Ashley’s Comments (group member since Dec 14, 2017)

Ashley’s comments from the Stephen King 2025 read-along group.

Hi Chris!! Usually for the group we post the picks for the year on the main group home page to give everyone time to get a hold of copies if they want to join us that month. Misery is one of my favorites! I definitely recommend finding a buddy to read it together 💜. We've read it before in this group and we'll probably read it again, but as a group our picks for the year have already been chosen. Sorry 💜

Welcome back Constant Readers to our little corner of the internet where we will be discussing our November book club pick! Following with the cover theme of BooksandLala's 2025 Buzzword Readathon, November's cover theme is "food and drink". What better time to start reading Thinner!

Thinner is one of the books written under King's pseudonym, Richard Bachman, and was published in 1984. The story centers on obese lawyer Billy Halleck, who, driving carelessly, kills an old Romani woman while she is crossing the street. He escapes legal punishment due to his connections, but the woman's 106-year-old father then curses Halleck to physically waste away, and the lawyer must find a way to undo the curse. King, who was overweight at the time of the novel's writing, created the novel's outline following an annual medical examination.

Following the book's release, media outlets discussed the similarities between the works of Bachman and King. Eventually, bookstore clerk Stephen Brown, a fan of King's work, located evidence from copyright data held in the Library of Congress that Bachman and King were the same person. After the secret of King's pseudonym was revealed, sales of Thinner increased tenfold. In total, over three million copies of Thinner have been sold. Critical reception to Thinner was polarized; some reviewers disliked the authorship deception, while others held this same point as a merit of the book. The literary style, however, was generally praised.

A film adaptation was released in 1996 directed by Tom Holland (ala Child's Play, Fright Night, and The Langoliers fame), and stars Robert John Burke and Joe Mantegna. It did not garner great reviews and grossed $15.3 million against a budget of $8 million. The effects are very of its time and it can be seen as a little hokey but it's a fun watch. As far as I can tell by the time this post goes live the only place you can watch it for free is on Pluto TV.

A thinner (pun intended) pick as we start easing into the holiday season. Are you excited for November's pick? Did you have a fun Halloween if you participate? Let us know all the things down below!

Welcome back fellow Constant Readers and thank you once again for joining us in our 2025 Stephen King Readalong! As always we're following the BooksandLala's Buzzwordathon prompts and this month the cover challenge is anything with foliage on the cover so we decided to give everyone a few different options. For September you will have your choice of The Regulators, The Tommyknockers, or Lisey's Story.

The Regulators is a 1996 novel published under King's pseudonym, Richard Bachman, as a mirror for King's other book being published at the same time, Desperation. The two novels represent parallel universes relative to one another, and most of the characters present in one novel's world also exist in the other novel's reality, albeit in different circumstances. Additionally, the US hardcover first editions of each novel, if set side by side, make a complete painting, and on the back of each cover is also a peek at the opposite's cover. King had previously "killed off" Bachman after the pseudonym was publicly exposed around the time of the 1984 release of the Bachman novel Thinner. However, on the book's jacket and in a tongue-in-cheek introduction by the book's editor, it was alleged that this 1996 work was written by Bachman years earlier, but the manuscript had only recently been discovered by his widow in a trunk. The story follows a summer afternoon in Wentworth, Ohio, and on Poplar Street everything's normal...except for the red van idling just up the hill. Soon it will begin to roll, and the killing will begin. A quiet slice of American suburbia is about to turn to toast. The mayhem rages around a seemingly still point, a darkened house lit fitfully from within by a flickering television screen. Inside, where things haven't been normal for a long time, are Audrey Wyler and the autistic nephew she cares for, eight-year-old Seth Garin. They're fighting their own battle, and its intensity has turned 247 Poplar Street into a prisonhouse. By the time night falls on Poplar Street, the surviving residents will find themselves in another world, one where anything, no matter how terrible, is possible…and where the regulators are on their way.

