THE COMPLETE LIST OF STEPHEN KING HODDER PAPERBACKS! & Where to buy them

I've been on a mission.

I kept seeing these amazing looking colorful Stephen King spines all over Instagram, and I needed them. I own quite a few Stephen King books already, but something about the dichotomy between how sweet these covers and spines look and how dark his books can be made these editions extra enticing.

I did what any normal person would do- Googled, pastel Stephen King spines. Nothing. Colorful Stephen King? Not quite. I searched the tag Stephen King spines on Instagram and basically stalked down several photos until I could come up with the publisher-it's Hodder. I didn't include any pictures of the actual books here because I don't own any myself, yet, and I didn't want to steal others'. Once I grow my collection, I'll add some pictures.

To make a long story short, I basically toggled between Instagram, Amazon, Book Depository, and AbeBooks and realized that these editions are from the U.K. and came out in 2007. I'm in the U.S., so finding these was a bit of a challenge. I first tried to order from the Book Depository, since they offer free shipping worldwide. However, on this website it looked like a lot of the editions were sold out. I briefly toyed with going through the site Book Depository directs you to, AbeBooks, but some of the books listed here seemed extra expensive. Through all of this, I did figure out that I could take the ISBN numbers for these editions and order them through Amazon! I entered in the ISBN number and then clicked on "see all buying options" to really look into what quality book I was purchasing. To save you the trouble, I wanted to put together a list. This list is also for me, too, since I eventually want to collect them all. I ordered The Stand (my all time favorite) and Cell today, and the expected arrival date is sometime in mid-July. 

Disclaimer: The books that I ordered are used. To me, it's worth it though because the books themselves look to cost anywhere from .99 to $5 with $3.99 shipping. That's much better than the $30+ I was seeing elsewhere! I will say, some of the books listed below were also available on the Book Depository for around the same price, and since they offer free shipping worldwide you might try them as well. Just a heads up, the links below are affiliate links. Finally, I'm not an expert in book collecting by any means. The list below is what I believe to be the complete collection.  I don't work in publishing; I just do this as a hobby. So if you happen to click on a link and order something and get magic beans in return, don't say I didn't warn ya. 

The Complete List of Stephen King Hodder Paperbacks

'Salem's Lot

Stephen King Goes To The Movies 

Bag of Bones 

Carrie

Cell 

Christine 

Cujo 

The Dark Half

The Dead Zone   

The Dark Half  

The Dead Zone  

Desperation 

Dolores Claiborne  

Dreamcatcher  

Duma Key 

The Eyes of the Dragon

Firestarter  

Gerald's Game  

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

Insomnia

IT

LiSey's Story

Misery

Needful Things

Pet Sematary

Rose Madder

The Shining

The Stand

The Tailsman

The Tommyknockers

And there you have it! I hope this was helpful. I can't wait to get a nice sized collection of these going. Is there anything I missed? Let me know!

I'm also interested in these Gallery Books versions... but one collection at a time, yes?

What do you think? Is it worth it to you to collect different versions of your favorite book, or is owning one copy enough? 

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Quick Lit | June 2017

It's Quick Lit time! I read 8 books over the last two months, which is a bit behind my 5 books a month goal. But I read quite a few good ones, and I'll take quality over quantity any time. 

The Hate U Give | Angie Williams  

This was probably my favorite book that I read this month. The Hate U Give tackles tough, current issues and does so in a way that's accessible to everyone. The book opens with a young black teen being shot by a police officer and goes from there.  You will root for the characters and cry with them, and pray that to the next generation that reads this book, police shootings of unarmed black men will be a thing of the past. Full review here. 

Working Stiff | Judy Melinek  

Another solid 5 star book. Working Stiff is a non fiction memoir written by a medical examiner who tells tales from her training. It's fascinating and heartbreaking at the same time. She worked in Manhattan during 9/11, and describes the aftermath with such compassion. She also offers a unique perspective into the families of those who have loved ones who committed suicide, because her father committed suicide himself. Excellent book for those with and without a science background! 

The Breakdown | B.A. Paris  

This book is firmly my wheelhouse- a new release and a psychological thriller. It's the sophomore novel from B.A. Paris, author of Behind Closed Doors. I enjoyed it! Cass is a teacher whom, when driving home from a summer break happy hour, takes a shortcut home and finds a woman sitting in her car in the middle of the road. It's a huge storm and when the woman didn't indicate that she needed help, Cass decides to go home and call the cops. The problem is, she forgets to call and finds out that the woman has died. She does into a downward spiral and becomes obsessed with the case and in finding out what happened to the woman. It was a definite page turner (if not a little predictable)!  Full review here. 

