknockers, who piloted the alien ship, has harmful effects on residents' health, the people of Haven develop a talent for creating innovative devices under their increasingly malignant influence.
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Better Than Expected King Goes Sci-Fi, Dark, Weird
- By Andy on 08-27-19
By: Stephen King
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Christine
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Holter Graham
- Length: 19 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Evil is alive in Libertyville. It inhabits a custom-painted red and white 1958 Plymouth Fury named Christine and young Arnold Cunningham, who buys it. Along with Arnold's girlfriend, Leigh Cabot, Dennis Guilder attempts to find out the real truth behind Christine and finds more than he bargained for: From murder to suicide, there's a peculiar feeling that surrounds Christine - she gets revenge on anyone standing in her path. Can Dennis save Arnold from the wrath of Christine?
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Skipping Issues
- By Charlie Belleville on 09-27-17
By: Stephen King
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The Institute
- A Novel
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Santino Fontana
- Length: 18 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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In the middle of the night, in a house on a quiet street in suburban Minneapolis, intruders silently murder Luke Ellis' parents and load him into a black SUV. The operation takes less than two minutes. Luke will wake up at The Institute, in a room that looks just like his own, except there's no window. And outside his door are other doors, behind which are other kids with special talents - telekinesis and telepathy - who got to this place the same way Luke did: Kalisha, Nick, George, Iris, and 10-year-old Avery Dixon.
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I really wanted to like this novel.. but..
- By Wendi on 09-21-19
By: Stephen King
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The Dark Tower I
- The Gunslinger
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 7 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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In the first book of this brilliant series, Stephen King introduces listeners to one of his most powerful creations: Roland of Gilead, The Last Gunslinger. He is a haunting figure, a loner on a spellbinding journey into good and evil. In his desolate world, which frighteningly mirrors our own, Roland tracks The Man in Black, encounters an enticing woman named Alice, and begins a friendship with the boy from New York named Jake.
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LIKE A DULL AX THROUGH A CALF'S BRAIN
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 01-14-16
By: Stephen King
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Skeleton Crew
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Stephen King, Matthew Broderick, Michael C. Hall, and others
- Length: 22 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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The master at his scarifying best! From heart-pounding terror to the eeriest of whimsy - tales from the outer limits of one of the greatest imaginations of our time! Trucks that punish and beautiful teen demons who seduce a young man to massacre; curses whose malevolence grows through the years; obscene presences and angels of grace - here, indeed, is a night-blooming bouquet of chills and thrills.
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Excellent narrators for classic King collection
- By Sheryl McCallister on 04-07-20
By: Stephen King
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The Dead Zone
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: James Franco
- Length: 16 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Johnny Smith awakens from a five-year coma after his car accident and discovers that he can see people's futures and pasts when he touches them. Many consider his talent a gift; Johnny feels cursed. His fiancée married another man during his coma, and people clamor for him to solve their problems. When Johnny has a disturbing vision after he shakes the hand of an ambitious and amoral politician, he must decide if he should take drastic action to change the future.
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Another Great Listen!
- By karinzart on 04-29-17
By: Stephen King
What listeners say about The Shining
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- Dan Harlow
- 10-14-14
A shaggy ghost story
Any additional comments?
I can't count how many times someone has told me to read The Shining because of how much better and different it is than the Stanley Kubrick film. For years I've wandered around with the memories of people saying how Kubrick ruined the book, how he changed everything that was important to the book to create a film that resembled the book in title only. "Oh, you'll understand so much more", and "the book is way scarier", and "there is good motivation for what Jack does in the book", people have said to me. And so I've been curious about this book for a long time. I've wondered what exactly it is about this book that causes people to, quite emphatically, state that arguably the greatest filmmaker in the history of motion pictures, not to mention one of humanity's greatest artists had someone botched the whole thing.
Good horror is created by not knowing all of the pieces of a dangerous puzzle: "What's around the corner?", "Who's screaming in that graveyard on this stormy night?", "Is there a killer alien with acid for blood on-board this old mining ship?". Combine not knowing important information with the chance of death (or worse) and you've got the basic formula for horror. And often a thing ceases to be scary when we see it, when the lights come on, or when we understand it - fear is born of the unknown.