The novel was met with fairly positive reviews, most people enjoying the mirror effect between that and Desperation. In August 2014, King mentioned that there had been discussions about turning The Regulators into a TV series, but no other mention was made thereafter. In August 2022, it was announced that Bohemia Group had optioned the rights to the novel for an adaptation but so far no official adaptations have been made.

The Tommyknockers is a 1987 novel that follows Roberta Anderson's discovery of a ship in the earth, a ship buried for millions of years, but still vibrating faintly, still humming with some sort of life . . .faint . . . weak . . . but still better left alone. As she begins to uncover more and more of an artifact both familiar and so unbelievable it is almost beyond comprehension, the inhabitants of Haven, Maine start to change. "Late last night and the night before, Tommyknockers, Tommyknockers, knocking at my door. I want to go out, don't know if I can, 'cause I'm so afraid of the Tommyknocker man."

Overall the Tommyknockers has gained a cult following but it originally was met with very middle of the road to mediocre reviews (including those from King himself). King wrote The Tommyknockers at a time when substance abuse was a significant part of his life. Metaphors for the stranglehold of addiction can be found throughout the book. In a 2014 interview with Rolling Stone, King acknowledged that the quality of his writing suffered during his period of drug use, saying "The Tommyknockers is an awful book. That was the last one I wrote before I cleaned up my act", adding he believes it could be a good book if it was rewritten to about half its original length. A two-part television miniseries based on the novel was shown in 1993 on ABC, starring Jimmy Smits as Jim Gardner and Marg Helgenberger as Bobbi Anderson. King has stated that he "didn't like it", commenting that "it felt kind of cheap and thrown together". NBC announced in July 2013 that they would be producing a new miniseries based on The Tommyknockers. THR reported on March 29, 2018, that The Conjuring filmmaker James Wan and the 2017 It producer Roy Lee will join up with producer Larry Sanitsky to create a feature film version of The Tommyknockers. Neither have come to fruition as of yet.

Lastly, we have Lisey's Story. Lisey's Story was published in 2006 and follows Lisey Debusher Landon who lost her husband, Scott, two years ago, after a twenty-five year marriage of the most profound and sometimes frightening intimacy. Scott was an award-winning, bestselling novelist and a very complicated man. Early in their relationship, before they married, Lisey had to learn from him about books and blood and bools. Later, she understood that there was a place Scott went--a place that both terrified and healed him, that could eat him alive or give him the ideas he needed in order to live. Now it's Lisey's turn to face Scott's demons, Lisey's turn to go to Boo'ya Moon. What begins as a widow's efforts to sort through the papers of her celebrated husband becomes a nearly fatal journey into the darkness he inhabited.

Credited as one of King's most personal books, he came up with the idea after an incident in 2003 when King came down with double pneumonia; while he was in the hospital, his wife Tabitha decided to redesign his studio. Coming home from the hospital and seeing his books and belongings in boxes, King saw an image of what his studio would look like after his death. The story was adapted as an eight part limited series, with all episodes scripted by Stephen King, starring Julianne Moore. The miniseries premiered on Apple TV+ on June 4, 2021 and is still available to stream.

All the choices this month so everyone should have a pick they either haven't read before or are excited to reread! Personally on top of reading one of these I am planning to continue my journey to the Dark Tower by reading Wolves of the Calla for Series September. Pray for me...it's going to be chunky book month lol. Sound of down below which book you're most excited to get to! Are you planning on watching the adaptation as well? We hope you all have a wonderful September!! :)

(Full disclosure...I hate myself for the title, but it made me lol)

Happy July Constant Readers and welcome back to another fun filled month of reading the King! We are fully in the thick of summer in the northern hemisphere and fully in the thick of BooksandLala's Buzzwordathon Challenge (cover edition). For July the theme is "technology" meaning any type of technology on the cover. None other would be more fitting than our pick for July...Cell!

Cell is a 2006 apocalyptic horror novel. The story follows New England artist, Clayton Riddell, struggling to reunite with his young son after a mysterious signal broadcast over the global cell phone network turns the majority of his fellow humans into mindless vicious animals. Along the way he is thrown together with multiple characters including middle-aged Thomas McCourt and fifteen-year-old Alice Maxwell. They trek north across a devastated New England, having fleeting encounters with other survivors and catching hints about the activities of the phoners, who attack non-phoners on sight.

