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By Stephen King

Short Story Collections

Showing 21 of 21 books in this series
Cover for Night Shift
ISBN: 307743640

#1 BESTSELLER • A collection of bone-chilling, nail-biting tales from the undisputed master of horror that showcases the darkest depths of his brilliant imagination and will "chill the cockles of many a heart" ( Chicago Tribune ).• INCLUDES THE STORY “THE BOOGEYMAN” – NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE FROM 20th CENTURY STUDIOS Originally published in 1978, Night Shift is the inspiration for over a dozen acclaimed horror movies and television series, including Children of the Corn , Chapelwaite , and Lawnmower Man. Night Shift is Stephen King's first collection of short stories--a perfect showcase of just how far King's dark imagination can go. Here we see mutated rats gone bad ("Graveyard Shift"); a cataclysmic virus that threatens humanity ("Night Surf," the basis for The Stand ); a possessed, evil lawnmower ("The Lawnmower Man"); unsettling children from the heartland ("Children of the Corn"); a smoker who will try anything to stop ("Quitters, Inc."); a reclusive alcoholic who begins a gruesome transformation ("Gray Matter"); and many more. This is Stephen King at his horrifying best.

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Cover for Different Seasons
ISBN: 1501156764

A “hypnotic” ( The New York Times Book Review ) collection of four novellas—including the inspirations behind the films Stand By Me and The Shawshank Redemption —from Stephen King, bound together by the changing of seasons, each taking on the theme of a journey with strikingly different tones and characters. This gripping collection begins with “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption,” in which an unjustly imprisoned convict seeks a strange and startling revenge—the basis for the Best Picture Academy Award-nominee The Shawshank Redemption . Next is “Apt Pupil,” the inspiration for the film of the same name about top high school student Todd Bowden and his obsession with the dark and deadly past of an older man in town. In “The Body,” four rambunctious young boys plunge through the façade of a small town and come face-to-face with life, death, and intimations of their own mortality. This novella became the movie Stand By Me . Finally, a disgraced woman is determined to triumph over death in “The Breathing Method.” “The wondrous readability of his work, as well as the instant sense of communication with his characters, are what make Stephen King the consummate storyteller that he is,” hailed the Houston Chronicle about Different Seasons.

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Cover for Skeleton Crew
ISBN: 871883287

Fiction. A collection of Stephen King's imaginative stories of terror.

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Cover for Four Past Midnight
ISBN: 1501143492

The #1 New York Times bestseller from master storyteller Stephen King—four chilling novellas that will “grab you and not let go” ( The Washington Post ). ONE PAST MIDNIGHT: The Langoliers takes a red-eye flight from Los Angeles to Boston into a most unfriendly sky. Only eleven passengers survive, but landing in an eerily empty world makes them wish they hadn’t. TWO PAST MIDNIGHT: Secret Window, Secret Garden enters the suddenly strange life of writer Mort Rainey, recently divorced, depressed, and alone on the shore of Tashmore Lake—until the mysterious John Shooter arrives, pointing an accusing finger. THREE PAST MIDNIGHT: The Library Policeman has his terrifying sights set on businessman Sam Peebles, who thinks he may be losing his mind. But another enemy lurks as well—the truth—and if Sam can find it in time, he might stand a chance. FOUR PAST MIDNIGHT: The Sun Dog comes in the form of a looming supernatural menace, appearing in every picture that young Kevin Delevan takes with his new camera. Pop Merrill, Castle Rock’s sharpest trader, aims to exploit it for profit—but this creature is a very dangerous investment.

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Cover for Nightmares and Dreamscapes

The classic short story collection from #1 New York Times bestselling author Stephen King! A wrong turn on a lonely road lands a wayward couple in Rock and Roll Heaven, Oregon, where there’s no escaping the free nightly concert….A novelty toy becomes an unexpected and terrifying instrument of self-defense….An ex-con pieces together a map to unearth a stolen million dollars—but at what price?...A private investigator in Depression-era Los Angeles is finding his life unraveling as he discovers the shocking truth of who he really is….A third-grade teacher is willing to dig deep in order to exact revenge for his murdered wife.... These are just some of the haunting scenarios to be found in this classic collection—spellbinding tales from the darkest places and the unparalleled imagination of fiction’s master storyteller. Stories include: -Dolan's Cadillac -The End of the Whole Mess -Suffer the Little Children -The Night Flier -Popsy -It Grows on You -Chattery Teeth -Dedication -The Moving Finger -Sneakers -You Know They Got a Hell of a Band -Home Delivery -Rainy Season -My Pretty Pony -Sorry, Right Number -The Ten O'Clock People -Crouch End -The House on Maple Street -The Fifth Quarter -The Doctor's Case -Umney's Last Case -Head Down -Brooklyn August