George | Alex Gino  

I'm always trying to add more diverse books into my reading list, and I'm glad that I came across George. I hadn't read a book like before. George is biologically a boy, but inside she knows that she is a girl. She's in elementary school and thinks she will have to keep this secret forever. However, she falls in love with the character Charlotte from Charlotte's Web and when her school puts on the play, she decides to audition for her. It's a YA book and I think it would be great for a young kid to read to get introduced to what it means to be transgender. 

 The First Word | Isley Robison

This was a book that I happened to come across on Kindle First. Did you know that if you're an Amazon prime member that you get to purchase to one free e-book a month? You get to choose from 5 and theres usually a wide variety. I picked The First Word on a whim and i ended up really enjoying it. It's a light read and a love story about a man and his child with Asperger's who begins to fall in love with his son's Occupational Therapist. It's a little 50 shades, but it ended up being a sweet story. 

Into the Water | Paula Hawkins  

This was the biggest letdown to me. I wrote a full review here. I know a lot of people say they hate leaving bad reviews for books or they hate to give books low ratings, but I don't see it that way. No matter how much you read, we all have a limited amount of time in our day. I don't think it's constructive for readers to rate books high because they're trying to be nice or because they like the author. There is a different between books that are good, but not for you and books that are downright not good. Into The Water falls into the second category. There were too many characters, the story was way too convoluted, and I thought it needed quite a bit more editing. The bones were there, and I did get through it pretty quickly, but that was mostly because I was hoping that it would eventually make sense. (Spoiler: It didn't.) 

The Moth Presents: All These Wonders

if you're looking for an uplifting and inspiring book, this might be it. The Moth is a collection of short vignettes from people that shared their story at the Moth. I first heard about The Moth from the TV show Girls, and I love the idea of getting to hear a snippet of someone's life. There are a ton of different stories and some of them made me cry, laugh, think, and shudder. It's also a physically beautiful book with a matte blue cover and gold etching, if you're into that sort of thing.  

 Gwendy's Button Box | Stephen King, Richard Chizmar

Gwendy's Button Box is a brand new release from Stephen King. It's a very short story- only 180 pages- but it was absolutely engrossing. You could easily read this in a weekend. What I loved is that we're introduced to something that might have caused epidemics in other King books (The Stand, anyone?) I always love reading King and this is a great one for anyone who wants to read King but is intimidated by horror by length. 

What was your favorite book you've recently read?

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Review | Into the Water | Paula Hawkins

Publication Date: May 2nd, 2017

Page Count: 386

First Sentence: "Again! Again! The men bind her again."

Book Description (from Amazon): A single mother turns up dead at the bottom of the river that runs through town. Earlier in the summer, a vulnerable teenage girl met the same fate. They are not the first women lost to these dark waters, but their deaths disturb the river and its history, dredging up secrets long submerged. Left behind is a lonely fifteen-year-old girl. Parentless and friendless, she now finds herself in the care of her mother's sister, a fearful stranger who has been dragged back to the place she deliberately ran from—a place to which she vowed she'd never return. With the same propulsive writing and acute understanding of human instincts that captivated millions of readers around the world in her explosive debut thriller, The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins delivers an urgent, twisting, deeply satisfying read that hinges on the deceptiveness of emotion and memory, as well as the devastating ways that the past can reach a long arm into the present. Beware a calm surface—you never know what lies beneath.

My Thoughts: What did I just read? I, like many others, had really high hopes for this book. I do feel bad for Paula Hawkins, in a very small way. Her first book, The Girl on the Train, was such a smash success that it was unlikely that her second book would live up to the hype. But this was really far off the mark (and the reviews from Amazon agree with me too... harsh).

First off, there were sooo many narrators. There are at least 11 different narrators throughout the story, and I didn't care for one of them. (Ok, I did like one of the police officers, Erin Morgan. But mostly because she swears a lot). In true Paula Hawkins style, the characters were so very unlikable. I think that was the point (?), but it was really hard for me to actually care about solving the mystery. These characters were selfish and flat, and not well drawn out. The chapters were way too short for me to start to care about their part of the story and I found my attention wandering. I'm still not sure that I figured out one of the key plot points, and I don't necessarily care to find out.

Ok. Backing up. Our story is set in a small town where there is a spot called the Drowning Pool. Over the years, many women have drowned in this location, and the story opens with two recent deaths. The Whitaker family lost their seemingly perfect teenage daughter, Katie. The family is grieving and we find out that there's a feud between two mothers in the community. One of the mothers, Nell, drowns a year after Katie.  Nell is the mother of Katie's best friend, Lena,  and I guess I'd call Lena the main character. The story revolves around the drownings and Lena seems to know more than she's letting on. We are led down a veritable Russian nesting doll situation, where one person has a grudge against another person who is the mother of someones daughter's best friend and is close to this other person who seems to talk to dead people. Seriously, that's just about the gist of it. 