The book generally received positive reviews from critics. Publishers Weekly described it as "a glib, technophobic but compelling look at the end of civilization" and full of "jaunty and witty" sociological observations. Stephen King scholar Bev Vincent said, "It's a dark, gritty, pessimistic novel in many ways and stands in stark contrast to the fundamental optimism of The Stand".

Before it was published a role in the story was offered to the winner of a charity auction for the First Amendment Project, sponsored by eBay. Other authors like Peter Straub also participated in the online auction, selling roles in their upcoming books. The King auction ran between September 8 and 18, 2005 and the winner, a Ft. Lauderdale woman named Pam Alexander, paid $25,100. Ms. Alexander gave the honor as a gift to her brother Ray Huizenga; his name was given to one of the zombie-slaughtering "flock-killers" in the story, a construction worker who specializes in explosives.

Originally, shortly after the book released in 2006 Eli Roth was slated to direct an adaptation after he finished Hostel: Part II. By 2009 however, he had exited the film stating creative differences. In 2016 a movie adaptation was released starring John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson, the second time they had acted alongside each other in a King property after 2007's 1408. It was released on June 10, 2016, to video on demand, prior to opening in a limited release on July 8, 2016. Overall, it was panned by most critics. However, I am out to watch every Stephen King adaptation, so I'm not deterred. Right now, it is available to watch on Pluto TV, Sling TV, Philo, Plex, and Amazon Prime.

I haven't read a good zombie book in a long time and I'm thinking it's just the ticket to escape this heat. Can't wait to have you join us!

Happy May Day fellow Constant Readers and welcome back to another month of continuing along with our journey on reading all of Stephen King's works! Keeping with BooksandLala's Buzzwordathon Challenge (cover edition), May's theme is eyes. We've decided to go with a classic, 1980's Firestarter.

Firestarter's synopsis is as follows: "The Department of Scientific Intelligence (aka "The Shop") never anticipated that two participants in their research program would marry and have a child. Charlie McGee inherited pyrokinetic powers from her parents, who had been given a low-grade hallucinogen called "Lot Six" while at college. Now the government is trying to capture young Charlie and harness her powerful firestarting skills as a weapon." - stephenking.com

In July and August 1980, two excerpts from the novel were published in Omni. The novel entered the New York Times' Best-Sellers List on August 24, 1980. In 1981, Firestarter was nominated as Best Novel for the British Fantasy Award, Locus Poll Award, and Balrog Award. The book is dedicated to author Shirley Jackson: "In Memory of Shirley Jackson, who never needed to raise her voice."

Firestarter was adapted into a film of the same name in 1984. It was directed by Mark L. Lester and starred Drew Barrymore as Charlie, David Keith as Andy, and George C. Scott as Rainbird. It also starred Heather Locklear as Vicky and Martin Sheen as Cap. This adaptation was met with mixed reviews but I would say remains overall a semi-cult classic. The 2022 adaptation on the other hand...was not. It was directed by Keith Thomas from a screenplay by Scott Teems and starred Zac Efron as Andy, Ryan Kiera Armstrong as Charlie, and Michael Greyeyes as Rainbird. This adaptation is currently sitting at a 10% on Rotten Tomatoes. There was also a shortly lived miniseries that not many people talk about in 2002 called Firestarter: Rekindled starring Marguerite Moreau as a grown-up Charlie and Malcolm McDowell as Rainbird that served as a sequel to the original story. You can stream the 1984 version on Hulu, the 2022 version on Hulu, Youtube TV, and FuboTV, and I'm at a loss as to where to watch the miniseries. Apart from owning it physically I don't think you can watch it anywhere.

Firestarter DEFINITELY influenced many pop culture things today, namely the Netflix hit show Stranger Things as well as Stephen King's later work via The Institute. There are definite winks and nods to the Shop in that story.

Who else is excited to get started on a hot read as the temperature starts to rise? As always, we're so happy to have you here! Chime off in the comments down below!

