Stephen King Books in Order (The Dark Tower, It, Carrie, The Shining, Billy Summers, Later…)

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Don’t you already know? Stephen King is one of the most famous authors in the world, the “King of Horror” who has sold more than 350 million copies. He already wrote more than 60 novels (and 200 short stories), and many have been adapted into films, television series, miniseries, and comic books.

Born in Portland, Maine, Stephen Edwin King began writing for fun while still in school and started publishing his stories in fanzines. He sold his first professional short story, “The Glass Floor,” to Startling Mystery Stories in 1967.

King’s fourth novel was the first to be published, Carrie, in 1973. It was the beginning of a prolific career in horror. As his popularity grew, King published more novels that became classics but also started to venture in new directions. He explored new genres and wrote comics and movies.

How to read Stephen King’s Books in Order?

There’s a lot to cover. I could decide for a while the best way to cover everything properly. I decided to provide different approaches.

1. Stephen King’s Novels & Novellas in publication order
2. Stephen King’s Series in Order
3. Stephen King’s Collections of Short Stories and Novellas
4. Stephen King’s Non-Fiction books

P.S.: we’ve also got a reading order dedicated to Holly Gibney.

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I. Stephen King’s novels & novellas in publication order

1. Carrie (1974) – Carrie White may be picked on by her classmates, but she has a gift. She can move things with her mind. Doors lock. Candles fall. This is her power and her problem. Then, an act of kindness, as spontaneous as the vicious taunts of her classmates, offers Carrie a chance to be a normal…until an unexpected cruelty turns her gift into a weapon of horror and destruction that no one will ever forget.
2. Salem’s Lot (1975) – Ben Mears has returned to Jerusalem’s Lot in hopes that exploring the history of the Marsten House, an old mansion long the subject of rumor and speculation, will help him cast out his personal devils and provide inspiration for his new book. But when two young boys venture into the woods, and only one returns alive, Mears begins to realize that something sinister is at work-in fact, his hometown is under siege from forces of darkness far beyond his imagination. And only he, with a small group of allies, can hope to contain the evil that is growing within the borders of this small New England town.
3. Rage (as Richard Bachman, 1976) – A disturbed high-school student with authority problems kills one of his teachers and takes the rest of his class hostage. Over the course of one long, tense and unbearable hot afternoon, Charlie Decker explains what led him to this drastic sequence of events, while at the same time deconstructing the personalities of his classmates, forcing each one to justify his or her existence.
4. The Shining (1977) – Jack Torrance, his wife Wendy, and their young son Danny move into the Overlook Hotel, where Jack has been hired as the winter caretaker. Cut off from civilization for months, Jack hopes to battle alcoholism and uncontrolled rage while writing a play. Evil forces residing in the Overlook – which has a long and violent history – covet young Danny for his precognitive powers and exploit Jack’s weaknesses to try to claim the boy.

5. The Stand (1978) – One man escapes from a biological weapon facility after an accident, carrying with him the deadly virus known as Captain Tripps, a rapidly mutating flu that – in the ensuing weeks – wipes out most of the world’s population. In the aftermath, survivors choose between following an elderly black woman to Boulder or the dark man, Randall Flagg, who has set up his command post in Las Vegas. The two factions prepare for a confrontation between the forces of good and evil.
6. The Long Walk (as Richard Bachman, 1978) – In the near future, where America has become a police state, one hundred boys are selected to enter an annual contest where the winner will be awarded whatever he wants for the rest of his life. The game is simple – maintain a steady walking pace of four miles per hour without stopping. Three warnings, and you’re out – permanently.
7. The Dead Zone (1979) – Waking up from a five-year coma after a car accident, former schoolteacher Johnny Smith discovers that he can see people’s futures and pasts when he touches them. Many consider his talent a gift; Johnny feels cursed. His fiance married another man during his coma and people clamor for him to solve their problems. When Johnny has a disturbing vision after he shakes the hand of an ambitious and amoral politician, he must decide if he should take drastic action to change the future.
8. The Mist (Novella, 1980) – David Drayton, his son Billy, and their neighbor Brent Norton head to the local grocery store to replenish supplies following a freak storm. Once there, they and other local citizens are trapped by a strange mist that has enveloped the town and in which strange creatures are lurking. As the mist takes its toll on the nerves of those trapped in the store, a religious zealot, Mrs. Carmody begins to play on their fears to convince them that this is God’s vengeance for their sins and that a sacrifice must be made and two groups-those for and those against-are aligned.

9. Firestarter (1980) – The Department of Scientific Intelligence (aka “The Shop”) never anticipated that two participants in their research program would marry and have a child. Charlie McGee inherited pyrokinetic powers from her parents, who had been given a low-grade hallucinogen called “Lot Six” while at college. Now the government is trying to capture young Charlie and harness her powerful firestarting skills as a weapon.
10. Roadwork (as Richard Bachman, 1980) – Barton Dawes’ unremarkable but comfortable existence suddenly takes a turn for the worst. Highway construction puts him out of work and simultaneously forces him out of his home. Dawes isn’t the sort of man who will take an insult of this magnitude lying down. His single-minded determination to fight the inevitable course of progress drives his wife and friends away while he tries to face down the uncaring bureaucracy that has destroyed his once comfortable life.
11. Cujo (1981) – The Cambers’ once-friendly St. Bernard turns into a killer after being bitten by a rabid bat. Donna Trenton’s husband is in New York trying to contain a disastrous ad campaign. Feeling abandoned by her workaholic husband, who is frequently out of town, Donna Trenton embarks on an affair with a local handyman. Left to fend for herself, she takes her ailing Pinto to Joe Cambers’ garage for repairs only to be trapped with her son Tad in the sweltering car by the monstrous dog.
12. The Running Man (as Richard Bachman, 1981) – It is 2025 and reality TV has progressed to the point where people are willing to wager their lives in exchange for a chance at enormous wealth. Ben Richards is desperate – he needs money to treat his daughter’s illness. His last chance is entering a game show called The Running Man where the objective is to elude police and specially trained trackers for a month. The reward is a cool billion dollars. The catch is that everyone else on the planet is watching and willing to turn him in for a reward.

