It and 11/22/63 are my top 2 I’ve read all his books. He has so many incredible books but those two are absolute perfection imo. I read them every Oct and Nov
@@DrawntoBooks11/22/63 has everything an avid reader would want. Intrigue, suspense, conspiracy theory, time travel, romance, karma/revenge, nostalgia about the past, heroic sacrifice, etc. I’ve read the book twice (and it IS a door-stopper in length) and seen the TV series twice. Definitely in my top 5 SK books of all time.
@@DrawntoBookshere’s and idea: do a top 10 list of the scariest I-can’t-read-with-the-lights-off King books. IT and The Shining would be my personal top 2.
Stephen King's memoir "On Writing" is a must read for writers. Isn't it ironic that one of the greatest horror writers almost died in a grewsome way? Also, the fact that arguably the greatest writer of our time almost die before this book was complete gives it more of a reason to read it as he does talk about the experience briefly in the book.
If you loved The Green Mile movie, you do yourself a disservice by not reading the amazing book. I read it as it was written and released, one part every six weeks and each "chapter" available at places like Target and the grocery store. It was wonderful to read it that way...and then to read it again in its entirety. I really hope you read it. You will hear the actors as you do. I bet you'll agree that they were perfectly cast.
That movie hit me so deep. I haven’t seen it since it came out and I still think about it. So I know I would love the book, I just haven’t been able to bring myself to read it yet. That sounds like such a cool way to read it too!
If you read The book, you will get more Appreciation for the great movie adaption whole at the same time realize how much better ( of course ) the story in the book is as a whole. It’s just perfection. And the book brings you much more feeling and emotional aspects the movie comes short due to time limitation.
Good job, and thanks for the spreadsheet. Having browsed many rankings I am not surprised about Duma Key, but I am shocked Salem's Lot (many #1s) is lower than the similar Needful Things.
What a nice surprise to see Duma Key in the Top 10! I personally loved it, but I didn't know so many other people loved it as much as I did. Of course, I was also thrilled to see 11/22/63 near the top, but I wasn't as surprised about that one. Thanks for working so hard to come up with a comprehensive list!
Now the question is: Did you look for a total of 19 lists on purpose? Constant readers of Stephen King will know what I’m talking about. Long days and pleasant nights to you ma’am😁
Love the list and the formula you used to produce it. Would love a copy of your spreadsheet if you’re willing to share. Did you get around to reading Duma Key? I just listened to it for the second time a few days ago. Funny, terrifying, gutting. Really can’t go wrong.
I haven’t yet, I like to read a King book every October so maybe this year! the spreadsheet is linked in the description, but I’ll link it here too, enjoy :) docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hUwls-rBCPVWIwLRqRBPv5XKhhUirh8db3YMi9treXU/edit?usp=sharing
I’ve never finished a Stephen King book (I have a habit of flitting between books and I put down 11/22/63 and forgot to pick it backup) but now I know where to try again. I just found your videos and they are so good, high quality production, interesting and fun. Looking forward to the next one.
This list comes handy because I recently decided to read and re-read King's books. As a teen a started reading his works but stopped because I found the endings of his (back than) "newer" books "The Dark Half", "The Tommyknockers" and "Needul Things" as well as "The Stand" (back then the "short" version) after reading hundreds of pages disappointing. But re-reading "It" and reading "'Salem's Lot" the first time got me hooked again.
Yeah I was so surprised at how many people don’t like The Stand! Everyone loves Misery though, I think I might have to try that one. And Pet Sematary, but I dunno if I can stomach that one!
@@DrawntoBooks I can recommend "Misery" as well as "Pet Sematary". If you have seen the first movie version of "Pet Seminary" you might be prepared for what to expect. I find the ending of "Cujo" much sadder though. Regarding "The Stand": The part when the acopolypse happens is really great. Then the story drags ans drags and drags... ;-)
I have to say Salem's Lot and The Stand (uncut edition) are my two favorite King novels. I have many other King novels stories lovingly stored in my heart for the experience they gave me reading them over the years. I love how layered King's stories are. 🙂❤📚
The Stand is probably one of my favourite books oat and I was baffled when it showed up at #5… but after reading some opinions I can see why the latter half would kinda put people off. Still, it holds a place for me
Stephen King's books are quite diverse by now, so the best approach to reading them is probably to go for whichever appeals to you when you read the blurb rather than anything else. And going through all the short story and novella collections makes sense since there is bound to be some amazing stuff in there regardless of how the collection as a whole is ranked. That said, I did recently bump up The Stand on my reading list after it kept popping up in the top two of most lists I've come across accidentally. The concept was fascinating to me, and it was definitely worth the 1200 pages and however many hours that took. Stephen King has an amazing knack for making characters immediately interesting, three-dimensional and believable, and you want to know what happens to them, the good and the bad alike. It, on the other hand, doesn't really appeal to me for some reason, but I'll probably get to it some day. I've got another 20 or so Stephen King books I'd want to read first.