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Cover for The Man in the Black Suit: 4 Dark Tales

Set in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine An intense, eerie, and instantly compelling collection of unabridged stories from Stephen King! "The face of the man in the black suit grows ever clearer, ever closer, and I remember every word he said. I don't want to think of him, but I can't help it, and sometimes at night my old heart beats so hard and so fast I think it will tear itself right clear of my chest." A haunting recollection of a mysterious boyhood event, The Man in Black Suit read by John Cullum, leads off this masterful collection from Stephen King. Other dark tales include: All That You Love Will Be Carried Away read by Peter Gerety, in which a man checks into a Lincoln, Nebraska Motel 6 to find meaning in his life; That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French read by Becky Ann Baker presents the ultimate case of déjà vu; and The Death of Jack Hamilton read by Arliss Howard—a blistering tale of Depression-era outlaws on the run. Whether about encounters with the dead, the near dead, or about the mundane drudgery of life—Stephen King's The Man In The Black Suit: Four Dark Tales is not to be missed.

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Cover for The Green Mile
ISBN: 0743210891

The #1 New York Times bestselling dramatic serial novel and inspiration for the Oscar-nominated film of the same name starring Tom Hanks, the “literary event” ( Entertainment Weekly ) of The Green Mile is now available in its entirety. When The Green Mile first appeared, serialized as one volume per month, Stephen King’s The Green Mile was an unprecedented publishing triumph: all six volumes ended up on the New York Times bestseller list—simultaneously—and delighted millions of fans the world over. Welcome to Cold Mountain Penitentiary, home to the Depression-worn men of E Block. Convicted killers all, each awaits his turn to walk the Green Mile, keeping a date with “Old Sparky,” Cold Mountain’s electric chair. Prison guard Paul Edgecombe has seen his share of oddities in his years working the Mile. But he’s never seen anyone like John Coffey, a man with the body of a giant and the mind of a child, condemned for a crime terrifying in its violence and shocking in its depravity. In this place of ultimate retribution, Edgecombe is about to discover the terrible, wondrous truth about Coffey, a truth that will challenge his most cherished beliefs...and yours.

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Cover for Hearts in Atlantis
ISBN: 340818670
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Cover for Graveyard Shift: and Other Stories from Night Shift

Consummate master of his craft, Stephen King has kept millions awake past midnight shivering at tales that probe the shadows and reveal the dark side. Now listeners can chill to this second dramatic unabridged production of short stories from his best selling book, Night Shift . It brings Stephen King's demonic stories fully to life—and the terror even closer to home. Dropout drifter Hall has crossed the country doing whatever comes his way. Working the "Graveyard Shift" in a decaying Massachusetts mill under a bullying foreman is just one more leg in his crazy quilt journey, until it leads to a nether realm where the Rat Queen defends her empire. Things are never as they seem, as "The Man Who Loved Flowers" proves one perfect Spring evening on the sidewalks of New York. In "The Last Rung on the Ladder" beautiful Kitty hangs from dizzying heights above a hideous fate and, in "Night Surf," a group of teenagers on a late summer beach watch the world end in a gruesome, viral whimper. The mind-numbing secrets of "Jerusalem's Lot" wait in an ancestral mansion where blood binds the Boone family to a timeless history of unspeakable evil.

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Cover for Blood and Smoke

This collection of short stories from the master of modern fiction is available only as an audiobook. In Blood and Smoke , Stephen King takes us inside a world of yearning and paranoia, isolation and addiction. It is the world of the smoker. In this audio-only collection, the now politically incorrect habit plays a key role in the fates of three different men in three unabridged stories of unfiltered suspense. In Lunch at the Gotham Café , Steve Davis is suffering through intense withdrawal - from both nicotine and his wife. His desperation for a cigarette and for his ex are almost too much to bear, but that's nothing compared to the horrors that await him at a trendy Manhattan restaurant. In 1408 , Mike Enslin, best selling author of "true" ghost stories, decides to spend the night in New York City's most haunted hotel room. But he must live to write about it without the help of his ex best-friends, his trusty smokes. And in In the Deathroom , a man named Fletcher is held captive in a Central American stronghold. His captors will use any torturous means necessary to extract the information they want from him. His only hope lies with his last request - one last cigarette, please. Features the tale 1408 , now a Dimension Films motion picture starring John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson.

