The 10 greatest Stephen King horror novels according to Goodreads

The 10 greatest Stephen King horror novels according to Goodreads October 23, 2013/15 Comments/in All Write, Book Bash /by Joel Willans

Although dismissed by critics for much of his career—one New York Times review called him “a writer of fairly engaging and preposterous claptrap” — Stephen King is by any measure one of the greatest horror writers of all time. The author of fifty novels, nearly two hundred short stories and nine collections of short fiction, he is as productive as he is versatile. With so much fiction to choose from, it can be difficult to decide where to begin.

Happily, help is at hand thanks to the online book community Goodreads. As of July this book lovers’ heaven had an incredible 20 million members, the vast majority of whom spend huge amounts of time reading and reviewing. One author who understandably gets lots of attention is Stephen King. Here’s his ten greatest horror hits according to the Goodreads five star rating system.

 

1.  The Stand – score: 4.3

The Stand might not be the first novel you think of when you contemplate horror, but this post-apocalyptic horror/fantasy, an expansion of King’s earlier short story “Night Surf”, is Goodreads’s top choice. First published in 1978 and later re-released in 1990 as The Stand: The Complete & Uncut Edition, it’s a genuine King masterpiece.

Goodreads top review says: “You know what’s really scary? Getting sick while you’re reading the first part of The Stand. Just try running a fever, going through a box of tissues and guzzling the better part of a bottle of Theraflu while Stephen King describes the grisly deaths of almost everyone on Earth from a superflu. On top of feeling like crap, you’ll be terrified. Bonus!”

2. It – score: 4.06

Published in 1986, It is a horror novel in every sense of the word. Moving back and forth between 1958 and 1985, the story tells of seven children in a small Maine town who discover the source of a series of horrifying murders. Having conquered the evil force once, they are summoned together 27 years later when the cycle begins again. The novel is famed for starring one of the scariest clowns in literature.

Goodreads top review says: “This is a brilliant novel, beautifully told in crisp, clear prose, with truly unforgettable characters and situations. It is the essence of good fiction; the truth inside the lie. King knows his way around the corners; and has that undefinable look in the eye, the dreamy look of a child.”

3. The Shining – score: 4.03

This 1977 classic follows Jack Torrance, a recovering alcoholic and writer, and his family, through a terrifying winter as they care for a deserted Colorado hotel whose history is anything but bucolic. The title was apparently inspired by the John Lennon song “Instant Karma!”, which contained the line “We all shine on…” Originally conceived as a five-act tragedy play, the story evolved into a five-act novel that also included many of King’s own personal demons. In 1980, Stanley Kubrick’s film version became an instant cult classic.

Goodreads top review says : “While reading “The Shining,” I revisited my kid fears– as if walking through a bell-bottomed-shaped portal into the shag carpet of the seventies. King evoked my vulnerability and reminded me of what it felt like to be a powerless child in a universe where everybody is stronger and more experienced than I.”

4. Misery – score. 3.99

Published in 1988, the novel focuses on Paul Sheldon, a writer famous for Victorian-era romance novels involving the character of Misery Chastain. After an automobile accident, Paul meets his biggest fan, Annie Wilkes. His nurse-and captor, she wants Paul to write his greatest work just for her, and she will do whatever it takes to make this happen. Of the inspiration behind Annie, King once said, “There was never any question. Annie was my drug problem, and she was my number-one fan. God, she never wanted to leave.”

Goodreads top review says: “I first read Misery when I was seventeen years old. I started it about eight o’clock that evening, and finished it about four in the morning. Heart pounding, bleary eyed and afraid to open my closet door lest Annie Wilkes was waiting there for me with an axe or chainsaw raised over her head.”

 

5. Salem’s Lot – score. 3.91

Published in 1975, Salem’s Lot follows a writer named Ben Mears as he returns to the town where he lived as a boy, Jerusalem’s Lot, or ‘Salem’s Lot for short. To his dismay he discovers that the residents are all becoming vampires. The title King originally chose for the book was Second Coming, but he later decided on Jerusalem’s Lot, because his wife, novelist Tabitha King, thought the original title sounded too much like a “bad sex story”. In 1987 he told Phil Konstantin in The Highway Patrolman magazine: “In a way it is my favorite story, mostly because of what it says about small towns. They are kind of a dying organism right now. The story seems sort of down home to me. I have a special cold spot in my heart for it!”