Enter #4,782 of the "I read all the Stephen King Books..." podcast series. If the people who make these are "creators", then I'm Taylor Swift. Try actual creation, not commentary. Deconstruction is not an act of construction. It's cultural parasitism.
Love most of his books. Could not make it past the first third of The Stand. Everyone loves it so I must be missing something. Also couldn't read Lisey's Story. 11/22/63 is one of my favorite books of any author. Duma Key would have been great if he'd ended it 200 pages sooner. The Green Mile, Shawshank Redemption... are masterpieces. As are Fairy Tale and Holly and IT.
IT is also the only I read. not great, but neat read. mostly for the story, not how it is written. and they should really have edited out that one part, you know which. plus, funny when ur most succesful one is when u were high as a kite.
No, I'm definitely not someone who started comparing Stephen King novel ranking lists in a spreadsheet just to get a list that's as close to general opinion as possible, and someone who came here because they thought you're also going to do a ranking of your own opinion, and someone who is now utterly surprised by the fact that this idea could ever cross a sane person's mind. No, I'm definitely not. (You won't stop me though, I started this sheet yesterday, and I'll keep on.)
@@Creshaw Alright, here it is with a few details: so far, I have only 21 opinions - none of them are critics, only fans, but not all were anglophones - but I'll update the list when I find others. Only TH-cam rankings included, with at least 25 rankable entries, and only if it contains all books the ranker has read. All 75 novels and short story collections published before Holly are included. The algorithm I used is the following: in a list, I'll write the corresponding rank for each book - if it isn't ranked, it gets a zero. After that, each books gets a score which is (rankNumber)/(sum of rank numbers on the list). (E.g. if a book is ranked 23. in a ranking of 31 books it gets a score of 23/(1+2+...+31).) The final ranking is based on the average of the scores. IDK why I came up with all that, but with all that said, here's the final ranking: 75. Roadwork 74. Elevation 73. Rage 72. Cell 71. Gwendy's Button Box 70. The Colorado Kid 69. The Running Man 68. The Regulators 67. Blaze 66. Cycle of the Werewolf 65. From a Buick 8 64. Sleeping Beauties 63. Thinner 62. Insomnia 61. The Gunslinger 60. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon 59. Later 58. Nightmares & Dreamscapes 57. End of Watch 56. The Tommyknockers 55. The Bazaar of Bad Dreams 54. Rose Madder 53. Dreamcatcher 52. The Outsider 51. Bag of Bones 50. Joyland 49. The Black House 48. The Wind Through the Keyhole 47. The Song of Susannah 46. The Talisman 45. The Eyes of the Dragon 44. The Wolves of Calla 43. If It Bleeds 42. Four Past Midnight 41. Gwendy's Final Task 40. The Dark Half 39. The Institute 38. Lisey's Story 37. Mr. Mercedes 36. Gerald's Game 35. Fairy Tale 34. Carrie 33. Doctor Sleep 32. Everything's Eventual 31. Revival 30. Cujo 29. The Waste Lands 28. Finders Keepers 27. Wizard and Glass 26. Under the Dome 25. Firestarter 24. Skeleton Crew 23. Dolores Claiborne 22. Hearts in Atlantis 21. Billy Summers 20. Desperation 19. Full Dark, No Stars 18. The Dead Zone 17. Night Shift 16. Just After Sunset 15. The Dark Tower 14. Different Seasons 13. Salem's Lot 12. Duma Key 11. Christine 10. The Drawing of the Three 9. The Long Walk 8. Pet Sematary 7. The Stand 6. Needful Things 5. The Green Mile 4. The Shining 3. Misery 2. 11/22/63 1. It (Sources: Jimmy Mango, Brian Lee Durfee, otherworldsthanthese, The Bookish Drummer, Dave Reads King, One Eye on the Page, Pretty in Papercuts, Matt HNR, NervithReviews, Jo Fisher, GetFramed, Pick Your Pop Culture Poison, FrogLit, The Love of Reading, The Horror Show Channel, thelocolibrarian, TheDylanCorner, Happy Goat Horror, CriminOlly, Katzenkönig, Dom Laurion)
hard to believe wizard and glass is so low. its easily one of my favourite stephen king books. also gosh i hate pet semetary. maybe when it was released it was original but it seemed so cliched. but i know people like it. and im shocked at 11.22.63 being higher than the stand and the shining. The different colour thing when he came back was good, and i liked the world but the amount of random hatred oswald gets, it felt you needed to be alive when jfk was shot to feel that with the main character. but the love story in it was pretty good.