Once again fellow Constant Readers it is that time of the month to pick a new read and March is going to be a fun one! Following Kayla from BooksandLala's Buzzword Reading Challenge cover prompt, March is to find a book with "books on the cover". We're going with two different options for this. One of which is 11/22/63 (we're not being super literal with this because it has a newpaper on the cover but it works!) and the other option is On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.

11/22/63 is a fiction novel that was published on November 8, 2011 and immediately went to number one. It stayed on The New York Times Best Seller list for 16 weeks, as well as winning multiple literary awards. The story follows Jake Epping, an English teacher who is presented with the possibility of time travel and is given an immense task...preventing the assasination of JFK. According to King, the idea for the novel first came to him in 1971, before the release of his first novel, Carrie (1974). He was going to title it Split Track. However, he felt that a historical novel required more research than he was willing to do at the time and greater literary talent than he possessed. Like his novel Under the Dome (2009), he abandoned the project, returning to the story later in life. King and longtime researcher Russ Dorr prepared for the novel by reading many historical documents and newspaper archives from the period, looking at clothing and appliance ads, sports scores, and television listings. King and Dorr also traveled to Dallas, where they visited Lee Harvey Oswald's apartment building (now a private residence), found the home of Gen. Edwin Walker (a target of an assassination attempt by Oswald), and had a private tour of the Sixth Floor Museum in the Texas School Book Depository. On Presidents' Day in 2016 a Hulu mini-series adaptation premiered starring James Franco, Sarah Gadon, George MacKay, Chris Cooper, and a plethora of other well known actors and actresses. It was met with very positive reviews. 11/22/63 is tied for my second favorite King novel (neck and neck with IT). It truly has everything. Action, adventure, historical accuracy, horror, and one of the absolute best romances I've ever read. The Hulu mini-series, in my opinion is an awesome adaptation.

On the other hand, if you're looking for a non-fiction, we have you covered on that front too. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft is a memoir that describes his experiences as a writer and his advice for aspiring writers. Originally published in 2000 by Charles Scribner's Sons, it was King's first book after he was involved in a car accident a year earlier. The book is organized into five sections: "C.V.", where King highlights events in his life that influenced his writing; "What Writing Is", where King urges the reader to take writing seriously; "Toolbox", discussing English mechanics; "On Writing", where King details his advice to aspiring writers; and "On Living: A Postscript", where he describes his roadside accident and how it affected his life. Stephen King began composing On Writing in 1997. After completing the "C.V." and "Toolbox" sections, he set aside the manuscript in February or March 1998, explaining in the final section of On Writing that he was uncertain how or whether he should proceed with it. In June 1999, he reread the uncompleted draft and became determined to finish it. On June 19, 1999, King was hit by a van while walking along Maine State Route 5. He subsequently struggled to return to writing, uncertain whether he could publish another novel. In an interview with NBC, he said: "After the accident, I was totally incapable of writing. At first it was as if I'd never done this in my life. ... It was like starting over again from square one." In January 2000, King wrote on his website that he had finished On Writing and was more optimistic about his career, stating, "My endurance is much less than it was and my output has been cut in half, but I am working." In 2008, Entertainment Weekly listed On Writing 21st on their list of "The New Classics: Books – The 100 best reads from 1983 to 2008". Over the years it has become a must-read on every list of books aimed at aspiring writers. As it is a memoir, there has been no adaptation slated.

We are EXTREMELY excited for this month's round of our Stephen King read-a-long. Have you read these in the past or is this your first time? Either way, we're happy to have you along for the ride in our continued King journey!

We're a very laid back group so you're not missing anything lol. We borrow prompts from the YouTuber BooksandLala who comes up with the Buzzwordathon reading challenge each year. We all kind of read at our own pace. We encourage discussions though!

It's a new year and time for some new King fellow Constant Readers! We are so excited to be back in 2025 with you still trekking along on this King journey. Once again we are following BooksandLala's Buzzwordathon challenge for the year and as Missy explained on the main group page, this year we are doing the cover challenge to switch things up a bit. The cover prompt for January 2025 is a pattern on the cover so we've chosen two that you can take your pick of...The Outsider or Fairy Tale.