Goodreads top review says: “Vampire stories have been around for a long time – But leave it to Stephen King to turn the terror up a notch, add a whole new layer to it. How? In addition to showing us the monsters of the night, he also brings into the picture the monsters and the darkness that are already with us, that live in the deep dark recesses of everyone’s soul.”

6. Duma Key – score. 3.87

The newest book on the list, Duma Key was published in 2008 and reached #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List. In the book, a construction site accident takes Edgar Freemantle’s right arm and scrambles his memory and his mind, leaving him enraged as he begins his rehabilitation in a beach house on Duma Key in Florida.

Goodreads top review says: “Duma Key is not just a novel for the fans, but a cathartic response from King over his near-death accident in 1999; no doubt he relived his agonizing recovery while writing about Freemantle, and yet it is because of this firsthand experience, that Duma Key feels much more personal and empathetic.”

7. The Dead Zone – score. 3.83

Dedicated to his son Owen, the Dead Zone features Johnny Smith, a young boy who  is injured in an accident and enters a coma for nearly five years. When he emerges, he can see horrifying secrets but cannot identify all the details in his “dead zone”, an area of his brain that suffered permanent damage as the result of his accident.

Goodreads review says: “I have been really surprised, especially as I read The Dead Zone, this isn’t more of a popular read, especially with King readers. Johnny Smith’s character and his ability were done very well. I really liked all of the characters, especially Johnny and his parents.”

8. Carrie – score 3.82

King’s first published novel, released in 1974,  it revolves around “Carrie N. White”, a shy high school girl who uses her newly discovered telekinetic powers to exact revenge on those who tease her, causing one of the worst disasters in American history in the process. It is one of the most frequently banned books in US schools.

Goodreads review says: “This is one of those books where you’re just like, dude, how did you even come up with these thoughts? I mean, I think we take it all for granted now but honestly, this book is amazing. This novel was insane and fearless and obviously written by someone who had this story in him that needed to gush out like Carrie’s menstrual blood and crazy telekinetic angst. This is one of the books I think of when I get depressed about the idea of workshopped writing and the internal observing critic and all the rest of that limiting quality-control type stuff.”

9. Bag of Bones – score 3.79

Bag of Bones, published in 1998, focuses on an author who suffers severe writer’s block and delusions at an isolated lake house four years after the death of his wife. It’s a tale of grief and lost love’s enduring bonds, which went on to win the Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel.

Goodreads top review says “Don’t get me wrong, I love IT and The Stand and the Gunslinger septulogy, all the crazy outlandish horror and fantasy that is SK’s bread and butter. But I adore Bag of Bones and think it is one of his absolute best. It’s very intimate, very down to earth, with the supernatural downplayed.”

10. Pet Sematary – score – 3.77

Released in 1983, it was later made into a film of the same name. The original idea came in 1978 when King was teaching at the University of Maine at Orono, and his family rented a house on a busy road in Orrington. The road claimed the lives of a number of pets, and the neighborhood children created a pet cemetery in a field near the Kings’ home. King wrote the novel based on their experiences, but feeling he had gone too far with the subject matter of the book, it became the first novel he “put away”.

Goodreads top review says “The painful, hard thing about Stephen King’s writing is that so often, he takes something real, something that people can experience in the real world, and builds the supernatural stuff onto that. In The Shining, there’s Jack’s alcoholism; in The Talisman, there’s Jack/Jason’s mother’s cancer; The Stand plays on our fears of something, somewhere, in one of those labs, getting out of control; in Pet Sematary, it’s the death of a child. So much of the book is completely real and believable.”

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more mind-blowing coolness.

Tags: books, stephen king, Wise words, writing

Stephen King’s Top 20 Rules for Writers

In one of my favorite Stephen King interviews, for The Atlantic, he talks at length about the vital importance of a good opening line. “There are all sorts of theories,” he says, “it’s a tricky thing.” “But there’s one thing” he’s sure about: “An opening line should invite the reader to begin the story. It should say: Listen. Come in here. You want to know about this.” King’s discussion of opening lines is compelling because of his dual focus as an avid reader and a prodigious writer of fiction—he doesn’t lose sight of either perspective:

We’ve talked so much about the reader, but you can’t forget that the opening line is important to the writer, too. To the person who’s actually boots-on-the-ground. Because it’s not just the reader’s way in, it’s the writer’s way in also, and you’ve got to find a doorway that fits us both.