I think 11.22.63 is so high because it's not a horror novel, so I think people who don't love dark horror really loved this one. I want to read The Dark Tower series! someday. :)
Thanks, I hate it. I disagree with most of this list. Rage was an incredible short story. Roadwork was good, too. The Tommyknockers was trash and it should have been at the bottom with Cell... Sleeping Beauties shouldn't even be considered for this list... Rose Madder, not as high as it was ranked, The Gunslinger ranked below The Institute? Madness. Yeah, the world is askew and so are you.
P.S. King is actually my favorite author. My summer project was to re-read The Dark Tower series. I originally read them as they were published and had never read them with one immediately following the other. It is a MUCH better story read as one...at least, in my opinion. Oh...and I've read The Stand at least a dozen times. (The short version 4 times and the long version 8.) I guess you could say it's my favorite book.
Four of my favorites made the Top 10: Pet Semetery , which is clever and fantastic; Misery, The Shining, and The Green Mile (you should read it). I didn't like It. Maybe I should give it another go.
I remember when 11/22/63 came out that I felt it was his best work in years. I find it interesting to see that it is so high in the overall list which shows that it wasn't just me that liked it. I've read (just about) everything by king and next up for me is 'Holly'.
Definitely not just you, it is interesting that it was rolling around in his head for so long before he actually wrote it, maybe that added to it being so good. I don't think he's written anything as great since either, though I have admittedly not read everything by him.
While it very well may be controversial, it *shouldn't* be controversial to love both The Shinings. They're both masterpieces... that don't have thaaaat much to do with each other.
The Stand for sure number 2 if not 1. Regarding his bigger books, there are some dull moments in It, but even for it's incredible size, The Stand keeps your engaged all the way thru. Way easier of a read than It, even if it's bigger. Edit: Also, Randy Flagg > Pennywise
Great list. Sad that Tommyknockers was so far down, I really liked it. I think Tommyknockers and The Stand are my favourites, followed closely by The Long Walk (in The Bachman Books). IT was scary and I never want to read it again. I have yet to read 11/22/63, I guess I should read it now!
Tommyknockers is way underrated. I think it gets a lot of hate unnecessarily. It’s a fantastic King book. I don’t know why people seem to always rank it so low. I’ve read it twice, years apart, and enjoyed it both times. It’s definitely better than people give it credit for.
Hearts in Atlantis and Duma Key ranked ahead of Salem's Lot, Carrie, The Long Walk, and the Dead Zone!?? No. No. No. Nope! You took your info from the WRONG sites and/ or your method to calculate is wrong. Time to start over I think....but nice try! ;)
Stephen King is a contemporary version of Edward George Bulwer-Layton with a word processor. That isn't a bad thing, but most of his work seems less like a storytelling effort and more like an enthusiasm for typing. 🤓
I'm disappointed that The Stand is only number 5. It has always been number 1 for me. "It" is number 2. Salem's Lot probably number 3. I really like 11/22/63 except for who he has being the assassin. Spoiler alert: I am a long time researcher of the assassination and there is no way that Oswald was the lone assassin. He may not have even pulled the trigger at all. Other than that, it is a very good book.
Personally, It doesn't even make my top 20, and it's one of the very few King books that I never finished. The adult part of the story plods relentlessly, and while the kids section is pretty good, the whole thing needed several more passes with a blue pencil. I think you could lose maybe 25% of that book and only make it better in the process. I can't really argue about the rest of the rankings, though. I don't completely agree, but only It seems outrageously out of place to me. I'd rather read just about anything else he wrote, including Roadwork, Cell, and Rage.
Misery has to be my favorite King novel. I always have a hard time finding female villains legitimately intimidating in books, film and tv. Mostly because a lot or writers try to make them act like males, which doesn't work when you're essentially being asked to suspend your disbelief, and just pretend that you find them physically intimidating. But King knows how to write a truly terrifying female antagonist who still comes across like a woman, it's brilliant.
Having read a lot of King’s work I’d have to say The Dark Tower series is his best. I’m sorry the movie was so subpar. You can’t take a huge set of novels and make them into a 90 minute movie successfully.
I've wanted to read "The Stand" for a year or so but was turned off by how long the book itself it, as well as how long the chapters are. I can't stop in the middle of a chapter. I prefer chapters be no more than 12 pages.
I just read the Stand and now almost done 11/22/63. Give the Stand a chance. The character development is amazing and there will be a point where you simply can not put it down.
I never read King, so I was to choose between the Shining and It, cuz they interested me the most. So I ended up choosinh the Shining for some personal reasons: tis a shorter book, there is something about the movie in my childhood, my father likes it and showed me many years ago, and most important: to me, ghosts are far more scary than space clowns. So, thanks for the help! great video!
With all due respect. As someone who has read The dark Tower series multiple times wind through the keyhole, it's fantastic. Song of Susannah is by far the worst.
Wouldn't be my list, not even close. Book of the Shining and the film aren't different, they emphasise different aspects. Most of what's in the film, except the ending, is in the book toward the end.