In this novel, King attempts to create fear and terror by setting us up in a fancy hotel with a mysterious past for a few months of winter isolation; it's basically his take on the old haunted house story. The problem, however, is that he really does wind up explaining too much or tries too hard to give us two plausible interpretations of what is going on - are they just hallucinating, is Jack just going through alcohol withdrawal, or is the hotel really haunted. And if the hotel is haunted, who is haunting it? Old Hollywood mobsters and a rich old lady who killed herself?
I can see why Stanley Kubrick was attracted to this book because there are a lot of good ideas, but Kubrick trimmed all of the fat and turned a fairly shaggy book that, frankly, isn't that scary into one of the greatest horror films ever made. And all Kubrick did was not explain everything that King went into great detail about. Kubrick pretty much went through the book, crossed out everything that even smelt like an explanation, reconfigured a few scenes to be more efficient (having Hallorann give them the full tour instead of it being broken up into two parts like in the book).
Now I'll admit that in a book where we are supposed to live inside the character's heads King couldn't just give us limited information otherwise the book would have been about 150 pages long, at best. And King is at his best when he's creating characters and having them interact, though this book largest weakness is that there are so few characters that it sort of goes against King's strength as a popular writer. Books like The Stand, Tommyknockers, and It work well because the characters have a lot to do and it wasn't until later with Misery and Pet Cemetery that he could do more with fewer characters because by then he'd become a better writer.
So in a way this book really can only ever be a good template for a great film because it just doesn't work that well as a book. The characters a thin, Wendy in particular is useless and flat - in fact she's so bad that not even Kubrick could do anything interesting with her outside of making her life miserable in the film. Danny is pretty good, as is Hallorann, but they don't feel very fleshed out, they exist only to keep things moving or to make things weird. I do, however, much prefer King's Stuart Ullman to Kubrick's. Why Kubrick made Ullman so likable was a missed opportunity because Ullman is our introduction to the hotel, it's spokesman so-to-speak, and Kubrick should have made him more menacing.
My biggest gripe I reserve for the hedge animals. In small doses they would have been fine, but by the end I just could not take them seriously. The second you actually try to visualize a hedge animal attacking someone the image is just too comical to be scary or to even be taken seriously. Kubrick was wise to carry on with the European flavor of the hotel by using a hedge maze instead.
One thing I did find odd is that so many people have told me that the alcoholism of Jack is far more played up in the book and is a possible central cause to his insanity. Yet this is also true in the film. The scenes with Lloyd are almost identical, Kubrick changed almost nothing for those scenes and it's quite apparent Jack has a drinking problem and that the hotel is using that against him to drive him more insane and to control him. True the film isn't about a alcoholic losing control, Kubrick's film is more supernatural, but the themes are still there and one could easily say that the hotel (right down to the film's neuron receptor carpets) is a manifestation of Jack's drinking issues and abuse. For King (and audiences who prefer King over Kubrick) to claim Kubrick messed this up is idiotic and says more about King's (and his fan's) inability to contextualize theme.
I also was scratching my head about the whole side-story with Jack's drinking friend, especially the part where they thought they killed a child on a bicycle. What was that all about? That whole idea literately goes nowhere. Yes it scared them both to stop drinking, but why didn't King tie that into the rest of the book? And speaking of missed opportunities, why didn't King include Grady's dead wife and, more importantly, dead little girls? Kubrick immediately took advantage of this to create what is arguably the most iconic image in the film: the Diane Arbus style twin girls holding hands. The hotel had all the other ghosts of people past, why not them, too?
I did like that Hallorann played a more important role in the book. Kubrick just kills him off the second he gets to the hotel and that was only used in that he needed a way to get Danny and Wendy out. King used Hallorann more, but that character dipped so dangerously close into a "black man" stereotype that I cringed more than once.
All in all the book isn't bad, but the last quarter is just a lot of grunting and screaming and inane dialogue with too much pleading and yelling. The Shining is a shaggy ghost story that isn't nearly as well crafted as King's later, and much scarier books (Pet Cemetery being my personal favorite because it's also a little goofy) . I really was let down because not only because I didn't find it all the scary, but also because the book and Kubrick's film are far more similar than I was led to believe - I had been hoping for something much different.
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14 people found this helpful
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- Jason
- 04-21-17
Great! My First Book on Audible.
