Lilja's Library (42 page)

The third story in this collection is “The Death of Jack Hamilton,” which is nicely read by Arliss Howard. This story is almost like a nonfiction piece. It deals with the death of Jack Hamilton (as the title says) and since no one really knows exactly how he died it’s certainly possible that it happened like King tells it here.  

The last one is the collection’s title story, “The Man in the Black Suit.” It’s read by John Cullum, who really does a good job sounding like the devil. It’s certainly a hard role to portray with just your voice, but he does it really nicely.  

Lilja’s final words about
The Man in the Black Suit (audio)
 

If you like audio editions of King’s books (or of any books for that matter) you should get this one. If you don’t like audiobooks: give it a try! You might find that you like it after all.
The Man in the Black Suit
might just be the one you’re looking for… 

**** 

’Salem’s Lot (audio)
 

Posted: February 18, 2004  

I have just finished the new audio edition of
’Salem’s Lot
read by Ron McClarty and I can state once again that a really good audiobook has been released. Ron has a really good voice for narrating. He changes his voice for each of the characters so that you can hear that they are different from each other, but not so much that it becomes silly. 

The audiobook spans over 17.5 hours and fifteen CDs (or eleven cassettes) and contains a totally new introduction by King himself. I have been informed that this introduction isn’t in any other edition of the book, and in it King talks about
’Salem’s Lot
and why he wrote it. A really interesting, fun and informative look at the book’s (and King’s) history. And all of you out there who want to have everything King has done…well, here is a new item for you.  

In
’Salem’s Lot
, as most of you know, King tells the story of how vampires invade a small town, Jerusalem’s Lot (called ’Salem’s Lot among the inhabitants). This was only King’s second book, but it shows how good of an author King really is. It’s a very well told story in which King introduces us to Ben Mears and how he returns to ’Salem’s Lot to write a book about the Marsten House, an evil house.  

Not only is
’Salem’s Lot
a good book, but now is also the perfect time to listen to it, even if you have read it before. For one thing,
Wolves of the Calla
has just been released and in it you get to hear what happened to Father Callahan after
’Salem’s Lot
, and I’m sure we’ll get to hear more about Callahan in the two last parts of
The Dark Tower
that are being released this year, so it’s a good thing to get up-to-date about it.  

This summer TNT will air the remake of
’Salem’s Lot
(where Rob Lowe plays Ben Mears) and I don’t know about you, but personally I like to read or listen to the book close to seeing a new movie version of it. It gives me a better chance to see how well they have transformed it…  

Lilja’s final words about
’Salem’s Lot (audio)
 

So, if you haven’t read
’Salem’s Lot
yet, now is the time to do it. If you have already read it once (or more), now is the time to reread it so you’re ready for all the references that will fall upon you during 2004. 

**** 

The Devil’s Wine 

Posted: April 4, 2004  

I have just read
The Devil’s Wine
, edited by Tom Piccirilli and, unfortunately, I must confess that I’m not a big fan of poems—not even those by Stephen King. The book itself is very nice and you can tell by reading the introduction that Tom really loves his poems. 

If you, like Tom, love poems, then this book is totally right for you. Personally, I think it’s a nice addition to my King collection, but it’s not something I’m going to read again, I’m afraid. It just doesn’t do anything for me.  

One thing that is fun with this book is that it’s always interesting to see other sides of your favorite authors, like King, who hasn’t published that many poems and isn’t known for his poetry. Here though, you get a chance to see that side of him. The poems in the collection by King are from the late 60s/early 70s, so there isn’t anything new, but it’s still interesting to see how he was with words back then. It does give you a feeling for his background. It’s almost the same feeling as when you read one of his really early short stories.  

Other known names that appear in the book are, to name just a few, Peter Straub, Ray Bradbury and Jack Ketchum.  

Lilja’s final words about
The Devil’s Wine
 

If you’re a fan of poetry you should definitely get
The Devil’s Wine
. If not, you might want to think about it a bit longer. It’s really nice to have King’s old poems in the collection and I would miss them if I didn’t have them, but I’m not sure they are worth buying the book for… 

**** 

Building Bridges (audio) 

Posted: November 1, 2004  

Building Bridges
is King’s acceptance speech from when he received the medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters last year. In his approximately twenty-five-minute long speech, King tries to build a bridge (hence the title of this CD) between literary and popular writers. 

What’s most satisfying to hear in his speech, though, is his love for his wife, Tabitha. You could almost describe his speech as a twenty-five-minute love letter to her. She is his everything, and he lets us know it.  

As most of you know, King is a really good storyteller, but he is also a really good speaker. He is fun to listen to and he combines his speech with both humor and seriousness. He really is a joy to listen to. If you then take into consideration that he was diagnosed with pneumonia and underwent drainage procedures to remove fluid from the lung right after the ceremony, then you have to admit he is a genius!  