There is absolutely no question re The Shining. The book mops the floor with the film. No contest whatsoever. There are reasons why King hates that Kubrick version.
@@crosscompiler That was Desperation for me. Started out great, but the ending was a mess IMO. Stephen King is a real hit or miss author for me, but his misses are usually due to the way he ends the story, especially in his books that are more supernatural in nature.
Thinner I thought would finish higher, although the ending blew. Terrific list [and METHOD!]. The Shining, Misery and It are definitely on my To-Read list. Thanks DTB!
Interesting. Not cool to complain about rankings, but Roadwork at the bottom? I love it. I'd definitely put it in my top 10 though. I remember having a really hard time putting it down because of how engaged I was with it. I had zero desire to read it, and only did so because I wanted to read all his Bachman books. Now, The Long Walk I thought was an absolute snoozefest. I'm not sure why people seem to love it so much. Cool idea, but most Stephen King books have cool ideas. Pet Semetary is hands down the scariest book he's written. That first trip to the burial ground is probably the scariest passages King's ever written - in my opinion. And one last thing - The Body from Different Seasons has the best first paragraph ever written for a King story. It's beautiful, and I've had it memorized for years.
I got into King when I was eleven. I started with 'Salem's Lot when I was eleven, back around 1984. Then I went on to The Shining, Carrie, Night Shift, The Stand, so on and so forth. I remember getting a brand-new hardcover copy of IT for my thirteenth birthday. I was ecstatic. I dived right into it. I thought it was one of his best, easily comparable to his biggest novel at the time, The Stand. But I remember how many readers were disappointed about it and thought Pennywise was a stupid character. Then there were the Bachman Books. I read them all, most in an omnibus edition with the exception of Thinner. The Running Man was my favorite of the bunch.
Oh blah, blah, blah, blah, blah! No offence, but enough with the blithering small-talk at the start. You're not alone in this fault. (LOL) Thanks for sharing with us.
I'm slowly making my way through his bibliography (still about 30 to go) and my tastes generally line up with this list! Excited to get to Duma Key and 11/22/63 (the two top tens I haven't gotten to yet).
It and 11/22/63 are my top 2 I’ve read all his books. He has so many incredible books but those two are absolute perfection imo. I read them every Oct and Nov
I loved It, haven’t read 11/22/63 yet though, I think I need to bc everyone loves it!
Personally can’t put a book above wizard and glass just absolutely fabulous
@@DrawntoBooks11/22/63 has everything an avid reader would want. Intrigue, suspense, conspiracy theory, time travel, romance, karma/revenge, nostalgia about the past, heroic sacrifice, etc. I’ve read the book twice (and it IS a door-stopper in length) and seen the TV series twice. Definitely in my top 5 SK books of all time.
@@DrawntoBookshere’s and idea: do a top 10 list of the scariest I-can’t-read-with-the-lights-off King books.
IT and The Shining would be my personal top 2.
11/23/63 and the Stand are very overrated@@DrawntoBooks
Stephen King's memoir "On Writing" is a must read for writers. Isn't it ironic that one of the greatest horror writers almost died in a grewsome way? Also, the fact that arguably the greatest writer of our time almost die before this book was complete gives it more of a reason to read it as he does talk about the experience briefly in the book.
If you loved The Green Mile movie, you do yourself a disservice by not reading the amazing book. I read it as it was written and released, one part every six weeks and each "chapter" available at places like Target and the grocery store. It was wonderful to read it that way...and then to read it again in its entirety. I really hope you read it. You will hear the actors as you do. I bet you'll agree that they were perfectly cast.
That movie hit me so deep. I haven’t seen it since it came out and I still think about it. So I know I would love the book, I just haven’t been able to bring myself to read it yet. That sounds like such a cool way to read it too!
I read it the same way, except by checking out each chapbook from the library. It really was a fun experience.
If you read
The book, you will get more
Appreciation for the great movie adaption whole at the same time realize how much better ( of course ) the story in the book is as a whole. It’s just perfection. And the book brings you much more feeling and emotional aspects the movie comes short due to time limitation.
Listen to the audiobooks for the green mile. Frank Muller is the greatest reader of Stephen King books.
Also another fact, king also has said that misery is also a metaphor for his cocaine addiction.
Very interesting. I can see it now!
Good job, and thanks for the spreadsheet. Having browsed many rankings I am not surprised about Duma Key, but I am shocked Salem's Lot (many #1s) is lower than the similar Needful Things.
What a nice surprise to see Duma Key in the Top 10! I personally loved it, but I didn't know so many other people loved it as much as I did. Of course, I was also thrilled to see 11/22/63 near the top, but I wasn't as surprised about that one. Thanks for working so hard to come up with a comprehensive list!
I need to read Duma Key, it sounds so good!
@@DrawntoBooks It's pretty amazing, even for Stephen King.
