Books from the Backlog #416

Books from the Backlog is a fun way to feature some of those neglected books sitting on your bookshelf unread.  If you are anything like me, you might be surprised by some of the unread books hiding in your stacks.

If you would like to join in, please feel free to enter your link, link back to this post, and then spend some time visiting some of the other posts.

This week’s neglected book

Different Seasons by Stephen King
Published by Viking on January 1, 1982
Genres: Fiction / Thrillers / Psychological
Length: 19 hours 50 minutes
Pages: 527
Source: Purchased
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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.

Why did I add Different Seasons to my bookshelf?

I have had this book sitting on my shelf forever it seems. I was just talking with one of my co-workers about some of Stephen King’s stories that have been made into movies that are not horror. I love it when someone tells me that they don’t like Stephen King and then become shocked when they realize he wrote the story behind “Stand By Me” and “The Shawshank Redemption”. I look forward to reading these stories and comparing them to the films I know very well.

What are your thoughts? Have you read this book?  Would you recommend it?

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