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Cover for Secret Windows: Essays and Fiction on the Craft of Writing

...Exclusive Book-Of-The-Month-Club anthology of hard to find non-fiction pieces, little known interviews, short stories, and articles about writing for those looking for direction on how to find their own "windows" - or for anyone wishing to be touched by Stephen King's humor and wisdom...'Included in this collection are unpublished early fiction( very early; King was 12 when he wrote "Jumper" and"Rush Call"; a pre-Carrie article with tips for selling stories to men's magazines ("The Horror Writer and the Ten Bears: A True Story"); advice to his son on writing ( with the look-twice title "Great Hookers I Have Known"); recommendations to teen readers in a 'Seventeen' article ("What Stephen King Does For Love"); a long chapter from his wonderful treatise on the horror genre ("Horror Fiction" from Danse Macabre); and even a first-time-in-print short story,"In The Deathroom"(just for fun).

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Cover for Everything's Eventual: 14 Dark Tales

The acclaimed #1 New York Times and undisputed King of Horror Stephen King offers another spine-tingling compilation of short stories sure to keep a reader up late at night. King is in terrifying top form in these fourteen short stories, taking readers down a road less traveled (for good reason) in the blockbuster ebook “Riding the Bullet”; bad table service turns bloody when you stop in for “Lunch at the Gotham Café”; and terror becomes déjà vu all over again when you get “That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French”—along with eleven more stories that will keep you awake until daybreak. Two of the stories, “The Little Sisters of Eluria” and “Everything’s Eventual “are closely related to the Dark Tower series. Enter a nightmarish mindscape of unrelenting horror and shocking revelations that could only come from the imagination of the greatest storyteller of our time. Stories include: -Autopsy Room Four -The Man in the Black Suit -All That You Love Will Be Carried Away -The Death of Jack Hamilton -In the Deathroom -The Little Sisters of Eluria -Everything's Eventual -L. T.'s Theory of Pets -The Road Virus Heads North -Lunch at the Gotham Café -That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French -1408 -Riding the Bullet -Luckey Quarter

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Cover for Just After Sunset
ISBN: 1501197657

Thirteen “dazzling” (Associated Press) and “wonderfully wicked” ( USA TODAY ) stories from #1 New York Times bestselling author Stephen King. A book salesman with a grievance picks up a mute hitchhiker, not knowing the silent man in the passenger seat listens altogether too well. An exercise routine on a stationary bicycle takes its rider on a captivating—and then terrifying—journey. A blind girl works a miracle with a kiss and the touch of her hand. A psychiatric patient’s irrational thinking might create an apocalyptic threat in the Maine countryside…or keep the world from falling victim to it. These are just some of the tales to be found in the #1 bestselling collection Just After Sunset . Call it dusk or call it twilight, it’s a time when human intercourse takes on an unnatural cast, when the imagination begins to reach for shadows as they dissipate to darkness and living daylight can be scared right out of you. It’s the perfect time for master storyteller Stephen King. Stories include: -Willa -The Gingerbread Girl -Harvey's Dream -Rest Stop -Stationary Bike -The Things They Left Behind -Graduation Afternoon -N. -The Cat from Hell -The New York Times at Special Bargain Rates -Mute -Ayana -A Very Tight Place

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Cover for N
ISBN: 1501197657

Thirteen “dazzling” (Associated Press) and “wonderfully wicked” ( USA TODAY ) stories from #1 New York Times bestselling author Stephen King. A book salesman with a grievance picks up a mute hitchhiker, not knowing the silent man in the passenger seat listens altogether too well. An exercise routine on a stationary bicycle takes its rider on a captivating—and then terrifying—journey. A blind girl works a miracle with a kiss and the touch of her hand. A psychiatric patient’s irrational thinking might create an apocalyptic threat in the Maine countryside…or keep the world from falling victim to it. These are just some of the tales to be found in the #1 bestselling collection Just After Sunset . Call it dusk or call it twilight, it’s a time when human intercourse takes on an unnatural cast, when the imagination begins to reach for shadows as they dissipate to darkness and living daylight can be scared right out of you. It’s the perfect time for master storyteller Stephen King. Stories include: -Willa -The Gingerbread Girl -Harvey's Dream -Rest Stop -Stationary Bike -The Things They Left Behind -Graduation Afternoon -N. -The Cat from Hell -The New York Times at Special Bargain Rates -Mute -Ayana -A Very Tight Place

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Cover for Stephen King Goes to the Movies

Stephen King revisits five of his favorite short stories that have been turned into films: The Shawshank Redemption (based on the novella "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption") was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and best actor for Morgan Freeman. 1408 starred John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson and was a huge box office success in 2007. The short story "Children of the Corn" was adapted into the popular Children of the Corn . The Mangler was inspired by King's loathing for laundry machines from his own experience working in a laundromat. Hearts in Atlantis (based on "Low Men in Yellow Coats," the first part of the novel Hearts in Atlantis ) starred Anthony Hopkins. This collection features new commentary and introductions to all of these stories in a treasure-trove of movie trivia.