One thing that did stick with me was the grief that Mrs. Whittaker felt losing her daughter. It's not that it was particularly well done, but it struck me to think about how that must feel to try and remember your late daughter's last day. It must be an unthinkable kind of torture filed with false memories. Jules, Nell's sister, was the goddamn worst. She walks around talking to herself and holds a twenty year grudge against her sister. She seems to have had nothing going on for her and is easily outsmarted by Lena. This was by no mean a page turner and I think we could have reduced the viewpoints by half and still have had too many.

This is a book I'd have to go back and unpack and I can't say that I care enough to be bothered. At the end, everyone seems to intertwine and play their part, as is often the case in a small town. All of the characters read the same way and most of the twists were pretty easy to figure out. I truly think the best part of this was the cover. I feel like my review is as confusing as this book was, and I apologize for that! 

Favorite Quote: "Seriously, how is anyone supposed to keep track of all the bodies around here? It's like Midsomer Murders , only with accidents and suicides and grotesque historical misogynistic drownings instead of people falling into the slurry or bashing each other over the head." You said it, Detective Erin Morgan. You said it.

Rating: 2.5/5 Not something that I'd recommend or pick up again. But I will read Paula Hawkins if she comes out with anything else, if only to see if lightening really can strike twice.

Find me me here! 

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TBR & TBD | New and Noteworthy June 2017

Heyyy.... welcome, summer! I love the months June- December. There feels like there's always something to look forward to every month (including great new releases!) Now if only the weather would cooperate...

I like the thought of summer reading- to me, it means fast reads that are engrossing and maybe a little self indulgent. That said, in practice I find I tend to read around new releases year round. I suppose I would like to read "harder" books or more classics, but for now it's working for me. Which leads me nicely into TBR & TBD for June! Here are the books that I'm adding to my TBR list this month... and one that is TBD. 

TBR 1 - The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo: A Novel | Taylor Jenkins Reid | Release Date- June 13th, 2017

This is the most summer-y of all of my picks. In The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo a reclusive actress, Evelyn Hugo, chooses a relatively unknown journalist to write her memoir. The journalist has no idea why this woman has chosen her, but is determined to do whatever she can to do her justice. It turns out the two are connected in more ways than one and the reader gets to hear about the rise and fall of one of America's most famous (fictional) actresses. I love books set in New York and i love salacious gossip, so I think this is a good pick for me. I'm expecting a cross between The Swans of Fifth Avenue and The Secret Life of Violet Grant.  Bonus- it's got a green cover! Who doesn't need more green books in their collection?!

TBR 2- The Good Widow | Liz Fenton & Lisa Steinke | Release Date- June 1st, 2017

I've been reading Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke since back in the day (and by the day I mean 2011). Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke write books in such an unique way- they're best friends that co-write books. I mean, I don't actually KNOW how they do it, if one person writes one chapter and then passes it on to the other or what, but I can really see this working. Especially if you write books that change between different POVs. Generally, their books are what might be considered 'chick lit', but this latest book is their first suspense novel! I have to laugh, because I DM'ed them on Instagram and said that I can't wait to read this book and that I loved their first two, and someone wrote me back to say 'I'm sorry- those books were the worst!'. Hilarious. I get it, though. Sometimes when I go back and read my little reviews on here, I get so much secondhand embarrassment for my former self. I can't imagine how cringe-y it might be to read your first book! (Unless you're one of those rare people who knock it out of the park on your first try of doing whatever. I don't trust those folks anyway). At any rate- The Good Widow has caught my attention. A woman gets a dreaded visit to her door. It's a police officer telling her that her husband has died. Only thing is, her husband was not Kansas for work as she thought- he was in Hawaii with his lover. How did things get to this point, and what is she going to discover about this mistress and her husband's double life? From what I remember from their first two books, these authors create fictional women that I might want to be friends with, so I'm excited to revisit them again.

TBR 3- The Party | Robyn Harding | Release Date- June 6th, 2017

This is a total wild card that I picked out, strictly based off of the description. It's been compared to Liane Moriarty's Big Little Lies, and really that was enough for me. (But I hope it's not JUST a tool that a good publicist used to sell books! I'm looking at you- The Wanderers!)