13. The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger (1982) – Roland of Gilead: The Last Gunslinger. He is a haunting figure, a loner on a spellbinding journey into good and evil. In his desolate world, which mirrors our own in frightening ways, Roland tracks The Man in Black, encounters an enticing woman named Alice, and begins a friendship with the boy from New York named Jake.
14. Apt Pupil (Novella in Different Seasons, 1982) – Todd Bowden is an apt pupil. Good grades, good family, a paper route. But he is about to meet a different kind of teacher, Mr. Dussander, and to learn all about Dussander’s dark and deadly past…a decades-old manhunt Dussander has escaped to this day. Yet Todd doesn’t want to turn his teacher in. Todd wants to know more. Much more. He is about to face his fears and learn the real meaning of power-and the seductive lure of evil.
15. The Body (Novella in Different Seasons, 1982) – It’s 1960 in the town of Castle Rock, Maine. Ray Brower, a boy from a nearby town, has disappeared, and twelve-year-old Gordie Lachance and his three friends set out on a quest to find his body along the railroad tracks. During the course of their journey, Gordie, Chris Chambers, Teddy Duchamp, and Vern Tessio come to terms with death and the harsh truths of growing up in a small factory town that doesn’t offer much in the way of a future.
16. The Breathing Method (Novella in Different Seasons, 1982) – A tale told in a strange club about a woman determined to give birth. No matter what.

17. Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption (Novella in Different Seasons, 1982) – In 1947, in Maine, Andy Dufresne, a banker, is tried and convicted for the double murder of his wife and her lover, despite his claims of innocence. He is sent to Shawshank State Penitentiary to serve a double life sentence. There, he meets Red, a prisoner who smuggles items from the outside world. Andy asks Red to get him a rock hammer for shaping rocks he collects from the exercise yard into small sculptures. He later requests a large poster of Rita Hayworth, that he hangs on the wall above his bed.
18. Christine (1983) – Evil is alive in Libertyville. It inhabits a custom-painted red and white 1958 Plymouth Fury named Christine and young Arnold Cunningham, who buys it. Along with Arnold’s girlfriend, Leigh Cabot, Dennis Guilder attempts to find out the real truth behind Christine and finds more than he bargained for: from murder to suicide, there’s a peculiar feeling that surrounds Christine-she gets revenge on anyone standing in her path.
19. Pet Sematary (1983) – The road in front of Dr. Louis Creed’s rural Maine home frequently claims the lives of neighborhood pets. Louis has recently moved from Chicago to Ludlow with his wife Rachel, their children and pet cat. Near their house, local children have created a cemetery for the dogs and cats killed by the steady stream of transports on the busy highway. Deeper in the woods lies another graveyard, an ancient Indian burial ground whose sinister properties Louis discovers when the family cat is killed.
20. The Talisman (1984) – Twelve-year-old Jack Sawyer embarks on an epic quest–a walk from the seacoast of New Hampshire to the California coast–to find the talisman that will save his dying mother’s life. Jack’s journey takes him into the Territories, a parallel medieval universe, where most people from his own universe have analogs called “twinners.” The queen of the Territories, Jack’s mother’s twinner, is also dying.

21. Thinner (as Richard Bachman, 1984) – Billy Halleck commits vehicular homicide when his lack of attention to driving results in the death of an old lady on the street. Overweight Halleck is a lawyer with connections, though, and gets off with a slap on the wrist. After his trial, a gypsy curses him with a single word, “Thinner.” Halleck begins to lose weight uncontrollably and must pursue the band of gypsies who are responsible for his dwindling condition.
22. Cycle of the Werewolf (1985) – A werewolf is stalking Tarker’s Mills and only young, wheelchair-bound Marty Coslaw suspects the truth. He enlists the help of his black sheep uncle to identify the shape shifter and destroy him.
23. IT (1986) – A promise made twenty-eight years ago calls seven adults to reunite in Derry, Maine, where as teenagers they battled an evil creature that preyed on the city’s children. Unsure that their Losers Club had vanquished the creature all those years ago, the seven had vowed to return to Derry if IT should ever reappear. Now, children are being murdered again and their repressed memories of that summer return as they prepare to do battle with the monster lurking in Derry’s sewers once more.
24. The Eyes of the Dragon (1987) – Once upon a time, in the Kingdom of Delain, King Roland is murdered and his son and heir, Peter, is framed for the crime. Peter and his loyal friends must battle an evil wizard and Peter’s usurper brother, Thomas, for the throne. Imprisoned in a tower, Peter conceives an escape plan that will take him years to execute before taking on Flagg, the powerful sorcerer who has masterminded this coup.