This is an incredible video! I thought this would have been done by a page with thousands of subs. Keep up the incredible work, you are awesome!
Wow, that's so nice, thank you very much, that means a lot to me!
Wow, this channel is incredibly underrated! Subscribed ❤
Thank you so much!! 🫶
Now the question is: Did you look for a total of 19 lists on purpose? Constant readers of Stephen King will know what I’m talking about. Long days and pleasant nights to you ma’am😁
Oh my gosh! I wish I could say I did that on purpose but I didn’t even realize 😅 That’s awesome.
Love the list and the formula you used to produce it. Would love a copy of your spreadsheet if you’re willing to share. Did you get around to reading Duma Key? I just listened to it for the second time a few days ago. Funny, terrifying, gutting. Really can’t go wrong.
I haven’t yet, I like to read a King book every October so maybe this year! the spreadsheet is linked in the description, but I’ll link it here too, enjoy :)
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hUwls-rBCPVWIwLRqRBPv5XKhhUirh8db3YMi9treXU/edit?usp=sharing
I’ve never finished a Stephen King book (I have a habit of flitting between books and I put down 11/22/63 and forgot to pick it backup) but now I know where to try again. I just found your videos and they are so good, high quality production, interesting and fun. Looking forward to the next one.
Thank you so much! I do the same, I end up being in the middle of 15 books sometimes 🙈
This list comes handy because I recently decided to read and re-read King's books. As a teen a started reading his works but stopped because I found the endings of his (back than) "newer" books "The Dark Half", "The Tommyknockers" and "Needul Things" as well as "The Stand" (back then the "short" version) after reading hundreds of pages disappointing. But re-reading "It" and reading "'Salem's Lot" the first time got me hooked again.
Yeah I was so surprised at how many people don’t like The Stand! Everyone loves Misery though, I think I might have to try that one. And Pet Sematary, but I dunno if I can stomach that one!
@@DrawntoBooks I can recommend "Misery" as well as "Pet Sematary". If you have seen the first movie version of "Pet Seminary" you might be prepared for what to expect. I find the ending of "Cujo" much sadder though. Regarding "The Stand": The part when the acopolypse happens is really great. Then the story drags ans drags and drags... ;-)
@@chriswald7700 I agree 100% about The Stand! I absolutely love the beginning part of that book, but then when they get to Boulder, ugh.
What the hell this is some of the greatest content I’ve seen created on here thank you so much for this thing 😭😭😭
Thank you so much! 🫶
Duma key is criminally undderated
I have to say Salem's Lot and The Stand (uncut edition) are my two favorite King novels. I have many other King novels stories lovingly stored in my heart for the experience they gave me reading them over the years. I love how layered King's stories are. 🙂❤📚
Agree
11/22/63 was my first Stephen King book this year and I loved it
The Stand is probably one of my favourite books oat and I was baffled when it showed up at #5… but after reading some opinions I can see why the latter half would kinda put people off.
Still, it holds a place for me
It’s one of my favorite King books that I’ve read, but I do agree that the first half is much stronger
My next pro move, start reading at #79 and work my way up the list so every book gets better, tysm for the docs sheet!
Stephen King's books are quite diverse by now, so the best approach to reading them is probably to go for whichever appeals to you when you read the blurb rather than anything else. And going through all the short story and novella collections makes sense since there is bound to be some amazing stuff in there regardless of how the collection as a whole is ranked.
That said, I did recently bump up The Stand on my reading list after it kept popping up in the top two of most lists I've come across accidentally. The concept was fascinating to me, and it was definitely worth the 1200 pages and however many hours that took. Stephen King has an amazing knack for making characters immediately interesting, three-dimensional and believable, and you want to know what happens to them, the good and the bad alike.
It, on the other hand, doesn't really appeal to me for some reason, but I'll probably get to it some day. I've got another 20 or so Stephen King books I'd want to read first.
Congrats on how hard your last video popped. I subscribed and are only encourage you to keep doing what you are doing. 🎉
Thank you so much, I appreciate the encouragement!
Enter #4,782 of the "I read all the Stephen King Books..." podcast series.
If the people who make these are "creators", then I'm Taylor Swift.
Try actual creation, not commentary. Deconstruction is not an act of construction. It's cultural parasitism.
Love most of his books. Could not make it past the first third of The Stand. Everyone loves it so I must be missing something. Also couldn't read Lisey's Story. 11/22/63 is one of my favorite books of any author. Duma Key would have been great if he'd ended it 200 pages sooner. The Green Mile, Shawshank Redemption... are masterpieces. As are Fairy Tale and Holly and IT.
IT is also the only I read. not great, but neat read. mostly for the story, not how it is written. and they should really have edited out that one part, you know which.
plus, funny when ur most succesful one is when u were high as a kite.