This is excellent advice. As you orient your reader, so you orient yourself, pointing your work in the direction it needs to go. Now King admits that he doesn’t think much about the opening line as he writes, in a first draft, at least. That perfectly crafted and inviting opening sentence is something that emerges in revision, which can be where the bulk of a writer’s work happens.

Revision in the second draft, “one of them, anyway,” may “necessitate some big changes” says King in his 2000 memoir slash writing guide On Writing. And yet, it is an essential process, and one that “hardly ever fails.” Below, we bring you King’s top twenty rules from On Writing. About half of these relate directly to revision. The other half cover the intangibles—attitude, discipline, work habits. A number of these suggestions reliably pop up in every writer’s guide. But quite a few of them were born of Stephen King’s many decades of trial and error and—writes the Barnes & Noble book blog—“over 350 million copies” sold, “like them or loathe them.”

1. First write for yourself, and then worry about the audience. “When you write a story, you’re telling yourself the story. When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story.”

2. Don’t use passive voice. “Timid writers like passive verbs for the same reason that timid lovers like passive partners. The passive voice is safe.”

3. Avoid adverbs. “The adverb is not your friend.”

4. Avoid adverbs, especially after “he said” and “she said.”

5. But don’t obsess over perfect grammar. “The object of fiction isn’t grammatical correctness but to make the reader welcome and then tell a story.”

6. The magic is in you. “I’m convinced that fear is at the root of most bad writing.”

7. Read, read, read. ”If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write.”

8. Don’t worry about making other people happy. “If you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered, anyway.”

9. Turn off the TV. “TV—while working out or anywhere else—really is about the last thing an aspiring writer needs.”

10. You have three months. “The first draft of a book—even a long one—should take no more than three months, the length of a season.”

 11. There are two secrets to success. “I stayed physical healthy, and I stayed married.”

12. Write one word at a time. “Whether it’s a vignette of a single page or an epic trilogy like ‘The Lord of the Rings,’ the work is always accomplished one word at a time.”

13. Eliminate distraction. “There’s should be no telephone in your writing room, certainly no TV or videogames for you to fool around with.”

14. Stick to your own style. “One cannot imitate a writer’s approach to a particular genre, no matter how simple what that writer is doing may seem.”

15. Dig. “Stories are relics, part of an undiscovered pre-existing world. The writer’s job is to use the tools in his or her toolbox to get as much of each one out of the ground intact as possible.”

16. Take a break. “You’ll find reading your book over after a six-week layoff to be a strange, often exhilarating experience.”

17. Leave out the boring parts and kill your darlings. “(kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.)”

18. The research shouldn’t overshadow the story. “Remember that word back. That’s where the research belongs: as far in the background and the back story as you can get it.”

19. You become a writer simply by reading and writing. “You learn best by reading a lot and writing a lot, and the most valuable lessons of all are the ones you teach yourself.”

20. Writing is about getting happy. “Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid or making friends. Writing is magic, as much as the water of life as any other creative art. The water is free. So drink.”

See a fuller exposition of King’s writing wisdom at Barnes & Noble’s blog.

VERY SPECIAL TAIL

R

VERY SPECIAL TAIL

Peter got up as soon as the alarm went off, put his slippers on and trudged to the shower. The hot water felt good on his tired skin, he rubbed voraciously lathering up bubbly foam from the last of the soap. He rubbed himself dry and looked in the mirror. He saw a vigorous pressed into the feather pillow, her brown hair spread around her neck. She looked peaceful. She sensed that he was leaving, and mumbled something about going out to dinner. In a louder voice she said as she was waking up, leaning on one elbow.
“Darling we’ve been together for two years. We need to celebrate?”
“Yes, let’s go to the restaurant in the Village,” he said while putting on a crisp blue shirt and cargo pants.
“I’ll get all dressed up in that blue silk dress you like me in and even wear high heels.”
“Will you be home on time? I need to make reservations.”
“For you in that dress of yours I’ll surely be ‘smack bang on time,’ as they say.”
“Who says that, Peter?”
He kissed her night breath and she lay back down in bed.
“I wish we could have breakfast together sometimes, Jane.” It was a light hint. She was as lazy as a sloth.
She ignored him and closed her eyes.
He shook his head and finished dressing. He pulled on his highly polished brown boots and crept out of the room. “That’s right,” he thought, “This is Tuesday and they would have sex tonight around ten o’clock.” After dinner, he began to get excited and pressed his erection down with the palm of his hand. Jane was good in bed and they had a satisfying sex life, but she was a lazy bitch, he thought.