25. The Dark Tower: The Drawing of the Three (1987) – Part II of an epic saga. Roland, the last gunslinger, encounters three mysterious doorways on the beach. Each one enters into a different person living in New York. Through these doorways, Roland draws the companions who will assist him on his quest to save the Dark Tower.
26. Misery (1987) – Novelist Paul Sheldon has plans to make the difficult transition from writing historical romances featuring heroine Misery Chastain to publishing literary fiction. Annie Wilkes, Sheldon’s number one fan, rescues the author from the scene of a car accident. The former nurse takes care of him in her remote house, but becomes irate when she discovers that the author has killed Misery off in his latest book. Annie keeps Sheldon prisoner while forcing him to write a book that brings Misery back to life.
27. The Tommyknockers (1987) – Writer Bobbi Anderson becomes obsessed with digging up something she’s found buried in the woods near her home. With the help of her friend, Jim Gardener, she uncovers an alien spaceship. Though exposure to the Tommyknockers who piloted the alien craft has detrimental effects on residents’ health, the people of Haven develop a talent for creating innovative devices under its increasingly malignant influence.
28. The Dark Half (1989) – For years, Thad Beaumont has been writing books under the pseudonym George Stark. When a journalist threatens to expose Beaumont’s pen name, the author decides to go public first, killing off his pseudonym. Stark isn’t content to be dispatched that easily, though. Beaumont’s alter ego comes to life and begins to stalk those responsible for his demise. The police suspect Beaumont is responsible for these violent crimes.

29. The Langoliers (Novella, 1990) – A group of travelers on a red-eye flight from California to Maine wake up to discover that most of their fellow passengers have vanished mid-flight, along with the pilots and flight attendants.
30. The Library Policeman (Novella, 1990) – When a man forgets to return some books he borrowed from the library while writing a speech, and later accidentally destroys them, the phantom librarian who lent him the books sends the library policemen to terrorize him
31. Secret Window, Secret Garden (Novella, 1990) – A man accuses author Mort Rainey of stealing one of his story ideas. Rainey, who is going through an ugly divorce, attempts to prove to his accuser that his own story was published first, but all evidence to support his argument begins to disappear, along with the people who might confirm his case.
32. The Sun Dog (Novella, 1990) – A young boy receives a Polaroid camera for his birthday. There’s something wrong with his gift, though. Every picture features a menacing dog that approaches the foreground in each subsequent photograph.

Those four novellas were originally collected in the Four Past Midnight collection.

33. The Dark Tower: The Waste Lands (1991) – Roland and his companions, Eddie and Susannah Dean, find the Path of the Beam that will lead them to the Dark Tower. Along the way, Roland adds two new members to his ka-tet (a group united for a specific purpose). In the decaying city of Lud, they encounter new dangers, including a sentient train that has gone insane.
34. Needful Things (1991) – Leland Gaunt opens a new shop in Castle Rock called Needful Things. Anyone who enters his store finds the object of his or her lifelong dreams and desires: a prized baseball card, a healing amulet. In addition to a token payment, Gaunt requests that each person perform a little “deed,” usually a seemingly innocent prank played on someone else from town. These practical jokes cascade out of control and soon the entire town is doing battle with itself.
35. Gerald’s Game (1992) – Gerald and Jessie Burlingame have gone to their summer home on a warm weekday in October for a romantic interlude. After being handcuffed to her bedposts, Jessie tires of her husband’s games, but when Gerald refuses to stop she lashes out at him with deadly consequences. Still handcuffed, she is trapped and alone. As night comes, she is unsure whether it is her imagination or if she has another companion: someone watching her from the corner of her dark bedroom.
36. Dolores Claiborne (1993) – Suspected of killing Vera Donovan, her wealthy employer, Dolores Claiborne tells police the story of her life, harkening back to her disintegrating marriage and the suspicious death of her violent husband, Joe St. George, thirty years earlier. Dolores also tells of Vera’s physical and mental decline and of her loyalty to an employer who has become emotionally demanding in recent years.

37. Insomnia (1994) – Since his wife died, Ralph Roberts has been having trouble sleeping. Each night he awakens a little earlier until he’s barely sleeping at all. During his late night vigils and walks, he observes some strange things going on in Derry, Maine. He sees colored ribbons streaming from people’s heads. He witnesses two strange little men wandering the city under cover of night. He begins to suspect that these visions are something more than hallucinations brought about by sleep deprivation. Ralph and his friend, widow Lois Chasse, become enmeshed in events of cosmic significance.
38. Blind Willie (Novella in Hearts in Atlantis, 1994) – This story tells of a man who pretends to be blind and makes his living panhandling on the streets of New York. In the past, bribing the police has kept him from being arrested but he has finally met one who may not take money for an answer.
39. Rose Madder (1995) – Rosie Daniels flees from her husband, Norman after fourteen years in an abusive marriage. During one bout of violence, Norman caused Rosie to miscarry their only child. Escaping to a distant city, Rosie establishes a new life and forges new relationships. Norman Daniels, a police officer with a reputation for cruelty, uses his law-enforcement connections to track his wayward wife.
40. The Regulators (as Richard Bachman, 1995) – The peaceful suburban life on Poplar Street in Wentworth, Ohio is shattered one fine day when four vans containing shotgun-wielding “regulators” terrorize the street’s residents, cold-bloodedly killing anyone foolish enough to venture outdoors. Houses mysteriously transform into log cabins and the street now ends in what looks like a child’s hand-drawn western landscape. Masterminding this sudden onslaught is the evil creature Tak, who has taken over the body of an autistic boy whose parents were killed in a drive-by shooting several months earlier.