The Outsider was originally published in 2018 by Scribner and the synosis is as follows: An eleven-year-old boy’s violated corpse is found in a town park. Eyewitnesses and fingerprints point unmistakably to one of Flint City’s most popular citizens. He is Terry Maitland, Little League coach, English teacher, husband, and father of two girls. Detective Ralph Anderson, whose son Maitland once coached, orders a quick and very public arrest. Maitland has an alibi, but Anderson and the district attorney soon add DNA evidence to go with the fingerprints and witnesses. Their case seems ironclad. As the investigation expands and horrifying answers begin to emerge, King’s propulsive story kicks into high gear, generating strong tension and almost unbearable suspense. Terry Maitland seems like a nice guy, but is he wearing another face? When the answer comes, it will shock you as only Stephen King can.

It was met with very positive reviews, even winning a Goodreads choice award for Readers' Favority Mystery & Thriller for 2018.

A very popular HBO series adaptation aired in 2020 after it was originally optioned to just be a miniseries. It stars Ben Mendelsohn, Cynthia Erivo, Bill Camp, Paddy Considine, Julianne Nicholson, and Jason Bateman (who also directed the first two episodes). In November 2020, HBO declined a second season, and production company MRC intended to shop the series to other outlets. King said that scripts for a second season were written, and the cast and crew expressed interest in continuing the series.

We would suggest holding off on reading The Outsider until you have read the entirety of the Bill Hodges trilogy (Mr. Mercedes, Finders Keepers, and End of Watch). I haven't read it yet myself but as it follows the same detective I have heard that it can contain spoilers for that trilogy.

The second option is Fairy Tale. Fairy Tale is a 2022 novel published by Scribner. It follows Charlie Reade - a regular high school kid. But he carries a heavy load. His mom was killed in a hit-and-run accident when he was ten, and grief drove his dad to drink. Charlie learned how to take care of himself—and his dad. Then, when Charlie is seventeen, he meets Howard Bowditch, a recluse with a big dog in a big house at the top of a big hill. In the backyard is a locked shed from which strange sounds emerge, as if some creature is trying to escape. When Mr. Bowditch dies, he leaves Charlie the house, a massive amount of gold, a cassette tape telling a story that is impossible to believe, and a responsibility far too massive for a boy to shoulder.

Because within the shed is a portal to another world—one whose denizens are in peril and whose monstrous leaders may destroy their own world, and ours. In this parallel universe, where two moons race across the sky, and the grand towers of a sprawling palace pierce the clouds, there are exiled princesses and princes who suffer horrific punishments; there are dungeons; there are games in which men and women must fight each other to the death for the amusement of the “Fair One.” And there is a magic sundial that can turn back time.

Fairy Tale was also met with rave reviews, being nominated for a Goodreads choice award for Readers' Favorite Fantasy in 2022.

On September 15, 2022, Deadline Hollywood reported that British filmmaker Paul Greengrass, known for the Jason Bourne film franchise, would adapt, direct, and produce a film adaptation of the novel, with American film producer Gregory Goodman co-producing the film alongside Greengrass. On October 16, 2024, Deadline Hollywood reported that the project was being turned into a ten episode series, with J.H. Wyman as showrunner.

Missy and I are both so happy to have your continued support in this group and can't wait to see what 2025 has in store for each and every one of you as well as our King journey! Let's get reading!

Alas, spooky season is over (although it's all year round for Constant Readers!) and it's time to continue trekking along in the Buzzwordathon Challenge by reading something with the word "Only" in the title. We couldn't find a full-length King novel fitting that prompt so we went with a short story this month, which works out well as everyone is preparing for the upcoming busy holiday season. In November we will be reading "That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French” from 2002's short story collection, Everything's Eventual.

The story focuses on a married woman in a car ride on vacation constantly repeating the same events over and over, each event ending with the same gruesome outcome. In his closing remarks, King suggested that Hell is not "other people," as Sartre claimed, but repetition, enduring the same pain over and over again without end.