The speech was also taped and aired on C-SPAN 2 (on the program Book TV), and if you get a chance to see it, please do.  

Lilja’s final words about
Building Bridges (audio)
 

If you get the chance, I definitely think you should check this one out. I laughed out loud while I listened to it and it’s really a treat to get to hear King talk. Don’t miss this chance. Also, one hundred percent of the publisher and author profits from
Building Bridges
will be donated to The National Book Foundation. 

**** 

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (popup) 

Posted: November 5, 2004  

I have just finished the popup edition of
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
, and all I can say is
wow
. This is probably one of the coolest King books that has ever been made. It’s an oversized hardback with sixteen wonderful pages. Sixteen pages that you can pull up, pull out, fold in, fold out and so on and so on. This book will keep you busy for a long time, and then you still have the story itself left to read… 

As I said, there are things that you can fold out, fold in, pull out, pull in and much more. You have to read the book several times to find out all the things you can do with it. It’s like King said on The Today Show; you can sit with this book for a long time and still not have found out all the things you can do with it.  

The story is still there even though it’s been shortened. Peter Abrahams has adapted it to fit better in this format. It’s still a good story, though, and the important things are all still there.  

Alan Dingman has done the illustrations, which are really, really well done. They are somewhat dark, though, so I can imagine that some may be a bit scary to children. That brings me to the only problem I have with this book. I can’t decide whom it’s for. It’s labeled as a children’s book (from eight years), but I’m not sure an eight-year-old would understand and appreciate it. I will, however, state that my children aren’t eight yet, so it’s just me guessing…to me it’s more of an adult book than a children’s book, though.  

Anyhow, no matter who the book is for it’s, as I said, one of the coolest King books out there and a must-have in every King collection. My guess is that in the end there will be more grownups who buy it for themselves rather than for their children. If you buy this for your child, please let me know what they thought about it; it would be interesting to hear.  

There will also be a limited of this popup, but the difference between the two editions is not as big as you may think. The limited edition has the exact same interior as the regular edition (same number of pages, etc.), but the binding is different—it has a full cloth cover with an extra popup that is not in the trade edition; this extra pop is embedded into the front cover.  

The popup is also signed by Stephen King and numbered—there are only 125 copies. The biggest difference though is price. The trade cost is just under twenty dollars and the limited will cost you one thousand dollars to own. You can decide if that’s reasonable.  

Lilja’s final words about
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (popup)
 

As I said, this is the coolest King book that I can think of (and it’s not even expensive if you go for the trade edition), and to be a King fan and not get it should be considered a crime, if you ask me! 

**** 

Faithful 

Posted: January 24, 2005  

I have just read and listened to
Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season
. Yes, you read right. I have both read and listened to it. For the first time I got both my review copy of the book and the audio at the same time. I therefore decided to read part of it and listen to part of it. 

Did it make a big difference? Well, it actually did. Let me start by saying that this is a really special book. If you live in the U.S. or another country where baseball is a recognized sport you will enjoy this book…or at least you will understand it. That is my biggest problem with
Faithful
; I don’t know how you play baseball. In the book, King and O’Nan cover the last season of their favorite team, the Boston Red Sox. And it’s amazing that the Sox actually won the World Series that very same season…what are the odds?  

Anyhow, I really enjoyed the book’s sound. Both King and O’Nan (who I haven’t read anything else by—yet) have a really good voice when they write. They can both talk about the most regular things with an interesting voice. In
Faithful
you can easily see who has written what: King’s text is bold and O’Nan’s isn’t. It’s quite interesting to see who has written what, and you do not need to read much to see that O’Nan is the one keeping track of the details. So, it’s an interestingly written book. The problems with it come when the authors are giving detailed descriptions of the games. I don’t know what an inning is and I don’t understand what it means to have men on the bases. See what I mean?  

So, it’s a very strange book to read. There you are enjoying what you read and then all of a sudden you don’t really understand what they are talking about. And when you don’t understand, it’s easy to lose your interest. So, after reading part of the book I decided to listen to the rest of it, which was actually easier.  

Why you ask? Well, I’m not really sure, but I believe it’s because it goes faster and you are sucked into what you listen to in a different way. Adam Grupper (reading O’Nan’s parts) and Ron McLarty (reading King’s parts) do a very good job narrating the book. It’s a good thing that they have such different voices though. If they didn’t, it would be impossible to know who’s talking (writing), King or O’Nan.  

It’s also fun to see that O’Nan is such a fan. I recognize myself in my being a King fan in his being a Sox fan. He talks about how he poses as a reporter and gets a ball signed while doing it. He knows no real reporter would do that though because then he isn’t a reporter, right? Really nice reading!  

So, even though this is a book that I probably won’t read a second time, it has brought one really nice thing with it; I’m really eager to try another book by O’Nan. Hopefully he will fill in the void now that King’s books won’t be out as close together as they used to. I’ll let you know at a later time…