41. The Green Mile: The Two Dead Girls (1996) – The story is told by former prison guard, Paul Edgecombe, of events in Cold Mountain penitentiary during 1932 when an unusual inmate by the name of John Coffey is brought to the prison. He and his fellow guards are assigned to watch inmates on death row, known as The Green Mile. John Coffey has been convicted of murdering two young girls and sentenced to death but there’s something about him that makes Paul question whether this man could have committed that crime.
42. The Green Mile: The Mouse on the Mile (1996) – The story continues with the addition of two new characters, one a new death row inmate–William “Wild Bill” Wharton. The other, a mouse, called Steamboat Willy by the guards who first noticed him and later Mr. Jingles by Eduard Delacroix, one of the death row inmates who takes in the mouse and makes him his pet.
43. The Green Mile: Coffey’s Hands (1996) – Paul Edgecombe has been suffering with a bladder infection for some time that hasn’t cleared. It is in this book that Paul discovers that John Coffey can heal with his touch. Eduard Delacroix has been teaching Mr. Jingles tricks and is quite attached to the mouse–almost as much as guard Percy Wetmore despises it.
44. The Green Mile: The Bad Death of Eduard Delacroix (1996) – It is time for the execution of Eduard Delacroix and is Percy Wetmore’s first opportunity to participate in an execution. In this book we learn to what lengths Percy will go to get revenge on Eduard for having laughed at him.

All 6 books of The Green Mile are now collected in one big volume.

45. The Green Mile: Night Journey (1996) – Prison Warden Hal Moores and his wife Melinda have also been Paul and Janice Edgecombe’s friends. When Paul learns that Melinda has a brain tumor, he decides to help but knows that the warden would never allow John Coffey to leave the prison and, obviously, Melinda could not go there. He and the other guards from E Block take on a dangerous plan to spirit Coffey out during the night risking their jobs–not something to take lightly in 1932–and possibly their lives.
46. The Green Mile: Coffey on the Mile (1996) – The final chapter in this six-part novel tells us of John Coffey’s fate. The story also brings us to the present day story of Paul Edgecombe and learn of the consequences of his actions during his time on E Block with John Coffey.
47. Desperation (1996) – Located off a desolate stretch of Interstate 50, Desperation, Nevada has few connections with the rest of the world. It is a place, though, where the seams between worlds are thin. Miners at the China Pit have accidentally broken into another dimension and released a horrific creature known as Tak, who takes human form by hijacking some of the town’s residents. The forces of good orchestrate a confrontation between this ancient evil and a group of unsuspecting travelers who are lured to the dying town. This rag-tag band of unwilling champions is led by a young boy who speaks to God.
48. The Dark Tower: Wizard and Glass (1997) – Roland the Gunslinger and his followers have to contend with a sentient monorail intent on killing itself and taking them with it. While seeking to return to the Path of the Beam that will lead them to the Dark Tower, Roland tells his friends a story about the tragic loss of his first love, Susan Delgado.

49. Bag of Bones (1998) – Several years after his wife’s death, novelist Mike Noonan still suffers writer’s block. A dream inspires him to return to the couple’s summer retreat in western Maine, a lakeside house called Sara Laughs. Shortly after arriving, Noonan is caught in the middle of a custody battle involving the daughter of an attractive young widow and the child’s enormously wealthy grandfather. He also discovers that Sara Laughs is haunted and that his late wife, Joanna, still has something to tell him.
50. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (1999) – Nine-year-old Trisha McFarland strays from the path while she and her recently divorced mother and brother take a hike along a branch of the Appalachian Trail. Lost for days, wandering farther and farther astray, Trisha has only her portable radio for comfort. A huge fan of Tom Gordon, a Boston Red Sox relief pitcher, she listens to baseball games and fantasizes that her hero will save her. Nature isn’t her only adversary, though – something dangerous may be tracking Trisha through the dark woods.
51. Hearts in Atlantis (Novella, 1999) – It’s 1966 and the height of the Vietnam War when Pete Riley first comes to the University of Maine. Uppermost on the minds of many young men at that time is the draft. and maintaining their grade point average so that they would not be called by Selective Service. Despite this threat, a group becomes obsessed with a game called Hearts which puts them in danger of losing their deferred status as they neglect their studies. The story follows them during their first year and tells of how Pete Riley meets and falls in love with Carol Gerber who first appeared in “Low Men in Yellow Coats.”
52. Heavenly Shades of Night Are Falling (Novella in Hearts in Atlantis, 1999) – The conclusion to Hearts in Atlantis brings Bobby Garfield back to the house on Broad Street where he first met Ted Brautigan. It’s been a hard life for Bobby since he left nearly 40 years before. The mystery is how circumstances conspired to bring him back to meet someone he thought he would never see again.
53. Low Men in Yellow Coats (Novella in Hearts in Atlantis, 1999) – Bobby Garfield befriends an elderly gentleman, Ted Brautigan, who moves into the boarding house where he and his mother have lived since his father’s death. During the summer that follows, his friendship with Ted grows as he spends time reading the newspaper to him and is hired to be on the lookout for any signs for lost animals or strange cars that may be in the neighborhood. Although he and his best friends, Carol Gerber and John “Sully” Sullivan begin to see these strange signs, Bobby neglects to tell Ted with dire consequences.
54. Why We’re in Vietnam (Novella in Hearts in Atlantis, 1999) – It’s 1999 and we are reunited with John “Sully” Sullivan from “Low Men in Yellow Coats” who is remembering events and people from his past as he attends the funeral of one of his comrades from his troop in Vietnam.
55. Dreamcatcher (2001) – Four lifelong friends gather in the woods of western Maine for their annual hunting trip. When they were young, they were bound together forever by an act of bravery involving a fifth friend, whose influence has given these men special powers. Their trip is disrupted when a stranger, disoriented and delirious, wanders into camp, muttering about light in the sky. Before long, the friends find themselves pitted against an alien invasion and must draw on their old friend’s strength once again to fight for their lives.

