The Best Stephen King Books of All Time That Prove He's the Master of Horror
15. Needful Things (1991)
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Okay, so this isn't the most highly-regarded novel King's ever written, but maybe it's time that the final major work set in the fictional town of Castle Rock got a critical reassessment. Needful Things tells the story of a new shop that opens in the sleepy burg and which sells customers their hearts' desires, for a very steep price. King is masterful at weaving together diverse storylines from one community, and that skill is more than on display here. And while the source of the horrors in his stories can often lean toward the vague (a nebulously haunted house, an evil car, a cursed burial ground) shopkeeper Leland Gaunt is definitely among King's top-five villains—and he's definitely not number five.
14. The Institute (2019)
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King's now in his seventies, but he's still at his best when writing about kids. Sure, some of the pop culture references can feel a bit like they're shoehorned in to prove that he's still down with the young folks, but he continues to nail the essential curiosity, insecurity, and optimism of childhood. In this novel, the titular Institute is a black site that houses and experiments on psychic children—kids who have a bit of the shining, you might say. It's one of King's best works in years.
13. Christine (1983)
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This one's another criminally underrated King work, thanks to the fact that its premise can be summarized as the deeply hokey-sounding "evil car book." But Christine is so much more than that. In Arnie Cunningham, the pitiably bullied teen who becomes enraptured by the titular 1958 Plymouth Fury, King created a victim-villain who's right up there with Carrie White and Jack Torrance. And while yes, the central malefactor is an autonomous automobile, Christine also serves as a symbol for all the anxieties that young men can imbue in their ride of choice.
12. Pet Sematary (1983)
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This book doesn't have a particularly involved plot or fleshed out characters—but it does have scares. Pet Sematary follows the Creed family, newcomers to rural Maine, as they discover the mysteries of an ancient burial ground long used as a resting place for local children's departed animal friends. But the pets don't tend to rest there for too long, and it turns out that the sematary in question works on more than just critters. As King memorably pointed out, "sometimes dead is better."
11. Night Shift
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Some of King's best works are his short fiction, but list making is a bloodsport, and if you can only read one of his many hefty short story collections, it should be this one. Among the highlights: "Jerusalem's Lot," an excellent homage the work of H.P. Lovecraft that also serves as a prequel to King's novel 'Salem's Lot, "Graveyard Shift," which finds workers at a textile mill squaring off against an increasingly horrifying series of mutant rats, and "The Last Wrung on the Ladder," an earnestly heartrending tale of quiet family turmoil that has no supernatural elements at all.
10. Dolores Claiborne (1992)
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This one might not be every King fan's cup of tea—the novel takes the form of a 300-page monologue delivered by its title character without a single chapter break, and features only smatterings of the supernatural. It's a portrait of Dolores, an elderly, working-class Mainer who's accused of killing her even more elderly employer. Along the way, we learn of how she survived an abusive marriage and the indignities of her working life. King's early classics were filled with far too many prettily passive and essentially interchangeable heroines like Frannie Goldsmith, Susan Norton, and Sue Snell, so Dolores Claiborne is a fantastic reset.
9. Misery (1987)
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If we're talking about Stephen King's best-ever female characters, the name Annie Wilkes is definitely going to come up. Misery is the tale of writer Paul Sheldon (one of the many King stand-ins that populate his works) who has the misfortune of meeting Wilkes, his biggest fan. She holds him hostage, and forces him to write his books just to her liking. Film adaptations of King's works can be spotty, but the cinematic version starring Kathy Bates is just as classic as the novel that inspired it.
8. 'Salem's Lot (1975)
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There's nothing better than a sprawling King novel about a town taken over by an unholy terror, and 'Salem's Lot is the author's first. In this case, the monster is an ancient vampire who decides to slowly turn the inhabitants of the town of Jerusalem's Lot into his army of the undead. Truly scary and perfectly plotted, the only reason this story doesn't rank any higher is the fact that so many of the main characters have become rather tired King stock figures—the troubled writer, the good doctor, the spunky yet entirely unthreatening ingenue, the sensitive teenage boy.
7. The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three
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King is best known as a horror writer, a designation that does a disservice to the fantastic work he's produced in other genres. He's written memoirs, stories free of supernatural elements or big scares, and fantasy—most notably, his Dark Tower series, which chronicles gunslinger Roland Deschain's battle against his archenemy, recurring King villain Randall Flagg. Start with book one, but The Drawing of the Three is the series' standout.
6. Carrie (1974)
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With his debut novel, King painted an immortal picture of the horrors of high school and created an unforgettable victim-villain in poor, terrifying Carrie White. Like most early-career writers, King was still working out some of the kinks, which in this case made for some occasionally clunky styling and an over reliance on his signature parenthetical asides. Still, a classic's a classic.
5. Different Seasons (1984)
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Two of the novellas in this collection have been adapted into some of the best-ever films based on King's work: The Shawshank Redemption and Stand By Me. But the novellas are each wonderful in their own right, with "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption" standing as perhaps the most inspiring thing King's ever written, and "The Body" as his best depiction of childhood. There's also the truly chilling "Apt Pupil," and the only supernatural story in the collection, the slight but sweet "The Breathing Method."
4. On Writing: A Memoir Of The Craft (2000)
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If you're one of the (thankfully shrinking) number who've made the mistake of sniffing at King's work as genre fare, this perfectly executed memoir is for you. Not only is it filled with musings from an expert craftsman that will be indispensable to any writer, but it's also packed with remembrances of his own works that will delight any King fan. If you want to learn about the real-life high school girls who inspired Carrie White, or the dream that birthed Misery, look no further. Most moving of all, this memoir also contains King's recounting of the 1999 car accident that nearly killed him. True to form, he was writing again just five weeks later.
3. The Shining (1977)
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The Shining is one of the best haunted house novels ever, and birthed some of the most widely-known horror imagery, from the ominous Overlook Hotel to the bathing woman who haunts Room 217. It's also a portrait of an itself-terrifying descent into madness. Oh, and while King may not be a fan of Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation, that's pretty incredible as well.
2. The Stand (1978)
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King's tale of the battle between two post-Apocalyptic societies comprising the survivors of a near-humanity distinguishing viral pandemic is epic, truly scary, and currently feels timely as hell. Nearly every subsequent piece of plague media owes this work a staggering debt, and the only things keeping it from the number one spot on this list are the fact that the now-most commonly seen version of the work, the 1990 unabridged reissue, is at more than 1000 pages, slightly bloated, and that, for every character as memorable as the evil Randall Flagg or the proto-"Nice Guy" Harold Lauder, stock figures like Stu Redman and Frannie Goldsmith, or the Magical Negro Mother Abigail.
1. It (1986)
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Yes, I did just call The Stand bloated before naming It, another thousand-page wonder, number one. But despite the depth and density of this doorstop novel, there's almost no fat to be found—just pages and pages of some of the most frightening stories ever told. This book has it all: tales of children and adults, of domestic terrors and supernatural horror, and King's most unforgettable villain, Pennywise the Dancing Clown. The book also possess a one of King's biggest literary misfires, by way of a now-infamous underage orgy near the end of the story. But even so, It is the best of the best. Is there any single sequence that's more scary, heartbreaking, and perfectly staged than the death of little George Denbrough, who, with his paper boat and yellow raincoat, has the misfortune to meet an ancient evil in a storm drain? Nope, there isn't.
Yes, the movie adaptations are scary, but there's nothing more terrifying than King's words.