He drove to work, leaving early because the roads were empty. His listened to jazz and classical. It was Tuesday, Pressure day. He needed classical. Schubert’s military marches would do. He drummed on the steering wheel while holding his potent cup of Starbucks coffee. He always performed well under pressure.
Today he had a presentation and he was well prepared. He worked for an advertising agency. He was pushing for a new line of baby food, and his presentation was perfect. He had worked on the project for a week, day and night to the point of exhaustion, making his fiancé unhappy. His boss put all her faith in him. They needed the account. Business had been slow and Ms. Finn was pressuring all the staff, 15 of them. Their jobs were on the line.

They had worked often late into the night pouring over his sketches, without being too obvious she had sat elbow to elbow with him as close as she could. She was a lonely woman, her good looks and out-going ness often were intimating. She liked Peter, his David Bowie look, androgynous; blond tall and lean with pale blue eyes. He was very sexy.
Oh man she thought he’s probably great in bed, I’ll let him know whatever way I can, and if he doesn’t catch on he’s not worth it!
Pete had a feeling that she had a “crush” on him. She did and deliberately hung around his office making lame excuses, that he could see right through. She was sexy, a tall slender woman with freckles green eyes and a long luxurious mane of red hair that tumbled down her pale shoulders. She often wore off-the-shoulder blouses, to show off her lovely skin. She knew she turned him on, although he never showed it, but there was that glint in his blue eyes that he couldn’t hide. She looked at him thinking, He doesn’t know how much I want him and I’ll do everything to get him.

“Our clients are arriving soon Pete, hope you are well prepared?”
“Yes Ms. Finn I think they’ll be impressed.” She patted him on the back, feeling the warmth of skin through his shirt. She wanted to keep her hand there but it would be too obvious. He knew it, he had known all along that she wanted him. She would take him on his desk if he gave her inkling, or a hint. She was not one to beg. She was the boss after all.
She is very sexy but I’d have to plan it, he thought.

The Japanese businessmen sat facing the screen as Pete turned on the projector. Their eyes barely blinked. They watched a bunch of babies feeding each other. Slopping around the delicious purees. Pete used his pointer to show the expressions on the messy babies faces. Their tight mouths loosened. They began to laugh, shaking Ms. Finn’s hand.
Thanking her and Pete for a great job. “We are sold, your idea is marvelous. The head businessman wrote a big check. They bowed and left.

Ms. Finn took Pete out to a deli for lunch to celebrate, and to come on to him. They feasted on corned beef on rye sandwiches, which, being Irish, was Ms. Finn’s favorite sandwich. As they ate kosher dill pickles. With a pop and a squirt, she asked him if he was still single.
“Yes Ms. Finn, I am, but I am engaged to be married.”
“Oh when?” She said, disappointment showing through her freckled face.
“April. I planned the date and the caterers and the band. My fiancé picked her wedding dress.”
“How nice. Congratulations,” she said with mounting disappointment, all the while thinking, I still want him, and I’ll have him.

After lunch they were back in their respective offices. His with a sailing theme, boats in bottles, pictures of old schooners, shipping maps and a buoy. Hers filled with Irish souvenirs, a shamrock coffee mug, a picture of her dad in a kilt playing the bagpipes and the family genealogy framed in a poster frame. It took the edge off their high-pressure jobs, giving them homely comforts. They thought of each other in their respective offices separated by a thin wall.

That evening when Pete returned home at precisely six o’clock Jane greeted him at the door with a hug and kiss.
“Hello darling. How was your day, Pete?”
“I landed that big account I was working on.”
“You were, how come you didn’t tell me?”
“Because you are not interested.”
“Don’t say that, Pete. I’m just preoccupied.”
“With what, Jane dear?”
“I have been working on the invitations.”
“You never ask me about work, you always seem to drift off. It’s hurtful.”
“I am not going to argue. Is this what it’s going to be like when we are married, Jane?”
“Sorry, Pete. I am so discombobulated , I don’t like my wedding dress at all.”
“So get another one. I have to change out of my uncomfortable clothes.”
‘What about the restaurant?”
“Sorry Jane, I just can’t. This week has been so hectic. I am wiped out. Please change the reservation. How about tomorrow?”
She stamped away with indignation.