56. Black House (2001) – In this sequel to The Talisman, Jack Sawyer is now in his late thirties and has taken early retirement from the LAPD, retreating to a small town in Wisconsin. He has no memory of his adventures as a twelve-year-old boy. A series of murders involving young children force him out of retirement. There is more to these cases than murder, though, and Jack must retrieve his childhood memories to rescue the latest victim, who is coveted by the killer’s evil overlord, a powerful force from End-World, in Roland the gunslinger’s universe.
57. From A Buick 8 (2002) – Shortly after his father, a Pennsylvania state trooper, is killed in a senseless automobile accident, Ned Wilcox discovers that the members of Troop D have a secret concealed behind their headquarters. Curtis Wilcox’s friends and colleagues take turns relating the twenty-year history of the mysterious Buick Roadmaster locked in Shed B and how its discovery and unexplained behavior have captivated the tightly knit group of men for two decades.
58. The Dark Tower: Wolves of the Calla (2003) – After escaping the perilous wreckage of Blaine the insane Mono and eluding the evil clutches of the vindictive sorcerer Randall Flagg, Roland and his ka-tet find themselves back on the southeasterly path of the Beam. Here, in the borderlands that lie between Mid-World and End-World, Roland and his friends are approached by a frightened band of representatives from the nearby town of Calla Bryn Sturgis. In less than a month, the Calla will be attacked by the Wolves.
59. The Dark Tower: Song of Susannah (2004) – Susannah, now pregnant, has yet another taking control of her. The demon-mother, Mia, uses Susannah and Black Thirteen to transport to New York City of 1999. Jake, Oy, and Pere Callahan must rescue Susannah while Eddie and Roland transport to the Maine of 1977. A vacant lot in New York is the prize that must be saved and ties these together.

60. The Dark Tower (2004) – Roland’s ka-tet is reunited, but not without cost. The last episode of the story takes them on the final stretch of their journey to The Dark Tower. Though they have rescued Susannah, there are still enemies who must be dealt with along the way and who could be their ultimate destruction.
61. The Colorado Kid (2005) – Vince Teague and Dave Bowie are the sole operators of The Weekly Islander, a small Maine newspaper. Stephanie McCann has been working for them as an intern. When Stephanie asks if they’ve ever come across a real unexplained mystery in the fifty years they’d been publishing the paper, they tell her the story of The Colorado Kid.
62. Cell (2006) – Artist Clayton Riddell had been in Boston negotiating a successful deal to sell his comic book project. His joy at finally hitting it big is shattered by an event called The Pulse which causes all those who were using their cell phones at the time of The Pulse to become zombies attacking and killing anyone in their way. Fortunately for Clay, he does not own a cell phone. In the panic to get out of Boston and find his way home to his wife and son in Maine, he is joined by Tom McCourt, a man he meets in the meleé immediately following The Pulse and a young girl, Alice, who they rescue from being killed by one of the “crazies.”
63. Lisey’s Story (2006) – Two years after her husband’s death, Lisey Landon decides it’s time to go through his office to clear out his papers. Scott Landon was a bestselling novelist and Lisey has been besieged by people wanting to buy any of his unpublished work but she is determined not to let that happen. As she begins the process of cleaning, she is contacted by an unsavory character who claims that if she does not turn over the papers, he will make her suffer the consequences. Finding strength she did not know she had and never used during their marriage, Lisey refuses, and true to his word, “Zack McCool” begins to stalk her. Lisey begins to remember strange events from her marriage that she had suppressed and finds clues that may help save her life.

64. Blaze (as Richard Bachman, 2006) – Clayton Blaisdell, Jr., a/k/a Blaze, has had a hard life which led him to petty criminal activities. Even though his partner, George Rackley, died three months before, Blaze is still hearing his instructions for pulling off one more scheme–the kidnapping of an infant whose parents are millionaires. The story tells of the attachment Blaze forms for baby Joe as he remembers his own childhood–one that was much different than the one baby Joe will have.
65. Duma Key (2008) – After a construction accident in which he loses his right arm and his divorce, Edgar Freemantle moves from Minnesota to Florida to begin what his psychiatrist described as a “geographic cure.” He rediscovers his love of painting and finds that he is good at it but his paintings seem to have something “more” to them. On Duma Key he also finds a new friendship with Wireman, a kindred spirit seeking refuge there as a caretaker for Elizabeth Eastlake. Elizabeth’s past also contains painful memories that have been reawakened bringing all of them together to face an evil entity named Perse.
66. A Very Tight Place (Novella in Just After Sunset, 2008) – Thinking that he is meeting for a resolution of an ongoing legal dispute, Curtis Johnson is lured to a deserted construction site by his neighbor, Tim Grunwald, whose electric fences caused the death of Johnson’s beloved dog Betsy. The meeting does not go as either Johnson or Grunwald had hoped.
67. N (Novella in Just After Sunset, 2008) – A woman named Sheila writes to her childhood friend Charlie about her brother, Johnny, a psychiatrist who recently committed suicide. Sheila suspects it was due to a patient Johnny referred to in his notes anonymously as the eponymous “N”…

68. UR (Novella, 2009) – Following a nasty break-up, lovelorn college English instructor Wesley Smith can’t seem to get his ex-girlfriend’s parting shot out of his head: “Why can’t you just read off the computer like the rest of us?” Egged on by her question and piqued by a student’s suggestion, Wesley places an order for Amazon.com’s Kindle eReader. The [pink?] device that arrives in a box stamped with the smile logo – via one-day delivery that he hadn’t requested – unlocks a literary world that even the most avid of book lovers could never imagine.
69. Under the Dome (2009) – On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day in Chester’s Mill, Maine, the town is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. Planes crash into it and fall from the sky in flaming wreckage, a gardener’s hand is severed as “the dome” comes down on it, people running errands in the neighboring town are divided from their families, and cars explode on impact. No one can fathom what this barrier is, where it came from, and when-or if-it will go away.
70. Blockade Billy (Novella, 2010) – William “Blockade Billy” Blakely may have been the greatest baseball player the game has ever seen, but today no one remembers his name. He was the first–and only–player to have his existence completely removed from the record books. Every effort was made to erase any evidence William Blakely played professional baseball, and with good reason. Blockade Billy had a secret darker than any pill or injection that might cause a scandal in sports today. His secret was much, much worse.
71. 11/22/63 (2011) – Jake Epping is a thirty-five-year-old high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine. His 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.