No, I'm definitely not someone who started comparing Stephen King novel ranking lists in a spreadsheet just to get a list that's as close to general opinion as possible, and someone who came here because they thought you're also going to do a ranking of your own opinion, and someone who is now utterly surprised by the fact that this idea could ever cross a sane person's mind. No, I'm definitely not. (You won't stop me though, I started this sheet yesterday, and I'll keep on.)
Hahaha this is hilarious! Honestly, I wouldn’t trust me anyways 😂
I need to see your list too LOL
@@Creshaw
Alright, here it is with a few details: so far, I have only 21 opinions - none of them are critics, only fans, but not all were anglophones - but I'll update the list when I find others. Only TH-cam rankings included, with at least 25 rankable entries, and only if it contains all books the ranker has read. All 75 novels and short story collections published before Holly are included. The algorithm I used is the following: in a list, I'll write the corresponding rank for each book - if it isn't ranked, it gets a zero. After that, each books gets a score which is (rankNumber)/(sum of rank numbers on the list). (E.g. if a book is ranked 23. in a ranking of 31 books it gets a score of 23/(1+2+...+31).) The final ranking is based on the average of the scores. IDK why I came up with all that, but with all that said, here's the final ranking:
75. Roadwork
74. Elevation
73. Rage
72. Cell
71. Gwendy's Button Box
70. The Colorado Kid
69. The Running Man
68. The Regulators
67. Blaze
66. Cycle of the Werewolf
65. From a Buick 8
64. Sleeping Beauties
63. Thinner
62. Insomnia
61. The Gunslinger
60. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
59. Later
58. Nightmares & Dreamscapes
57. End of Watch
56. The Tommyknockers
55. The Bazaar of Bad Dreams
54. Rose Madder
53. Dreamcatcher
52. The Outsider
51. Bag of Bones
50. Joyland
49. The Black House
48. The Wind Through the Keyhole
47. The Song of Susannah
46. The Talisman
45. The Eyes of the Dragon
44. The Wolves of Calla
43. If It Bleeds
42. Four Past Midnight
41. Gwendy's Final Task
40. The Dark Half
39. The Institute
38. Lisey's Story
37. Mr. Mercedes
36. Gerald's Game
35. Fairy Tale
34. Carrie
33. Doctor Sleep
32. Everything's Eventual
31. Revival
30. Cujo
29. The Waste Lands
28. Finders Keepers
27. Wizard and Glass
26. Under the Dome
25. Firestarter
24. Skeleton Crew
23. Dolores Claiborne
22. Hearts in Atlantis
21. Billy Summers
20. Desperation
19. Full Dark, No Stars
18. The Dead Zone
17. Night Shift
16. Just After Sunset
15. The Dark Tower
14. Different Seasons
13. Salem's Lot
12. Duma Key
11. Christine
10. The Drawing of the Three
9. The Long Walk
8. Pet Sematary
7. The Stand
6. Needful Things
5. The Green Mile
4. The Shining
3. Misery
2. 11/22/63
1. It
(Sources: Jimmy Mango, Brian Lee Durfee, otherworldsthanthese, The Bookish Drummer, Dave Reads King, One Eye on the Page, Pretty in Papercuts, Matt HNR, NervithReviews, Jo Fisher, GetFramed, Pick Your Pop Culture Poison, FrogLit, The Love of Reading, The Horror Show Channel, thelocolibrarian, TheDylanCorner, Happy Goat Horror, CriminOlly, Katzenkönig, Dom Laurion)
@@kristofbarta8712 Thank you!
hard to believe wizard and glass is so low. its easily one of my favourite stephen king books.
also gosh i hate pet semetary. maybe when it was released it was original but it seemed so cliched. but i know people like it.
and im shocked at 11.22.63 being higher than the stand and the shining. The different colour thing when he came back was good, and i liked the world
but the amount of random hatred oswald gets, it felt you needed to be alive when jfk was shot to feel that with the main character. but the love story in it was pretty good.
I think 11.22.63 is so high because it's not a horror novel, so I think people who don't love dark horror really loved this one. I want to read The Dark Tower series! someday. :)
Thanks, I hate it. I disagree with most of this list. Rage was an incredible short story. Roadwork was good, too. The Tommyknockers was trash and it should have been at the bottom with Cell... Sleeping Beauties shouldn't even be considered for this list... Rose Madder, not as high as it was ranked, The Gunslinger ranked below The Institute? Madness. Yeah, the world is askew and so are you.
Great video and channel - subscribed! :)
Thank you so much!
P.S. King is actually my favorite author. My summer project was to re-read The Dark Tower series. I originally read them as they were published and had never read them with one immediately following the other. It is a MUCH better story read as one...at least, in my opinion.
Oh...and I've read The Stand at least a dozen times. (The short version 4 times and the long version 8.) I guess you could say it's my favorite book.
Wow, 12 times?! That is so impressive. I rarely reread, but I’m starting to really enjoy returning to old favorites recently.
