Stephen King 2026 Reading Challenge

I always enjoyed reading Stephen King.

I get swept along by the quality of his writing and wrapped up in the flawed, very human characters he creates.

And yet me TBR pile is peppered with unread Stephen King books.

Mostly, this is because many of the books are so long that I hesitate to start them, even though I know that once I do, the pages flash by and I find myself making extra time in my day to read a little more.

So I’ve deiced that in 2026 I will take twelve Stephen King books off my TBR pile.

I’ve selected books that date from 1975 to 2019. All of them are new to me, although I’ve seen screen adaptations of four of them. One is a novella. One is a collection of short stories. The rest are novels, some of them very long novels.

I’m going to read them in the order that they were published. Given their length, I’m not going to try for one a month. I’m simply going to start the next King book as soon as I finish its predecessor.

Here are the books I’ve picked.

‘Salem’s Lot (1975) was Stephen King’s second novel. I’ve never read it or seen any of the screen adaptations so I get to come at it fresh and see what Stephen King’s writing was like fifty years ago.

Firestarter (1980) was Stephen King’s first speculative fiction novel, a genre in which I think he excels. I saw the the movie adaptaion starring a very young Drew Barrymore when it came out in 1984, but I haven’t watched the 2022 adaptation starring Ryan Kiera Armstrong but I may get to it once I’ve read the book.

Pet Sematary (1983) is a book that Stephen King thinks is one of his scariest. I’ve only seen the 1989 movie. I wasn’t impressed, so I guess the book has to be better. I was puzzled by the speilling of Sematary in the title so I looked it up and an explanation that I enjoyed HERE.

Rose Madder (1995) is a thriller with a gender wars subtext.

Desperation (1996) is another thriller, this time set in a spooky small town, not in King’s usual Maine milieu but in the Nevada desert. I’m looking forward to seeing how well Stephen King conjures that environment.

Cell (2006) is the first twenty-first century book on my list and King uses it to turn a ubiquitous piece of technology into an exitenstial threat. I’m looking forward to this one

Lisey’s Story (2006) is a psychological thriller about a writer’s wife. It was made into a mini-series starring Julianne Moore in 2021 which hasn’t been released on DVD yet. I’m hoping Apple will get over their aversion for a technology that they didn’t invent and can’t impose a 30% margin on.

Duma Key 2008 won the 2008 Bram Stoker Award for best novel. The woo woo factor may be too high for me in this novel but I’m hoping for the best.

Full Dark, No Stars (2010) is a collection of five short stories. I always enjoy King’s short fiction.

I set Mr Mercedes to one side becuase I found it upsetting, so I didn’t read the trilogy. Then I saw the 2020 miniseries version of ‘The Outsider’ and was hooked. I read the following Holly books and stories, Now I want to go back to the 2018 novel.

Elevation 2018 is the only novella on my list. I’m hoping to read this around Thanksgiving.

The Institute (2019) finishes my list with another speculative fiction novel. It was turned into a TV series in 2025.

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