72. The Dark Tower: The Wind Through the Keyhole (2012) – We join Roland and his ka-tet as a ferocious storm halts their progress along the Path of the Beam. As they shelter from the screaming wind and snapping trees, Roland tells them not just one strange tale, but two–and in doing so sheds fascinating light on his own troubled past.
73. Joyland (2013) – After realizing his romantic life is not going in the direction he’d hoped, Devin Jones decides to take a summer job at an amusement park. There he makes friends with Tom Kennedy and Erin Cook, also summer hires at Joyland, which years before had been the scene of the murder of a young woman named Linda Gray whose ghost is said to be seen at the Horror House. He also befriends a young boy, named Mike Ross and his mother, Annie. Their lives all become entwined when Devin decides to investigate the mystery of Linda Gray’s unsolved murder by the “Carny Killer.”
74. Doctor Sleep (2013) – Haunted by the inhabitants of the Overlook Hotel where he spent one horrific childhood year, Dan has been drifting for decades, desperate to shed his father’s legacy of despair, alcoholism, and violence. Finally, he settles in a New Hampshire town, an AA community that sustains him, and a job at a nursing home where his remnant “shining” power provides the crucial final comfort to the dying. Aided by a prescient cat, he becomes “Doctor Sleep.”
75. Mr. Mercedes (2014) – In the frigid pre-dawn hours, in a distressed Midwestern city, hundreds of desperate unemployed folks are lined up for a spot at a job fair. Without warning, a lone driver plows through the crowd in a stolen Mercedes, running over the innocent, backing up, and charging again. Eight people are killed; fifteen are wounded. The killer escapes.

76. Revival (2014) – 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.
77. Finders Keepers (2015) – John Rothstein, an iconic author who created a famous character, Jimmy Gold, but who hasn’t published a book for decades. Morris Bellamy is livid, not just because Rothstein has stopped providing books, but because the nonconformist Jimmy Gold has sold out for a career in advertising. Morris kills Rothstein and empties his safe of cash, yes, but the real treasure is a trove of notebooks containing at least one more Gold novel.
78. End of Watch (2016) – Retired police detective Bill Hodges and his partner, Holly Gibney are called to a murder-suicide with ties to the Mercedes Massacre, they find themselves pulled into their most dangerous case yet, one that will put not only their lives at risk but those of Hodges’s friend Jerome Robinson and his teenage sister, Barbara. Because Brady Hartsfield is back and planning revenge not just on Bill Hodges and his friends, but on an entire city.
79. Gwendy’s Button Box (Novella, 2017) – The little town of Castle Rock, Maine has witnessed some strange events and unusual visitors over the years, but there is one story that has never been told… until now.

80. Sleeping Beauties (2017) – In a future so real and near it might be now, something happens when women go to sleep; they become shrouded in a cocoon-like gauze. If they are awakened, if the gauze wrapping their bodies is disturbed or violated, the women become feral and spectacularly violent; and while they sleep they go to another place…
81. The Outsider (2018) – 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.
82. Elevation (Novella, 2018) – In the small town of Castle Rock, Scott Carey is engaged in a low grade – but escalating – battle with the lesbians next door whose dog regularly drops his business on Scott’s lawn. One of the women is friendly; the other, cold as ice. Both are trying to launch a new restaurant, but the people of Castle Rock want no part of a gay married couple, and the place is in trouble. When Scott finally understands the prejudices they face – including his own – he tries to help.
83. The Institute (2019) – In the middle of the night, in a house on a quiet street in suburban Minneapolis, intruders silently murder Luke Ellis’s parents and load him into a black SUV. The operation takes less than two minutes. Luke will wake up at The Institute, in a room that looks just like his own, except there’s no window. And outside his door are other doors, behind which are other kids with special talents-telekinesis and telepathy-who got to this place the same way Luke did: Kalisha, Nick, George, Iris, and ten-year-old Avery Dixon. They are all in Front Half. Others, Luke learns, graduated to Back Half, “like the roach motel,” Kalisha says. “You check in, but you don’t check out.”