Dume key is great !!
This was awesome, thanks!
Yay, glad you like it! 😁
I love you ❤😂
Four of my favorites made the Top 10: Pet Semetery , which is clever and fantastic; Misery, The Shining, and The Green Mile (you should read it). I didn't like It. Maybe I should give it another go.
Personally, Wizard and Glass is my top Dark Tower book, Drawing of the Three is 2nd. Wastelands seems so incomplete.
Thank you for that video! Currently reading Salem's Lot. I loved The Stand and thought Carrie was decent.
I remember when 11/22/63 came out that I felt it was his best work in years. I find it interesting to see that it is so high in the overall list which shows that it wasn't just me that liked it. I've read (just about) everything by king and next up for me is 'Holly'.
Definitely not just you, it is interesting that it was rolling around in his head for so long before he actually wrote it, maybe that added to it being so good. I don't think he's written anything as great since either, though I have admittedly not read everything by him.
Holy moly, a youtube ranking video that isn't 1 hour and 20 minutes long? A miracle!
Well, you’re just great, aren’t ya? Thanks so much for the video, and the list.
The Dreamcatcher got killed by that awful film. Not a top book but very underrated.
Great video! I think The Stand is probably my favourite.
You just did a hell of a lot of sentiment analysis on Stephen King reviews, just for a short TH-cam video? Nice.
Leave it to me to go a little overboard 🙈
I tried to read some of Stephen kings novels but they all seem extremely slow and I end up loosing interest
lots of fun-keep going
Thank you so much!
Don't skip The Green Mile, so good the book is so much better than the movie
While it very well may be controversial, it *shouldn't* be controversial to love both The Shinings. They're both masterpieces... that don't have thaaaat much to do with each other.
I agree, I think they’re both great, they just can’t be thought of as the same work.
Great video!!!!
The Stand for sure number 2 if not 1. Regarding his bigger books, there are some dull moments in It, but even for it's incredible size, The Stand keeps your engaged all the way thru. Way easier of a read than It, even if it's bigger. Edit: Also, Randy Flagg > Pennywise
The first half of The Stand is brilliant. The second half fell apart a little for me, but I think I agree with you about Flagg!
@@DrawntoBooks First half of the Stand is better I agree. I would say the same goes for It.
I hate all of this list except #1. How tf is Fairy Tale that low?
Where is FAIRY TALE?!? 😭
Blown away by how much work must have gone into this. And it helps me push my 11/22/63 agenda!
19 sources. I see what you did there
Great list. Sad that Tommyknockers was so far down, I really liked it. I think Tommyknockers and The Stand are my favourites, followed closely by The Long Walk (in The Bachman Books). IT was scary and I never want to read it again. I have yet to read 11/22/63, I guess I should read it now!
Tommyknockers was so cool! Gard really went out with a bang!
Tommyknockers is way underrated. I think it gets a lot of hate unnecessarily. It’s a fantastic King book. I don’t know why people seem to always rank it so low. I’ve read it twice, years apart, and enjoyed it both times. It’s definitely better than people give it credit for.
Great list, 22/11/63 is my favourite, and the Gunslinger my least favourite
Hearts in Atlantis and Duma Key ranked ahead of Salem's Lot, Carrie, The Long Walk, and the Dead Zone!?? No. No. No. Nope! You took your info from the WRONG sites and/ or your method to calculate is wrong. Time to start over I think....but nice try! ;)
Stephen King is a contemporary version of Edward George Bulwer-Layton with a word processor. That isn't a bad thing, but most of his work seems less like a storytelling effort and more like an enthusiasm for typing. 🤓
I'm disappointed that The Stand is only number 5. It has always been number 1 for me. "It" is number 2. Salem's Lot probably number 3. I really like 11/22/63 except for who he has being the assassin. Spoiler alert: I am a long time researcher of the assassination and there is no way that Oswald was the lone assassin. He may not have even pulled the trigger at all. Other than that, it is a very good book.
Personally, It doesn't even make my top 20, and it's one of the very few King books that I never finished. The adult part of the story plods relentlessly, and while the kids section is pretty good, the whole thing needed several more passes with a blue pencil. I think you could lose maybe 25% of that book and only make it better in the process.
I can't really argue about the rest of the rankings, though. I don't completely agree, but only It seems outrageously out of place to me. I'd rather read just about anything else he wrote, including Roadwork, Cell, and Rage.
THE INSTITUTE DESERVES MOREEE
Misery has to be my favorite King novel. I always have a hard time finding female villains legitimately intimidating in books, film and tv. Mostly because a lot or writers try to make them act like males, which doesn't work when you're essentially being asked to suspend your disbelief, and just pretend that you find them physically intimidating. But King knows how to write a truly terrifying female antagonist who still comes across like a woman, it's brilliant.