It was originally published in the June 22, 1998 issue of The New Yorker magazine. This story has been adapted as part of Stephen King's Dollar Baby Program. One adaptation, titled "That Feeling" by writer/director/editor Paul Inman, was completed in 2021 and debuted in film festivals in 2022. There it won several awards including, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Score, and Best International Short Film. It was also an Official Selection at the Stephen King Rules Film Festival in Davenport, IA, where many of the Dollar Baby films were presented online with Stephen King's blessing for the first time.

There are at least three other known official Dollar Baby versions of this short story, one of which is a twelve minute version available to watch on Youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEMtP...

Who else is excited to read this story? Of course, you can always read the full book, which is one of his best short story collections in my humble opinion, but it's never required. We hope you all have a bountiful November and a joyous start to the holiday season!

Happy August fellow Constant Readers! We're so happy to still have you along with us as we read through our favorite author's back catalog. Continuing on with BooksandLala's Buzzwordathon theme, for August we have to read something with "like" in the title. We will be diving into his most recently published work, You Like It Darker.

You Like It Darker is a collection of twelve stories published by Scribner in May 2024. The book was announced on November 6, 2023, via Entertainment Weekly, which provided a look at the book's wraparound cover, table of contents, and an excerpt from "Rattlesnakes", a sequel to King's 1981 novel Cujo. The stories included are as follows:


1. Two Talented Bastids
2. "The Fifth Step"
3. "Willie the Weirdo"
4. Danny Coughlin's Bad Dream
5. "Finn"
6. "On Slide Inn Road"
7. "Red Screen"
8. "The Turbulence Expert"
9. "Laurie"
10. Rattlesnakes (a sort of sequel to "Cujo")
11. The Dreamers
12. The Answer Man

In July 2024, King noted that his 2016 short story "The Music Room" had been omitted from the collection due to him forgetting about it, but that it would "probably" be included in the paperback edition.

The book debuted at number one on The New York Times fiction best-seller list for the week ending May 25, 2024.

In his USA Today review, Brian Truitt commends You Like It Darker for its array of twelve dark and engaging stories. The collection is praised for revisiting familiar characters and settings while exploring new horrors, such as deadly snakes, ghosts, and mad scientists. Truitt highlights King's ability to blend horror with deeper themes of talent, unrealized dreams, and existential musings. Despite some less impactful stories, the collection is noted for its gripping narrative and ability to evoke fear.

Because of how new it is, no adaptations have been slated quite yet but I'm sure given time there will be some on the horizon.

Who's excited for a new short story collection? I know I am! ESPECIALLY a sequel to Cujo? I mean who had that on their 2024 Bingo Card? As always, comment below if you'll be joining in on the fun!

Keedra wrote: "Congrats on graduating! Will we be discussing the story on the 31st?"

Oops, just now seeing this. Sorry! We don't normally discuss each book at the end of the month mostly because we've been doing the readalong for so long that we tend to have a lot of repeats. We're a suuuper casual group lol. But we welcome you to chime in at any point during the month with your thoughts/questions about the read! <3

Happy June (and Happy Pride month for anyone who celebrates) fellow Constant Readers!! Once again we're half way through the year and I'm completely floored that this year has gone by so fast. This month, using the prompt from BooksandLala's Buzzwordathon which is "repeating words", we will be reading the short story "The End of the Whole Mess" from Nightmares and Dreamscapes.

"The End of the Whole Mess" is a short science fiction story first published in Omni Magazine in 1986. It was collected in King's Nightmares & Dreamscapes in 1993 and in Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse in 2008. The story is written in the form of a personal journal, and tells the story of the narrator Howard Fornoy's genius younger brother's (Bobby) attempt to cure humanity's aggressive tendencies.

"The End of the Whole Mess" was included as the fourth installment of TNT's Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King, starring Ron Livingston as Howard and Henry Thomas as Bobby. It originally aired on July 19, 2006. It was favored as one of the more popular episodes of the mini-series.