84. Gwendy’s Magic Feather (2020) – One day, the button box suddenly reappears but this time, without Richard Farris to explain why, or what Gwendy’s supposed to do with it. Between this and the troubling disappearances back in Castle Rock, Gwendy decides to return home. She just might be able to help rescue the missing girls and stop a dangerous madman before he does something ghastly.
85. If It Bleeds (Novella in If It Bleeds, 2020) – Holly Gibney investigates a horrific school bombing in Pennsylvania and a TV newsman who has an uncanny knack for covering major tragedies.
86. The Life of Chuck (Novella in If It Bleeds, 2020) – The Life of Chuck is three separate stories linked to tell the biography of Charles Krantz in reverse, beginning with his death from a brain tumor at 39 and ending with his childhood in a supposedly haunted house.
87. Mr. Harrigan’s Phone (Novella in If It Bleeds, 2020) – Craig is a youngster in a small Maine town hired by a rich old businessman to read and do the odd chore after he retires. After winning some cash off a lottery scratcher gifted by Mr. Harrigan, the kid buys his friend an iPhone. The device gets buried with Mr. Harrigan when he dies, though communication continues beyond the grave in a chilling fashion.
88. Rat (Novella in If It Bleeds, 2020) – Drew Larson, a writer of an acclaimed short story, has given himself over to academia because every time he tries to turn a good idea into a novel, things go seriously bad – mentally, physically or both. But his latest concept, a Western thriller, is gangbusters, and he goes out to an old family cabin in the woods to get the novel done. When storms, insecurities and sickness hit, Drew strikes a sinister bargain with a rodent.
89. Later (2021) – The son of a struggling single mother, Jamie Conklin just wants an ordinary childhood. But Jamie is no ordinary child. Born with an unnatural ability his mom urges him to keep a secret, Jamie can see what no one else can see and learn what no one else can learn. But the cost of using this ability is higher than Jamie can imagine-as he discovers when an NYPD detective draws him into the pursuit of a killer who has threatened to strike from beyond the grave.
90. Billy Summers (2021) – Billy Summers is a man in a room with a gun. He’s a killer for hire and the best in the business. But he’ll do the job only if the target is a truly bad guy. And now Billy wants out. But first, there is one last hit. Billy is among the best snipers in the world, a decorated Iraq war vet, a Houdini when it comes to vanishing after the job is done. So what could possibly go wrong?

91. Gwendy’s Final Task (2022) – Years after the button box entered Gwendy’s life, she is once again forced to deal with the temptation that box represented. Now, evil forces seek to possess the button box and it is up to Senator Gwendy Peterson to keep it from them. At all costs. But where can you hide something from such powerful entities?
92. Fairy Tale (2022) – When Charlie Reade is seventeen, he meets a dog named Radar and her aging master, Howard Bowditch, a recluse in a big house at the top of a big hill, with a locked shed in the backyard. Sometimes strange sounds emerge from it. Charlie starts doing jobs for Mr. Bowditch and loses his heart to Radar. Then, when Bowditch dies, he leaves Charlie a cassette tape telling a story no one would believe. What Bowditch knows, and has kept secret all his long life, is that inside the shed is a portal to another world.
93. Holly (2023) – When Penny Dahl calls the Finders Keepers detective agency hoping for help locating her missing daughter, Holly is reluctant to accept the case. Her partner, Pete, has Covid. Her (very complicated) mother has just died. And Holly is meant to be on leave. But something in Penny Dahl’s desperate voice makes it impossible for Holly to turn her down.

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Stephen King’s The Series in Order

The Shining Series

1. The Shining (1977)
2. Doctor Sleep (2013)

The Dark Tower Series

All 8 books of The Dark Tower Series are collected in one box set.

1. The Gunslinger (1982)
2. The Drawing of the Three (1985)
3. The Waste Lands (1991)
4. Wizard and Glass (1997)
5. Wolves of the Calla (2003)
6. Song of Susannah (2004)
7. The Dark Tower (2004)
8. The Wind Through the Keyhole (2012)

The Talisman Series (with Peter Straub)

1. The Talisman (1984)
2. Black House (2001)

The Green Mile Series

All 6 books of The Green Mile are now collected in one big volume.

1. The Two Dead Girls (1996)
2. The Mouse on the Mile (1996)
3. Coffey’s Hands (1996)
4. The Bad Death of Eduard Delacroix (1996)
5. Night Journey (1996)
6. Coffey on the Mile (1996)

The Bill Hodges Trilogy

1. Mr. Mercedes (2014)
2. Finders Keepers (2015)
3. End of Watch (2016)

After that, you can find Holly Gibney in:

4. The Outsider (2018)
5. If It Bleeds (Novella, 2020)

For more about Holly, take a look at our dedicated Holly Gibney Reading Order.

The Gwendy’s Button Box Trilogy (with Richard Chizmar)

1. Gwendy’s Button Box (2017)
2. Gwendy’s Magic Feather (2020)
3. Gwendy’s Final Task (2022)

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Stephen King’s Collections of Short Stories and Novellas

All of Stephen King’s short stories and novellas are not collected yet. Nevertheless, a lot of them are available in the books listed below.

• Night Shift (1978) – Here we see mutated rats gone bad (“Graveyard Shift”); a cataclysmic virus that threatens humanity (“Night Surf,” the basis for The Stand); a possessed, evil lawnmower (“The Lawnmower Man”); unsettling children from the heartland (“Children of the Corn”); a smoker who will try anything to stop (“Quitters, Inc.”); a reclusive alcoholic who begins a gruesome transformation (“Gray Matter”); and many more shadows and visions that will haunt you long after the last page is turned like “Jerusalem’s Lot,” the basis for the tv series Chapelwaite.
• Different Seasons (1982) – Includes the stories “The Body” and “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption”-set in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine-but also “Apt Pupil,” and “The Breathing Method.”
• Skeleton Crew (1985) – Collects “The Mist,” “Here There Be Tygers,” “The Monkey,” “Cain Rose Up,” “Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut,” “The Jaunt,” “The Wedding Gig,” “Paranoid: A Chant,” “The Raft” “Word Processor of the Gods,” “The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands,” “Beachworld,” “The Reaper’s Image,” “Nona,” “For Owen,” “Survivor Type,” “Uncle Otto’s Truck,” “Morning Deliveries (Milkman No. 1),” “Big Wheels: a Tale of the Laundry Game (Milkman No. 2),” “Gramma,” “The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet,” and “The Reach.”
• Four Past Midnight (1990) – One Past Midnight: “The Langoliers.” Two Past Midnight: “Secret Window, Secret Garden.” Three Past Midnight: “The Library Policeman.” Four Past Midnight: “The Sun Dog.”