This is the first audiobook I have ever listened too. I choose Stephen King because he is my favorite and just by chance hadn't read the Shining, one of his best know stories. So I set out on my 9 hour car trip and listened the whole way there and the whole way back. I'm hooked now. I still read paper whenever I am able but in the car there is always an audio book playing. I highly recommend this audio book. King has a great story and Scott brings it to life.
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- Kathrynn Satava
- 01-05-20
So glad I didn't just see the movie!
Again the master has amazed me with paint brush of his creativity it is freaking so good and believable enough to make you wonder did someone just laugh outside my window? Did the rain come out of nowhere? Should I vote yes or know on topiary being put in around the playground? Hard No! Definitely one of my favorites! Campbell Scott gives an amazing performance adding the unique rasp and believability to the whole experience! Amazing.
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- Anonymous User
- 11-05-12
Just as Awesome as it was when I read it years ago
The Shining is a great book. I read it years ago when it first came out. Then came the movie - loved by millions... but if you've only seen the movie - it's quite different from the book and not as good as the book. If you haven't read this book you won't be disappointed. Actually you will be disappointed that you thought the movie was great until you realize the book is even better.
The narrator is excellent. I read another post that complained that his enunciation is very precise and it is. Crisp, clear and exact. Perhaps the other person would prefer a person who speaks in a lazy manner - something I personally don't care for. I give this narrator 5 stars for the excellent reading that really brought SKs book of wonderful prose to life!
I'll always like this book - it's a keeper. Except now, when I next watch the movie - I know I'll be wondering "Why did the producer change that in the movie - why didn't they stick to the book?" The movie would have been so much better.
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- KP
- 12-31-13
Revisiting The Shining
I only vaguely remember having read The Shining back when it first came out in 1977. The movie version is more firmly stuck in my mind, but it is hazy, too. So I decided to re-read this classic Stephen King book before trying the sequel, Dr. Sleep.
Although I really enjoyed reading it, I was somewhat disappointed as well. I thought I’d be on the edge of my seat and terrified. The first half or 2/3 of the novel seemed almost overburdened with foreshadowing and character development. The final 1/3 was much more exciting, and so I did come away feeling that the book almost lived up to its reputation.
Also, as usual, I really appreciated Stephen King’s writing and the structure of the novel. He is good! Now I can’t wait to watch the movie again! And then on to Dr. Sleep!
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- Kayla
- 05-17-17
great book much better than the movie!
very good book loved it much better than the movie, time for number 2 :)
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- AuntiePretzel
- 09-10-16
The book is soooo much better than the movie.
This is truly a classic case of a brilliantly written book being far better than the movie version of it. You do yourselves a disservice by relying upon the film as your sole source of this Stephen King masterpiece. On top of this, the performance given by Campbell Scott, and he does perform his narration, make no mistake about it, is superb and memorable. In short, I don't think I care to see the movie again after experiencing this beautifully written book in this format. Between Mr. King's impeccable craftsmanship as a writer and storyteller, and Mr. Campbell's flawless and believable presentation of the horror, madness and achingly familiar flaws and strengths of humans, you can be assured that you will thoroughly enjoy listening to this audible offering of 'The Shining'. Five stars all around.
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- B L
- 03-01-17
Second to none
For anyone who has seen the movie, you know the story is amazing. But for those who have seen the movie, it isn't the same. Consider it a coloring book, same picture, but two different people coloring it in. Stephen King's "The Shining" shines in the horror genre. From the first page, you'll be hooked and be ready ready to book your stay at the Overlook Hotel. Campbell Scott does a great job narrating the book, and manages the voices as only a voice actor could. His verbal interpretation combined with King's ability to send shivers down anyone's spine make this a must listen! Enjoy
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- Cassie
- 08-06-18
Fantastic, couldn’t stop listening
This book had me listening every spare moment I had. The narrator did a good job of voicing all the different characters to make each once distinct. Not like the movie - so much better!!! This may be the first book I re-listen to, that’s how great it was.
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- Kaitlyn Goode
- 06-05-15
A Wonderful Nightmare
SPOILER FREE
Not suggested to be listened to at night, The Shining is nothing like the movie- a well told story that despite the main character's ability to see the future keeps you guessing what will happen next. Wonderful narration that actually does distinct voices for every character.
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