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Cover for In the Deathroom and Lunch at the Gotham Café

Two stories from Stephen King's bestselling collection BLOOD AND SMOKE, now available for the first time on CD 'Mike Enslin hadn't been sure until now, in spite of all the backing and filling; now he was. Olin was really afraid of room 1408, and of what might happen to Mike there tonight...Olin, the good host, reached for Mike's bag. Allow me. I'm fine with it, Mike said. Nothing but a change of clothes and a toothbrush. Are you sure? Yes, Mike said. I'm already wearing my lucky Hawaiian shirt. He smiled. It's the one with the ghost repellent. Olin didn't smile back. He sighed instead, a little round man in a dark cutaway coat anda neatly knotted tie. Very good, Mr Enslin. Follow me.'

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Cover for Full Dark, No Stars
ISBN: 9781439192566

"I believe there is another man inside every man, a stranger . . ." writes Wilfred Leland James in the early pages of the riveting confession that makes up "1922," the first in this pitch-black quartet of mesmerizing tales from Stephen King. For James, that stranger is awakened when his wife, Arlette, proposes selling off the family homestead and moving to Omaha, setting in motion a gruesome train of murder and madness. In "Big Driver," a cozy-mystery writer named Tess encounters the stranger along a back road in Massachusetts when she takes a shortcut home after a book-club engagement. Violated and left for dead, Tess plots a revenge that will bring her face-to-face with another stranger: the one inside herself. "Fair Extension," the shortest of these tales, is perhaps the nastiest and certainly the funniest. Making a deal with the devil not only saves Dave Streeter from a fatal cancer but provides rich recompense for a lifetime of resentment. When her husband of more than twenty years is away on one of his business trips, Darcy Anderson looks for batteries in the garage. Her toe knocks up against a box under a worktable and she discovers the stranger inside her husband. It’s a horrifying discovery, rendered with bristling intensity, and it definitively ends a good marriage. Like Different Seasons and Four Past Midnight, which generated such enduring films as The Shawshank Redemption and Stand by Me, Full Dark, No Stars proves Stephen King a master of the long story form.

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Cover for Road Rage(With: Joe Hill,Richard Matheson,Chris Ryall)

Acclaimed novelist/Eisner-winning graphic novelist Joe Hill collaborated with his father, Stephen King, in Throttle, for the first time on a tale that paid tribute to Richard Matheson's classic tale, Duel. Now, IDW is proud to present comic-book tellings of both stories in Road Rage, adapted by Chris Ryall with art by Nelson Daniel and Rafa Garres.

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Cover for The Bazaar of Bad Dreams

Includes the story “Premium Harmony”—set in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine The masterful #1 New York Times bestselling story collection from O. Henry Prize winner Stephen King that includes twenty-one iconic stories with accompanying autobiographical comments on when, why, and how he came to write (or rewrite) each one. For more than thirty-five years, Stephen King has dazzled readers with his genius as a writer of short fiction. In this collection, he introduces each story with a passage about its origins or his motivations for writing it. As Entertainment Weekly said about this collection: “ Bazaar of Bad Dreams is bursting with classic King terror, but what we love most are the thoughtful introductions he gives to each tale that explain what was going on in his life as he wrote it." There are thrilling connections between stories; themes of morality, the afterlife, guilt, what we would do differently if we could see into the future or correct the mistakes of the past. In “Afterlife,” a man who died of colon cancer keeps reliving the same life, repeating his mistakes over and over again. Several stories feature characters at the end of life, revisiting their crimes and misdemeanors. Others address what happens when someone discovers that he has supernatural powers—the columnist who kills people by writing their obituaries in “Obits;” the old judge in “The Dune” who, as a boy, canoed to a deserted island and saw names written in the sand, people who then died in freak accidents. In “Morality,” King looks at how a marriage and two lives fall apart after the wife and husband enter into what seems, at first, a devil’s pact they can win. “I made these stories especially for you,” says King. “Feel free to examine them, but please be careful. The best of them have teeth.” Stories include: -Mile 81 -Premium Harmony -Batman and Robin Have an Altercation -The Dune -Bad Little Kid -A Death -The Bone Church -Morality -Afterlife -Ur -Herman Wouk Is Still Alive -Under the Weather -Blockade Billy -Mister Yummy -Tommy -The Little Green God of Agony -Cookie Jar -That Bus Is Another World -Obits -Drunken Fireworks -Summer Thunder

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