Pete being an obsessive compulsive, he hurried and changed into his sweats. He went into the basement of their town house, and lifted weights, used his treadmill and finished up by riding five miles on the exercise bike. He felt he had overdone it as his lower back began to hurt. Walking up the stairs was painful, but he grinned and bore it. Jane was ready with one of her easy meals ready at the table. She hasn’t put much effort into this he thought. What does she do all day, while I bust my ass? Now I have really busted my ass, ouch it hurts.
They spoke not a word as he did the few dishes. And threw away the sectioned off cardboard TV dinner containers.
“I need to lie down my ass and back are throbbing.”
“How did that happen? Did you fuck Ms. Finn?”
“Shut your ugly mouth, Jane! I am afraid you.”

He went to the bedroom and changed into his pajamas, lay on the bed and switched on the TV. He couldn’t get comfortable.
“Jane,” he yelled, “are you coming to bed soon? I need you to rub my back.”
“I’ll be up soon dear, I’ll bring the rub.”
She came up a few hours later and found him in the fetal position fast asleep.

The following day Peter woke with severe lower back pain. As he showered he felt a lump on his tailbone.
They can’t fix a tailbone I’ll just have to grin and bear it. Jeez it hurts! He pecked Jane on the top of her head, and drove to work. This time he didn’t want the music on. The ride seemed interminably long, but he got to his office on time, as always. He shut the door to fester in his pain. He was unable to sit at his drawing board to work on an ad for children’s vitamins. This was to be of a cartoon kid and a cartoon mother and a bouncing vitamin. He preferred a drawing board than designing on a computer. He was old school.

As lunchtime came close, he was unable to sit anymore; the pain was dreadful. He paced up and down and angrily swatted a pile of papers off his desk. They fluttered all around. Then he threw a stapler against the wall.
There was a soft knock on his door.
“Are you alright?” Ms Finn said, opening his door. “What’s up? Are you okay?”
“I hurt myself on my exercise bike. My tailbone hurts like a bitch. I couldn’t sleep.”
“Let me look,” she said, approaching his desk.
He pulled out his shirt from his pants. She wants me and I can’t perform I am in pain.
She pulled his pants down a bit, bent him over his desk. She saw a red lump. It was pretty big. She gasped, “That doesn’t look good, Pete. You have a ginormous lump there. You’ve really hurt yourself. I’ll get some ice.”
“Thanks, Ms. Finn.” She looked concerned. So she really doesn’t want me. She looks worried. He waited, L-shaped over his desk feeling foolish. She returned fast carrying a bag of ice, and took him into the lounge and made him lie on his side.
“Keep it on until it melts.” She stroked his fine hair and left the room.

That evening he didn’t talk about his injury to Jane, her lack of concern shut him up. She took two Hungry Man dinners out of the microwave and gave him one.
“No more of these TV dinners, Jane. They are loaded with chemicals and salt. Since you’re home all day, can’t you cook, even if it’s simple?”
“I despise cooking. You know that, Pete.’
“Yup, I know all the things you don’t like. What do you like?”
“I like shopping…what are you getting at?”
“There are so many cards in your wallet, you’ll put us in the poor house even before we’re married.” He shifted around on the kitchen chair. She didn’t notice. She was thinking he was cruel and uncaring. And he didn’t care. It was becoming clear to him that maybe his love for her was fading, like old curtains.

In the shower the next day he cautiously felt, his tailbone was bigger. The lump was pliable and prickly. As soon as he got into work Ms. Finn asked him about his injury.
“It’s getting bigger and I am getting rather concerned,” he whispered. She looked at it again, going through the same routine as the day before.
“Jeez it’s so much bigger! You have to see a doctor.”
“They can’t fix a tailbone.” Pete was terrified about doctors. What if it’s a tumor? He turned pale.
“Pete, let’s go the hospital right now.”
“I don’t want to. What if I die?! What if I have some sort of tumor—cancer?’
She encouraged Peter to go home and rest.
“I can’t Jane doesn’t give a shit anyway.”
“Come home with me. I’ll take care of you.”

