Ocean City Free Public Library Book Blog

I waited until after I finished reading Under the Dome (almost 1,100 pages in less than a week!) to read anything about it. This review from Aol.com pretty much falls into line with my opinion: By now with Stephen King, it's easy to think this is all kind of ridiculous. An invisible dome descending upon a small town in Maine? People trapped inside, trying to figure out what on Earth is going on and — as always in a Stephen King story — dying in droves? Good Lord. Is the King of Really Heavy Books — the author who is a one-man argument for the hernia-preventing benefits of e-books — running out of viable plot devices? This is, after all, the guy who wrote entire volumes about cell phones turning fellow citizens into ravenous zombies, about possessed and murderous 1958 Plymouths and about evil, immortal clowns who live in the sewers and prey upon children. Really, now. How much gimmickry can one writer expect us to stomach? Those statements are all completely fair and true. Trouble ...

The literary horror machine that is Stephen King is back again. This time, King has cranked out about a dozen short stories guaranteed to make you feel anxious and slightly at ease. What's always so great about King is that some of his creepiest works don't necessarily have to involve the supernatural - human nature alone can be just as terrifying, shocking or just plain disturbing. Whether it's the threat of paranormal activities like in "The Things They Left Behind," where a man who was lucky enough to be spared on 9/11 must confront all the "ghosts" of his former coworkers or in "A Very Tight Place," whereKing takes something as common as a port-a-potty and turns it into a potential death chamber, in the end, you'll feel just a little out of sorts. Though some may argue that Sunset really isn't anything new, considering that the bulk of the stories have appeared in various magazines, it's still definitely worth a read.

Stephen King is BACK!!!! with his latest "Duma Key". I used to be a big fan but his most recent efforts(before the accident) were disappointing after his early books ....see "The Stand, IT, Dead Zone"....great reads! I wasn't a big fan of the Tower series, although many were, so I opened "Duma Key" with some reservations, especially viewing the sheer weight of the thing. Anyway, once I got stuck in I couldn't put it down....right back to his early "good stuff". It combines the usual creepiness, way out there special effects with a very warm humanity. No doubt King's own travails had much to do with casting his main character as a man who survives a shattering accident, long painful rehabilitation and the finding of a second life painting strange and disturbing pictures, very far removed from his first career as a builder and developer. The story is set on the West Coast of Florida, an area that I'm somewhat familiar with so it wa...