The party is a Sweet Sixteen party gone horribly wrong. Jeff and Kim throw invite their daughter's friends over for a sleepover and pizza. But as you would come to expect from a book that's supposed to be riveting, something happens and the night goes horribly wrong. There is an accident and Jeff and Kim's idyllic life is destroyed. There are secrets that come to the forefront, betrayals, and judgment from the community. I'm hooked- and if it's well done, there's a lot of potential here.
 

TBD- Every Last Lie | Mary Kubica | Release Date- June 27th, 2017

This is the one I'm most excited for this month! Buuuut.... I'm not going to lie. Mary Kubica is hit or miss for me. I LOVED her book The Good Girl, but I borderline hated the one I read last year, Pretty Baby. However, she is an insta-read for me, along the lines of Liane Moriarty and Gillian Flynn. I'll definitely be picking this one up. I also love that she's aChicago author. Every Last Lie opens with Clara's husband and daughter being in a car crash. Her husband is killed but her daughter lives. She thought it was just an accident, but more things come to light and it is starting to sound like someone had something out for him. I got chills just reading the synopsis- I couldn't imagine. I think it's going to make for an engrossing read!

What new releases are you looking forward to this month?

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May, Etc. | Monthly Favorites, May 2017

Wrapping up some of my May Favorites!

New to the TBR

IT | Stephen King |  While this certainly isn't a new book, it is one that has had a surge in popularity recently, thanks to this whacked out movie  trailer! With over 28 million views, I have no doubt that the re-boot will be a huge hit come September. If you're interested, @Jobis89 is hosting a weekly discussion in June over on her Instagram. Follow along with the #WeAllFloatReadalong hashtag! 

Speaking of books that I can't get away from... This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankl keeps coming up for me. I see it on Instagram, hear it talked about on podcasts. So when I saw that it was just sitting there on the shelf at my local library, I knew I had to finally pick it up. I hear it's better if you go in blind, so here goes nothing... 

New to the Bookshelf

In the Woods | Tana French | Set in Dublin, a detective who lost two friends in the woods when he was a child is set to investigate a murder that looks shockingly similar to the unsolved mystery he was involved in as a kid. Part psychological thriller, part police/crime fiction. I saw it for $2 at Half Price Books and couldn't pass it up! 

The Dark Tower IV: Song of Susannah | Stephen King | To be honest, I don't know much about this series, other than it's often cited as the favorite series by fans of Stephen King. The only other book I have in this series is Book V, but hope to collect all of the illustrated hardcovers someday. The movie comes out later this year and the trailer looks intense! (What a year for Stephen King movies!)

You Are A Badass: How To Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life | Jen Sincero | This  book offers up direct advice on how to stop sabatoging yourself and go after what you want. One of my good friends recommended that I pick this up, and I think he's right in predicting that I'll enjoy it. I really like an inspiring pseudo-self-help book now and again, and this looks like a great blend of humor and motivation. 

Into the Water | Paula Hawkins | Hawkins' follow up novel to The Girl on the Train came with a lot of hype. A single mother is the most recent victim to the river in a small town. It looks like suicide, but there's more to what's going on in this town than meets the eye. This was by far and away my most anticipated book for the summer.... and it was just okay. Longer review to come.

Since We Fell | Dennis Lehane | In Since We Fell, a journalist has a very public, on-air, nervous breakdown and becomes a shut in. She's been enjoying her life of relative obscurity until something happens that causes her to further unravel and question everything she thought she knew. The plot does sound like it could be your run of the mill domestic thriller, but I trust Lehane and have high expectations. 

Astrophysics for People in a Hurry | Neil deGrasse Tyson | Filed under my most random pickup for May, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry addresses the Big with a capital B questions that humans have been asking themselves for centuries- who are we? How do we fit within the universe? deGrasse makes physics accessible and addresses these questions and more- all in bits that you can read over your morning coffee. 

Around #Bookstagram

You know the yellow line next to the train tracks? It's there for a reason... | Working Stiff 

Listened

May was a great reading month for me, but I didn't get to finish any audiobooks. I did start On Writing, Americanah, and 1984, but I've yet to finish any. I love audiobooks on long car trips and haven't had any of those recently, so I'll probably get back into these during my busier travel times.

Watched

The Handmaid's Tale | I'm sure you've heard people talking about Hulu's adaptation of Margaret Atwood's classic book, but if you're on the fence then I recommend that you push this to the top of your list. It's a dystopian society where most women and men are infertile. To continue to populate the country, women who are known to be able to have kids are captured and forced into government sanctioned breeding for rich families. It's haunting, thoughtful, creepy, and well done.. Elizabeth Moss acts her ASS of; I heard that she memorized Offred's monologue from the book and went through the lines silently in her head to match her facial expressions with the voiceover. It's insane! 

What were your favorite May discoveries? 

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