He reluctantly agreed. She drove slowly so as not to cause him pain. She owned a big Victorian house that was detailed in hues of green and mauve and touches of yellow.
She made them a steaming pot of tea. They talked for many hours about their lives. She told him she had been born and raised in Boston. She was one of a large group of Irish immigrants. She had many brothers and sisters and often couldn’t remember some of their names. He laughed at her stories, she told them so well.
“And you, tell me everything about yourself.” She sat next to him on the Victorian sofa with its wooden legs, and rubbed his shoulders “Thanks for being so caring, Ms. Finn.”
“Call me Jennifer,” she said. “Now it’s time to share your life with me.”
“Well,” he said, “I was raised in New York City. I am of Italian descent and I have three sisters. My Mom and Dad both love to cook. They make huge dinners—pasta, sausages, risotto, cheesecake. We eat with them every Sunday at the beginning of the month. It’s a lot of fun.”
“Talking about food, I think we must be both hungry. I made a stew yesterday. How about I heat it up, and we’ll eat some of my homemade biscuits?”
His stomach growled at the thought of real food, and nodded heartily. They feasted on the thick stew, buttering her homemade biscuits and drank wine.
“How do you feel now? Did the conversation, meal and wine help ease your pain?” She leaned over him and kissed him gently on his mouth.
“I have to call Jane, my fiancé, and tell her I will be very late, that I am loaded down with work.” He opened his cell phone to call, but Jennifer said,
“Wait a minute, stay the night, Pete. Tell her your car broke down or something.”
It was at that moment he knew something would happen. By God, did he want this beautiful woman! All his boundaries disappeared into a fog laced place in his heart. He put the thought of Jane aside as she led him upstairs to bed. They kissed and held each other for what seemed for hours. He couldn’t wait any more and slid down her pale beautiful skin making her moan as he went down on her. She took him inside her and he thrust hard and strong until they came panting together.
“Jennifer, that was incredible.” He said kissing her lips. He eased himself on  his side remembering his painful tailbone.
“That was incredible. Are you alright?” she asked.
“I think so,” he said, touching his back. Something had changed. He felt bristles sprouting from the lump, and suddenly he got terrified. He kept it to himself. He didn’t want to gross her out, and he was sure she would be.
The next morning they showered together. He soaped up her soft skin as they clung together under the steaming hot water. They did it hungrily like teenagers for the first time.
“Stay here today, Pete. The work can wait.”
“Let me check that lump again.”
“No. I’m fine,” he said.
She looked at him with curiosity. “What’s going on?” She felt his back and then withdrew her hand fast. “You’ve got bristles growing! What’s happening to you?”
“I don’t know. I’m scared.” He lay on her couch, nervous as a Jack Rabbit, while she went to the office.
“Call me if you need me.” She kissed him and left.

He called Jane not knowing what to tell her. She complained that she was in the middle of a show.
“Fuck you, Jane! You do nothing all day. Don’t you care where I was last night?”
“You said the car broke down.”
“It did and I had to stay in a motel.’
“I’ll be home later, we have to talk.”
“Is something wrong?
“I’ll tell you later.”

When Jennifer came home Pete had gone. He had left her a note.
Jennifer I have to go home and talk to Jane. Maybe I’ll see you later if that’s okay?
She sat at the table forlorn and read the newspaper. The time was passing slowly. She began to want him. She fell into an erotic trance and couldn’t shake it off.

Pete pulled into the garage nervously. He had to talk to Jane. She was standing before the microwave, her usual place. Her usual stance.
“I have something to tell you.” He spoke first in a whisper and then into a crescendo.
“Get away from that damn microwave and sit down. This is important.”
She walked slowly to the kitchen table, her pleasant face now somber.
He sat down too. His tailbone throbbed. “Jane, I have met someone else. Sorry, but you and I are not compatible, and you are a lazy b…..”
“What about the wedding? What about us?!” A tears slowly trickled down her face and she wiped them off with her sweater sleeve. “I hate you Pete! You’ve strung me along all this time, being engaged and all.” She wriggled off her ruby engagement ring and flung it at him. It made a tinny noise as it fell to the floor. She had doubted it was real gold and a real ruby. The light tinkle gave it away. “You fucking asshole, I hate you!” She yelled between tears.
“You don’t care about me, Jane. Yesterday I asked you to rub my tailbone and you never did it. I needed you, and you were in your own world of Woman’s Day, and Soap Opera Digest. I’m so outta here!” He packed up his clothes in the suitcase that was meant for their honeymoon and stormed out, wincing in pain as he went.

