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11/22/63: A Novel |
*On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world
changed. What if you could change it back? Stephen King’s heart-stoppingly dramatic new novel is about a man
who travels back in time to prevent the JFK assassination—a thousand page tour de force.
Following his
massively successful novel Under the Dome, King sweeps readers back in time to another moment—a real life
moment—when everything went wrong: the JFK assassination. And he introduces readers to a character who has
the power to change the course of history.
Jake Epping is a thirty-five-year-old high school English
teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching adults in the GED program. He receives an
essay from one of the students—a gruesome, harrowing first person story about the night 50 years ago when
Harry Dunning’s father came home and killed his mother, his sister, and his brother with a hammer. Harry
escaped with a smashed leg, as evidenced by his crooked walk.
Not much later, Jake’s friend Al, who
runs the local diner, divulges a secret: his storeroom is a portal to 1958. He enlists Jake on an insane—and
insanely possible—mission to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination. So begins Jake’s new life as George
Amberson and his new world of Elvis and JFK, of big American cars and sock hops, of a troubled loner named
Lee Harvey Oswald and a beautiful high school librarian named Sadie Dunhill, who becomes the love of Jake’s
life—a life that transgresses all the normal rules of time. |
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The Bazaar of Bad Dreams: Stories |
A master storyteller at his best—the O. Henry Prize winner Stephen King delivers a generous collection of stories, several of them brand-new,
featuring revelatory autobiographical comments on when, why, and how he came to write (or rewrite) each story.
Since his first collection, Nightshift,
published thirty-five years ago, Stephen King has dazzled readers with his genius as a writer of short fiction. In this new collection he assembles, for the first
time, recent stories that have never been published in a book. He introduces each with a passage about its origins or his motivations for writing 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. “Afterlife” is about a man who died of colon cancer and 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. Other stories 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, the names of 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.
Magnificent, eerie, utterly compelling, these stories comprise one of
King’s finest gifts to his constant reader—“I made them especially for you,” says King. “Feel free to examine them, but please be careful. The best of them have
teeth.” |
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The Outsider |
An unspeakable crime. A confounding investigation. At a time when the King brand has never been stronger, he has delivered one of his
most unsettling and compulsively readable stories.
An eleven-year-old boy’s violated corpse is found in a town park. Eyewitnesses and fingerprints
point unmistakably to one of Flint City’s most popular citizens. He is Terry Maitland, Little League coach, English teacher, husband, and father of two
girls. Detective Ralph Anderson, whose son Maitland once coached, orders a quick and very public arrest. Maitland has an alibi, but Anderson and the
district attorney soon add DNA evidence to go with the fingerprints and witnesses. Their case seems ironclad.
As the investigation expands and
horrifying answers begin to emerge, King’s propulsive story kicks into high gear, generating strong tension and almost unbearable suspense. Terry Maitland
seems like a nice guy, but is he wearing another face? When the answer comes, it will shock you as only Stephen King can.
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Revival: A Novel |
In a small New England town, over half a century ago, a shadow falls over a small boy playing with his toy soldiers. Jamie Morton looks up to
see a striking man, the new minister. Charles Jacobs, along with his beautiful wife, will transform the local church. The men and boys are all a bit in love
with Mrs. Jacobs; the women and girls feel the same about Reverend Jacobs—including Jamie’s mother and beloved sister, Claire. With Jamie, the Reverend shares
a deeper bond based on a secret obsession. When tragedy strikes the Jacobs family, this charismatic preacher curses God, mocks all religious belief, and is
banished from the shocked town.
Jamie has demons of his own. Wed to his guitar from the age of thirteen, he plays in bands across the country, living
the nomadic lifestyle of bar-band rock and roll while fleeing from his family’s horrific loss. In his mid-thirties—addicted to heroin, stranded, desperate—Jamie
meets Charles Jacobs again, with profound consequences for both men. Their bond becomes a pact beyond even the Devil’s devising, and Jamie discovers that revival
has many meanings.
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