Welcome to Shelf Control — an original feature created and hosted by Bookshelf Fantasies.
Shelf Control is a weekly celebration of the unread books on our shelves. Pick a book you own but haven’t read, write a post about it (suggestions: include what it’s about, why you want to read it, and when you got it), and link up! For more info on what Shelf Control is all about, check out my introductory post, here.
Want to join in? Shelf Control posts go up every Wednesday. See the guidelines at the bottom of the post, and jump on board!
THIS IS MY 100th SHELF CONTROL POST! Wooooooo. And the scary thing is that I’m not in any danger of running out of unread books on my shelves. Of the 100 books I’ve chosen for Shelf Control, I’ve managed to read only 11 so far, plus one more that I DNFd and one that went in my most recent discard pile. That’s not a particularly impressive reading rate… but, I keep moving forward.
Onward to this week’s pick…
Title: Needful Things
Author: Stephen King
Published: 1991
Length: 690 pages
What it’s about (synopsis via Goodreads):
Stephen King’s #1 national bestseller about a store where Leland Gaunt can sell you whatever your heart desires—sexual pleasure, wealth, power, or even more precious things—but not without exacting some price in return. “A read in the tradition of The Stand” (Booklist).
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. Only Sheriff Alan Pangborn suspects that Gaunt is behind the population’s increasingly violent behavior.
How and when I got it:
I don’t remember buying this book, but I do have a copy on my shelf. Maybe it just showed up by itself one day. Kind of creepy and appropriate for a Stephen King book!
Why I want to read it:
Stephen King! Castle Rock! I’m a big fan of King’s, and still have some major reading gaps when it comes to his books. I’m trying to fix that, bit by bit, so whenever I’m next in the mood for a King read, I think this will be the one to grab.
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Want to participate in Shelf Control? Here’s how:
- Write a blog post about a book that you own that you haven’t read yet.
- Add your link in the comments!
- If you’d be so kind, I’d appreciate a link back from your own post.
- Check out other posts, and…
Have fun!
I have yet to read this one too (and am also slowly working to fill in my SK gaps). I enjoy his older stuff far more but am not sure which is going to be my next. Definitely not ready to dive into Dark Tower. haha
I read the first three books of the Dark Tower series, and I liked them… but then moved on to other things, and I just can’t bring myself to go back and finish the series. I still need to read most of the Bachman books, and I’m missing some of the mid/early works… basically, I don’t think I’ll ever run out of Stephen King to read!
100 posts is exciting! I love this feature you started — I stopped participating because I wanted to commit to reading the books I picked and I wasn’t doing so well at that 😦 I’m mulling over plans for the new year though and I may be back! 🙂
I hope so! It’s been fun for me to do, even if I don’t end up getting to most of the books. 🙂
I also have a few books with no memory of buying or receiving them! That’s what is so exciting about bookshelves, right?
Ha ha, yes — it’s like discovering gifts I bought myself!