Stephen King Recommends

Stephen King: “The Return of Ellie Black is a page-turning suspense novel, a shrewd character study, and a captivating mystery, all at the same time. The last fifty pages are magnetic. I couldn’t put it down until I’d experienced every last twist and turn.”

Detective Chelsey Calhoun’s life is turned upside down when she gets the call Ellie Black, a girl who disappeared years earlier, has resurfaced in the woods of Washington state—but Ellie’s reappearance leaves Chelsey with more questions than answers.

Stephen King: "I was immediately immersed in The Invisible Hour. It’s a wonderful story of love and growth, but it’s also a narrative engine of great power. Alice Hoffman is wonderful on stories and writing."

From the beloved New York Times bestselling author of The Marriage of Opposites and the Practical Magic series comes an enchanting novel about love, heartbreak, self-discovery, and the enduring magic of books.

Stephen King: “This book is, simply put, a modern classic. If you read it, you'll never forget it. Prophetic, terrifying, uplifting.”

From the bestselling author of Ohio, a masterful American epic charting a near future approaching collapse and a nascent but strengthening solidarity.

Stephen King: "This is one beautiful book. I was wowed by Keane’s writing and narrative skill—and by what she knows about trouble."

Francis Gleeson and Brian Stanhope, rookie NYPD cops, are neighbors in the suburbs. What happens behind closed doors in both houses—the loneliness of Francis’s wife, Lena, and the instability of Brian’s wife, Anne, sets the stage for the explosive events to come. How much can a family forgive?

Stephen King: “Wow! This is one terrific horror/suspense/disaster novel. Characters you root for and a story that grips from the first page.”

In this terrifying thriller, a supernatural force—set in motion a century ago—threatens to devastate New York City.

Stephen King: "To my mind, there have been two great American novels in the past fifty years. Catch-22 is one of them."

Now a Hulu limited series starring Christopher Abbott, George Clooney, Kyle Chandler, and Hugh Laurie.

This fiftieth-anniversary edition commemorates Joseph Heller’s masterpiece with a new introduction; critical essays and reviews by Norman Mailer, Alfred Kazin, Anthony Burgess, and others; rare papers and photos; and much more.

Stephen King: "Dry, by Neal and Jarrod Shusterman: Terrific, well-written novel about California running out of water. Couldn't put it down."

When the California drought escalates to catastrophic proportions, one teen is forced to make life and death decisions for her family in this harrowing story of survival from New York Times bestselling author Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman.

Stephen King: "Most literary fiction doesn't last very long. This is going to be around. It's the real deal. Jarring, horrible, compassionate, funny. BTW, Kushner reads the audio, and knocks it out of the park."

From twice National Book Award–nominated Rachel Kushner, whose Flamethrowers was called “the best, most brazen, most interesting book of the year” (Kathryn Schulz, New York magazine), comes a spectacularly compelling, heart-stopping novel about a life gone off the rails in contemporary America.

Stephen King: "Every now and then––rarely!––a book casts a little light on the creative development of a gifted artist. Paul Simon: The Life is one of those few. Read it if you like Simon; read it if you want to discover how talent unfolds itself."

A publishing event from music legend Paul Simon: an intimate, candid, and definitive biography written with Simon’s full participation—but without his editorial control—by acclaimed biographer and music writer Robert Hilburn.

Stephen King: "Two terrific female characters, both with secrets. Add Michael Robotham's clean prose and whipcrack pacing. The result? A book you won't be able to put down, although you may occasionally want to hide your eyes.”

From the bestselling author of The Secrets She Keeps, a fiendishly clever suspense novel about a dangerous young woman with a special ability to know when someone is lying—and the criminal psychologist who must outwit her to survive.

Stephen King: “Two terrific female characters, both with secrets. Add Michael Robotham’s clean prose and whipcrack pacing. The result? A book you won’t be able to put down, although you may occasionally want to hide your eyes."

In the bestselling tradition of The Girl on the Train and In a Dark, Dark Wood, from the internationally bestselling author whom Stephen King called “an absolute master” of the psychological thriller, comes a riveting suspense novel about the unlikely friendship between two pregnant women that asks: how far would you go to create the perfect family?

Stephen King: “Brilliant. Deeply felt, but totally under control. I loved it.”

In this riveting new novel by the New York Times bestselling author of the Chet and Bernie mystery series, a deeply damaged female soldier home from the war in Afghanistan becomes obsessed with finding a missing girl, gains an unlikely ally in a stray dog, and encounters new perils beyond the combat zone.

Stephen King: “Every aspect of Ruth Rendell’s dark art is splendidly showcased in Dark Corners. One can’t say she saved the best for last, because a great many books by Ms. Rendell and her alter ego Barbara Vine are so splendid, but it’s among the best. You won’t put it down. I loved it.”

“A spectacularly creepy and macabre tale” (Entertainment Weekly) of blackmail, murders both accidental and opportunistic, and of one life’s fateful unraveling—from Ruth Rendell, “one of the most remarkable novelists of her generation” (People), writing at her most mesmerizing. Rendell completed Dark Corners shortly before her death in 2015.

Stephen King: “The Troop scared the hell out of me, and I couldn’t put it down. This is old-school horror at its best."

Once every year, Scoutmaster Tim Riggs leads a troop of boys into the Canadian wilderness for a weekend camping trip—a tradition as comforting and reliable as a good ghost story around a roaring bonfire. But when an unexpected intruder stumbles upon their campsite—shockingly thin, disturbingly pale, and voraciously hungry—Tim and the boys are exposed to something far more frightening than any tale of terror.