• Nightmares & Dreamscapes (1993) – Collects “Dolan’s Cadillac,” “The End of the Whole Mess,” “Suffer the Little Children,” “The Night Flier,” “Popsy,” “It Grows on You,” “Chattery Teeth,” “Dedication,” “The Moving Finger,” “Sneakers,” “You Know They Got a Hell of a Band,” “Home Delivery,” “Rainy Season,” “My Pretty Pony,” “Sorry, Right Number,” “The Ten O’Clock People,” “Crouch End,” “The House on Maple Street,” “The Fifth Quarter,” “The Doctor’s Case,” “Umney’s Last Case,” “Head Down” and “Brooklyn August.”
• Hearts in Atlantis (1999) – Collects “Low Men in Yellow Coats,” “Hearts in Atlantis,” “Blind Willie,” “Why We’re in Vietnam” and “Heavenly Shades of Night Are Falling.”
• Everything’s Eventual (2002) – Collects “Autopsy Room Four,” “The Man in the Black Suit,” “All That You Love Will Be Carried Away,” “The Death of Jack Hamilton,” “In the Deathroom,” “The Little Sisters of Eluria,” “Everything’s Eventual,” “L.T.’s Theory of Pets,” “The Road Virus Heads North,” “Lunch at the Gotham Café,” “That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French,” “1408,” “Riding the Bullet” and “Luckey Quarter.”
• Just After Sunset (2008) – A collection of short works is comprised of pieces that previously appeared in such publications as The New Yorker, Playboy, and McSweeney’s, in a volume that includes such tales as “The Gingerbread Girl” and “N.”

• Stephen King Goes to the Movies (2009) – For the first time in one volume, each with a fascinating introduction, come the stories of “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption,” “Hearts in Atlantis (Low Men in Yellow Coats),” “1408,” “The Mangler” and “Children of the Corn.”
• Full Dark, No Stars (2010) – Collects “1922,” “Big Driver,” “Fair Extension” and “A Good Marriage.”
• The Bazaar of Bad Dreams (2015) – Collects “Mile 81,” “Premium Harmony,” “Batman and Robin Have an Altercation,” “The Dune,” “Bad Little Kid,” “A Death,” “The Bone Church,” “Morality,” “Afterlife,” “Ur,” “Herman Wouk Is Still Alive,” “Under the Weather,” “Blockade Billy,” “Mister Yummy,” “Tommy,” “The Little Green God of Agony,” “Cookie Jar,” “That Bus Is Another World,” “Obits,” “Drunken Fireworks” and “Summer Thunder.”
• If It Bleeds (2020) – Collects four novellas-“Mr. Harrigan’s Phone,” “The Life of Chuck,” “Rat” and the title story “If It Bleeds.”

• You Like It Darker (2024) – Collects twelve short stories, many never-before-published, including “Two Talented Bastids,” “Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream,” “Rattlesnakes,” a sequel to Cujo, “The Dreamers,” “The Answer Man,” and more.

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Stephen King’s Non-Fiction books

• Danse Macabre (1981) – It was not long after Halloween when Stephen King received a telephone call from his editor. ‘Why don’t you do a book about the entire horror phenomenon as you see it? Books, movies, radio, TV, the whole thing.’ The result is this unique combination of fantasy and autobiography, of classic horror writing honed to an unforgettable edge by the best-selling master of the genre.
• Nightmares in the Sky (with f-stop Fitzgerald, 1988) – This book will be a collection of fantastic and horrifying photographs of gargoyles taken by avant-garde photographer f-stop fitzgerald (yes, that’s his name and the spelling is correct), with a wonderful text by none other than the master of horror, Stephen king. F-stop has captured gargoyles in all manner of poses, made all the more striking by the design by mark pollard. Through the use of gatefolds and full-bleed illustrations, these awesome creatures will seem to practically leap off the page.
• Mid-Life Confidential: The Rock Bottom Remainders Tour America With Three Chords and an Attitude (with Dave Barry, Amy Tan et al, 1994) – Writers and rock music critics describe their experiences touring with the rock band they formed to raise money for charity
• On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2000) – In June of 1999, Stephen King was hit by a van while walking along the shoulder of a country road in Maine. Six operations were required to save his life and mend his broken body. When he was finally able to sit up, he immediately started writing. This book is the extraordinary result.
• Secret Windows: Essays and Fiction on the Craft of Writing (2000) – An anthology of hard-to-find nonfiction pieces, little-known interviews, short stories, and articles about writing for those looking for direction.
• Faithful (with Stewart O’Nan, 2005) – A chronicle of the Boston Red Sox’s 2004 baseball season features a running diary of observations, arguments, play analyses, and controversial management decisions, as recorded by a pair of best-selling horror writers–and diehard Red Sox fans.
• Guns (2013) – In a pulls-no-punches essay intended to provoke rational discussion, Stephen King sets down his thoughts about gun violence in America. Anger and grief in the wake of the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School are palpable in this urgent piece of writing, but no less remarkable are King’s keen thoughtfulness and composure as he explores the contours of the gun-control issue and constructs his argument for what can and should be done.

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If you like Stephen King, you may also want to see our Locke and Key reading order or our guide to David Wong’s books. Don’t hesitate to follow us on Twitter or Facebook to discover more book series.