Having read a lot of King’s work I’d have to say The Dark Tower series is his best. I’m sorry the movie was so subpar. You can’t take a huge set of novels and make them into a 90 minute movie successfully.
I've wanted to read "The Stand" for a year or so but was turned off by how long the book itself it, as well as how long the chapters are. I can't stop in the middle of a chapter. I prefer chapters be no more than 12 pages.
Pacing matters so much! The first half of The Stand is awesome though :)
I just read the Stand and now almost done 11/22/63. Give the Stand a chance. The character development is amazing and there will be a point where you simply can not put it down.
I never read King, so I was to choose between the Shining and It, cuz they interested me the most. So I ended up choosinh the Shining for some personal reasons: tis a shorter book, there is something about the movie in my childhood, my father likes it and showed me many years ago, and most important: to me, ghosts are far more scary than space clowns. So, thanks for the help! great video!
With all due respect. As someone who has read The dark Tower series multiple times wind through the keyhole, it's fantastic. Song of Susannah is by far the worst.
🌑 Dark Tower 🗼 Series1!
Wouldn't be my list, not even close. Book of the Shining and the film aren't different, they emphasise different aspects. Most of what's in the film, except the ending, is in the book toward the end.
There is absolutely no question re The Shining. The book mops the floor with the film. No contest whatsoever.
There are reasons why King hates that Kubrick version.
I don't understand why everyone hates Tommyknockers. Although it is drawn out at times, there's a great story in there. It's one of my favorites
What a well-produced, well written, and insanely solid master class in facilitation. Loved this!
Extended 📚 BTR ⚒️
It wasn't, sadly, the last one I needed. I created my own. That was the last one I needed. Thank you for your time and energy.
I hate 11/22/63
💕 👀 🐉 🕯️ More 😢
IT 🚫#1Stand ☝️
But what about underrated novels.......🙃
Misery is my all time favorite, one of the only books to scare me to my core
drawing of the three is my least favorite in the series so far 😭
the stand as #5 is frankly stoopid
Haha, you think it should be higher? Lots of people don’t like it! I kinda agree…the first part is incredible, the back half…meh.
The Stand (1989) and its long, painful trudge towards an "ending" is what finally weaned me off Stephen King forever
@@crosscompiler That was Desperation for me. Started out great, but the ending was a mess IMO. Stephen King is a real hit or miss author for me, but his misses are usually due to the way he ends the story, especially in his books that are more supernatural in nature.
Thinner I thought would finish higher, although the ending blew. Terrific list [and METHOD!]. The Shining, Misery and It are definitely on my To-Read list. Thanks DTB!
The Shining is a great one, probably my favorite Stephen King!
Drawing of the three is mine. Book hit different for me
Amazing editing
$ Extended STAND & ✔️ out 👄"U gonna Read THAT?""NO; 👁️ m using it 4 a 🚪 🛑🤨
Interesting. Not cool to complain about rankings, but Roadwork at the bottom? I love it. I'd definitely put it in my top 10 though. I remember having a really hard time putting it down because of how engaged I was with it. I had zero desire to read it, and only did so because I wanted to read all his Bachman books. Now, The Long Walk I thought was an absolute snoozefest. I'm not sure why people seem to love it so much. Cool idea, but most Stephen King books have cool ideas. Pet Semetary is hands down the scariest book he's written. That first trip to the burial ground is probably the scariest passages King's ever written - in my opinion. And one last thing - The Body from Different Seasons has the best first paragraph ever written for a King story. It's beautiful, and I've had it memorized for years.
Wow! You are so cute ❤
Great video. Keep it coming
Im really surprised The girl who loved Tom Gordon got as high as it did.
I was too! It seems to have a sort of cult following for some reason.
I got into King when I was eleven. I started with 'Salem's Lot when I was eleven, back around 1984. Then I went on to The Shining, Carrie, Night Shift, The Stand, so on and so forth. I remember getting a brand-new hardcover copy of IT for my thirteenth birthday. I was ecstatic. I dived right into it. I thought it was one of his best, easily comparable to his biggest novel at the time, The Stand. But I remember how many readers were disappointed about it and thought Pennywise was a stupid character. Then there were the Bachman Books. I read them all, most in an omnibus edition with the exception of Thinner. The Running Man was my favorite of the bunch.
I've read the entire Bill Hodges triology and not once is he referred to as "Billy." Do you know what you're talking about?
Pet Cemetery is not depressing, it's a haunting book about grief, and is one of his very best. It's clear you are not well versed in reviewing books.
Oh blah, blah, blah, blah, blah! No offence, but enough with the blithering small-talk at the start. You're not alone in this fault. (LOL) Thanks for sharing with us.
I'm slowly making my way through his bibliography (still about 30 to go) and my tastes generally line up with this list! Excited to get to Duma Key and 11/22/63 (the two top tens I haven't gotten to yet).
Excellent list .. thank you madam
Thank you!