The audiobook version of this story was narrated by actor Matthew Broderick.

As always you're more than welcome to read the entirety of Nightmares and Dreamscapes (one of my personal favorites of his short story collections) or Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse but it's not necessary. We hope everyone has a great start to the summer and a great month of reading!

I stumbled upon it by accident yesterday!! Totally forgot it was release day lol

Oooh I've been really wanting to pick up Radium Girls! You have to let us know how you like it. I've been good, same old same old with just work, home, work, home lol. How have you been?

It's (almost) time for the April pick and I wanted to get a jump on it so we all have a little bit longer to read. And also so I wouldn't forget to update (sorry guys lol). BooksandLala's theme for this April is "nature" and we decided to go with two of King's short stories that you may be familiar with already. "Beachworld" from Skeleton Crew and/or "The House on Maple Street" from Nightmares and Dreamscapes.

"Beachworld" is a short science fiction story by Stephen King, first published in Weird Tales in 1984, and collected in King's 1985 collection Skeleton Crew. The story is set 8,000 years in the future where two crewmembers, Rand and Shapiro, survive the crash-landing of their spacecraft on an uncharted planet made up entirely of sand. They soon find themselves struggling to maintain control of their own sanity. Two adaptations have been made so far. A live action version of "Beachworld" was released in 2015, starring Erin McDonald and Travis Heaps and directed by Chad Bolling. The second adaptation was a Dollar Baby version of "Beachworld" from OneNinth & Pointed Pictures and it premiered online in 2021 as part of the Stephen King Rules Dollar Baby Film Festival. I couldn't find anywhere to stream either of these online, however.

"The House on Maple Street" is a science fiction short story by Stephen King, published in his collection Nightmares & Dreamscapes. The first volume of the anthology's audiobook includes the story, read by his wife, Tabitha King. The story was inspired by one of the drawings included in the children's book The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, by Chris Van Allsburg. It was later included in the 2011 book The Chronicles of Harris Burdick: Fourteen Amazing Authors Tell the Tales, along with stories by other high-profile writers, including Tabitha King, inspired by the other illustrations. The story also draws inspiration from Richard Matheson’s 1952 short story "Shipshape Home". The story follows the four Bradbury children returning to their home on Maple Street after a summer abroad. They discover that something is growing upwards through the house's walls from below, replacing wood and plaster with metal and machinery, counting down to some cataclysmic event. It becomes a great discussion about family dynamic and the power that adults can have over children. As of writing this there have been no adaptations that I could find.

King's science heavy stories were never my absolute favorites but they are always a fun time. Who is excited for another month of short stories and another month of this King journey? Let us know down below!

Welcome back fellow Constant Readers! It's already time for our next monthly read and for February we're continuing with Lala's Buzzwordathon prompts by picking something that includes a "positive" word. Now, we all know King writes dark stuff so a lot of his book titles seem to lean more gloomy. While he's more prone to write books that focus more on Desperation and Misery (snort chuckle) we are confident that our pick of the short story "My Pretty Pony" from his collection Nightmares and Dreamscapes will fit the bill.

"My Pretty Pony" is a short story written by Stephen King and illustrated by the artist Barbara Kruger. It was the sixth publication in the Whitney Museum of American Art artist and writer series. An original limited coffee table book edition of 250 was published in 1988 and was an oversized fine press slip-cased book with stainless steel faced boards and digital clock inset into the front cover. A trade edition of 15,000 was later published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1989. In 1993, the story was included in King's collection Nightmares & Dreamscapes.

In the story an elderly man, his death rapidly approaching, takes his young grandson up onto a hill behind his house and gives the boy his pocket watch. Then, standing among falling apple blossoms, the man also "gives instruction" on the nature of time: how when you grow up, it begins to move faster and faster, slipping away from you in great chunks if you don't hold tightly onto it. Time is a pretty pony, with a wicked heart.

In his note on the story in Nightmares and Dreamscapes, King says the piece was originally a flashback scene included in a full-length novel-in-progress in which the grandson was now a brutal hitman reflecting on his childhood. The novel was intended to be published under King's Richard Bachman pseudonym, but the author grew disenchanted with the work, and finally scrapped it entirely.