An hour later he was standing outside the Victorian house with its purple painted gables. He knocked on the yellow door.
Jennifer was expecting him. All her men came back around, but Pete was special; he was now her lover. The feelings were raw and untamed. There was also a growing tinge of love.
“I missed you at the office today, you seem to cheer everyone up. How is your tailbone?”
“I haven’t had time to look but it feels really strange. I broke off my engagement today.
Jennifer’s eyes widened. She had him now, all to herself. “Come on in Pete,” she said, not knowing how to process all the information.
She pulled off his gray trench coat, pulled down his pants and underwear, as if he was a little boy, and stared at the spot. “Pete, it’s longer. Reach behind you and feel it.
He was filled with dreaded fear as his hand slowly touched the raw area. “Oh my God!” He stopped for a minute; the words were stuck like bubble gum in his throat.
“It’s about a foot long, stubby, hard and furry. It’s brown,” she said excitedly. Her nipples turned into hard cherries, and there was dampness forming in her underwear. “Come on upstairs, Pete. You turn me on.”
She led him upstairs, and he kissed her hard and furiously, flicking his new tail across her wetness. He guided his splendid tail into her.
“I could get used to this,” she said. “Do you want to move in? We’ll have lots of babies’ smushing and smearing baby food all over the place!” She said at the moment of ecstasy.
“Yes, yes, I do.” He said proudly. “I love you, Ms. Finn.”
“I love you too, Peter.”
They both laughed.

ana christy

SOME OF THE BEST BOOKS EVER- The BBC Believes You Only Read 6 of These Books…

 

BBC Believes You Only Read 6 of These Books…

The BBC believes that most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books below. How many have you read?
(Tip: The average Goodreads member has read 23 out of 100 books on this list)
p.s: BBC didn’t make a declaration. The list is probably based on the average. Also, Narnia and Shakespeare are on the list twice but, they can be a freebie if you prefer 🙂

BELOW ARE SOME OF MY FAVORITE BOOKS-AS A CHILD I READ “OF MICE AND MEN” AND I MUST SAY IT’S MY MOST FAV, BOOK EVER.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2mGbJP/:1mzkK5gRo:Q+ho8GD@/www.listchallenges.com/kaunismina-bbc-6-books-challenge/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world

If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world.

After trying the verses, a Frenchman said he’d prefer six months of hard labour to reading six lines aloud.

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Fe0ffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

English Pronunciation by G. Nolst Trenité

ten amazing coincidences

http://i.imgur.com/FCgkqZi.jpg

Area Grandma Enjoys Flourishing Correspondence With Mailer-Daemon

Area Grandma Enjoys Flourishing Correspondence With Mailer-Daemon

News in Brief • Family • Local • Internet • ISSUE 50•04 • Jan 29, 2014

PALM BEACH GARDENS, FL—Saying it provides a pleasant and rewarding diversion from the quietness of living alone, local grandmother Rosemary Burke confirmed Wednesday that she has been enjoying a thriving correspondence with Mailer-Daemon. “Seeing a new message in my inbox is always the brightest part of my day,” said the 78-year-old of her frequent email conversations with the failed-delivery status notification, noting that she makes time nearly every afternoon to sit down at her computer, compose her thoughts, and continue the ongoing 14-month exchange. “It’s just so nice to have someone with whom I can talk about my life and discuss my health concerns. And I love sharing old stories and recipes, too. It’s such a delight.” Burke added that she had recently sent a message informing the server-generated non-delivery report of the recent passing of a close friend, and was comforted to receive an almost immediate response.

http://www.theonion.com

FRANK ZAPPA “THE TALKING ASSHOLE” FROM WILLIAM BURROUGHS

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/video/1DIz2Q

A POPE WROTE A DIRTY BOOK (NOTHING SURPRISES ME ANYMORE!)

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/video/1nJk0s

SEVEN TIPS ON HOW TO WRITE-ERNEST HEMINGWAY

Seven Tips From Ernest Hemingway on How to…   openculture.com