Stephen King: "A brilliant blending of crime, mystery, and American history (Atlanta, just after WWII). Terrific entertainment."

Award-winning author Thomas Mullen is a “wonderful architect of intersecting plotlines and unexpected answers” (The Washington Post) in this timely and provocative mystery and brilliant exploration of race, law enforcement, and justice in 1940s Atlanta.

Stephen King: "A darkly poetic tale...it is probably Bradbury's best work."

For those who still dream and remember, for those yet to experience the hypnotic power of its dark poetry, step inside. The show is about to begin. Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show has come to Green Town, Illinois, to destroy every life touched by its strange and sinister mystery. The carnival rolls in sometime after midnight, ushering in Halloween a week early. A calliope’s shrill siren song beckons to all with a seductive promise of dreams and youth regained. Two boys will discover the secret of its smoke, mazes, and mirrors; two friends who will soon know all too well the heavy cost of wishes…and the stuff of nightmares.

Stephen King: "Hypnotic and scary.”

A terrifying exploration of how vulnerable we all are to stalking and manipulation, debut author Caroline Kepnes delivers a razor-sharp novel for our hyper-connected digital age. You is a compulsively readable page-turner, one compared to the likes of Gone Girl, American Psycho, and Stephen King’s Misery.

Stephen King: “The great time-travel story.”

When advertising artist Si Morley is recruited to join a covert government operation exploring the possibility of time travel, he jumps at the chance to leave his 20th-century existence and step into New York City in January 1882. Aside from his thirst for adventure, he has good reason to return to the past—his friend Kate has discovered a mysterious, half-burned letter dated from that year, and Si has good reasons to want to trace its origins.

Stephen King: “A revelation…This is Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid on autoload."

Ben, Chon, and O are twentysomething best friends living the dream in Southern California. Together they have made a small fortune producing premium grade marijuana, a product so potent that the Mexican Baja Cartel demands a cut. When Ben and Chon refuse to back down, the cartel kidnaps O, igniting a dizzying array of high-octane negotiations and stunning plot twists as they risk everything to free her. The result is a provocative, sexy, and darkly engrossing thrill ride, an ultracontemporary love story that will leave you breathless.

Stephen King: “Picoult writes with unassuming brilliance.”

Every expectant parent will tell you that they don't want a perfect baby, just a healthy one. Charlotte and Sean O'Keefe would have asked for a healthy baby, too, if they'd been given the choice. Instead, their lives are made up of sleepless nights, mounting bills, the pitying stares of "luckier" parents, and maybe worst of all, the what-ifs.

Stephen King: "An excellent story, full of tension and suspense."

From New York Times bestselling horror novelist Robert McCammon comes a dark and chilling tale about a witch-hunt in the seventeenth century Carolina colonies.

Stephen King: “A brilliant fusion of fact and fiction, Jayne Anne Phillips has written the novel of the year.”

A spectacularly riveting novel based on a real life crime by a con man who preyed on widows, Quiet Dell is both a tragedy and a love story.It is an overall tour de force of obsession by one of America's most celebrated writers, Jayne Anne Phillips.

Stephen King : A story "to be read and savored for its own satisfactions."

First published in 1955, this classic science fiction thriller about the ultimate alien invasion and the triumph of the human spirit over an invisible enemy has inspired multiple film adaptations and entertained readers for decades. This repackaged edition features a new cover by Hugo award–winning illustrator, John Picacio and a foreword by New York Times bestselling author, Dean Koontz.

Stephen King: “Not only America's premier writer of speculative fiction, but the greatest writer of such fiction in the world."

The Man Who Sold the Moon: D. D. Harriman is a billionaire with a dream: the dream of space for all mankind. The method? Anything that works. Maybe, in fact, Harriman goes too far. But he will give us the stars…

Orphans of the Sky: Hugh had been taught that, according to the ancient sacred writings, the Ship was on a voyage to faraway Centaurus. But he also understood that this must be allegory for a voyage to spiritual perfection. After all, the real world was only metal corridors and nothing else, right? And then Hugh begins to suspect the truth.

Stephen King: "Abigail Thomas is the Emily Dickinson of memoirists, and so much of this book's wisdom is between the lines and in the white spaces. It may only take you two days to read, but the impact will stay with you for a long, long time. Abigail Thomas fills memory with living breath."

In her bestselling memoir A Three Dog Life, Abigail Thomas wrote about the devastating loss of her husband. In What Comes Next and How to Like It, “a keenly observed memoir…Thomas writes of the changes aging brings us all and of coping through love: of family, dogs, a well-turned phrase. She is superb company” (People).

Stephen King: “An eye-opening dazzler.”

An exuberant, provocative debut novel from one of the world’s leading film directors about a pair of globetrotting, gore-obsessed journalists whose entanglement in a French philosopher’s death becomes a surreal journey into global conspiracy from legendary filmmaker David Cronenberg.

Stephen King: "The Lie is what great fiction is all about.”

A provocative thriller about a dynamic Israeli lawyer—famous for defending accused Palestinians—whose views are tested when her own son is taken captive by Hezbollah, The Lie is an unforgettable story of human beings on both sides of the terror equation whose lives turn out to share more in common than they ever could have imagined.

Stephen King: “Entertaining and enlightening.”

An authentic and always honest look at the people who reinvented rock music, Punk Rock Blitzkrieg gives the final word on the genius and mischief of the Ramones, told by the man who created the beat behind their iconic music and lived to tell about it.