King references this concept again in the "Sorry, Right Number" screenplay (also collected in Nightmares and Dreamscapes), where a direction states that a character's "pretty pony has done its fair share of running" (indicating that they have aged relatively rapidly).

My Pretty Pony (2009) is also a Dollar Baby short film, based on the Stephen King short story, directed by Mikhail Tank and starring Paul Marin.

In 2017, Saw star Tobin Bell starred in a short film based on the short story, directed by Luke Jaden and produced by Phil Wurtzel of Friel Films and Josh Boone. I couldn't figure out where you could watch either of the adaptations so if anyone knows please chime in.

How about it folks? Are you as excited to keep cruising along with us down this road? We're so excited to have you with us for another fun-filled reading year!

It's the most wonderful time of the yearrrr!! And by that I mean it is time to post our last pick for our 2023 Stephen King Read-Along. We are finishing with a bang with Lala's Buzzword Readathon prompt for December which is "sound related" words. We're going to be reading two short stories from Skeleton Crew titled "The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet" and "Paranoid: A Chant".

"The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet" is a short story that was first published in the June 1984 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and later included in King's own 1985 collection Skeleton Crew. "Paranoid: A Chant" was a previously unpublished poem written by King that he decided to include in Skeleton Crew as they are seen to be slightly connected.

"The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet" follows Henry who is the fiction editor for Logan's, a struggling magazine. Henry receives an unsolicited short story from up-and-coming novelist Reg Thorpe, and considers the story to be a masterpiece. Through his correspondence with Thorpe, Henry learns of – and, due to Henry's own alcoholism, eventually begins to believe in – Thorpe's various paranoid fantasies. Most notably, Henry and Thorpe believe that their typewriters serve as homes for fornits – tiny elves who bring creativity and good luck. The story, told from Henry's perspective as he relays it in anecdotal form at a barbecue, concerns Henry's descent into Thorpe's madness. Meanwhile, Henry also struggles to get Thorpe's story published, despite the fact that "Logan's" is in the process of closing its fiction department. Henry refers to part of his correspondence with Thorpe as a "paranoid chant" which many believe to be the basis for "Paranoid: A Chant" which is why we included both in the read-along this month. Specific images and ideas in the poem imply that it's "written" by Reg Thorpe, or written from a similar perspective. The poem also has ties to the Dark Tower epic. When King originally began writing The Stand, he wrote "A dark man with no face." This became the description for Randall Flagg and is an exact line from the poem.

While "The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet" has never officially been adapted, in the television mini-series Nightmares and Dreamscapes, a fornit's symbol can be seen on a letter in the story "Battleground". However in 2000, "Paranoid: A Chant" was adapted into an eight minute Dollar Baby short film by Jay Holben, starring Tonya Ivey.

At the core, both stories' main focus is insanity. Since the publication of these stories, King has occasionally used the term "flexible bullet" to describe insanity, in reference to both of these stories.

I love going back to stories (particularly short story collections) that we've visited in the past and Skeleton Crew is no exception. Apart from it housing "The Mist" I feel like a lot of these particular short stories can get overlooked in King's catalog and they shouldn't be. This is a great collection!

As always, fellow Constant Readers, we couldn't have done this read-along without you. Thank you so much for coming along with us on our journey to read King and we absolutely can't wait to continue it with you all next year! Chime off down below if you're as excited as we are, and as always, have the happiest of holidays and the best new year!! :)

Chelley wrote: "I love this group ! Sorry I keep missing the conversation . I’m ready for December ! I’m pretty sure I haven’t read this one . Happy holidays 🎄"

Chelley you keep me on track lol I'm going to be putting up the December pick here in a little bit. Happy Holidays to you too! :)

Such an underrated short story and one of my favorites! I also watched the movie before realizing it was based on a King story and I remember really liking it. But I also can't believe I never realized it was based on the BTK Killer. Like, duh! lol

Just finished it! It went so fast! Thinking about reading the second one this month too but who knows?