NIGHT SHIFT by Stephen King

Welcome to Page 5 of I Read That Book! On each Page, I’ll tell you a little about a book I read, often in a fun and informal manner, with the hope that you also may become interested enough to read it – or perhaps read it again if you’ve already enjoyed it once. The books I’ll be featuring come from a variety of genres at differing stages of my life, so whether you prefer history, literature, science fiction, or horror, there’s a good chance you’ll get some interesting ideas for your personal “To Be Read” list. Thank you for joining me on this journey as we flip through the pages of some of my favorite books. But before you start reading below, I invite you to grab a cup of your favorite beverage and find a comfortable place to sit, then turn to Page 5.

NIGHT SHIFT by Stephen King

Publication Date: February 1978

Back in the early Eighties during one summer break when I was going to college, my brother-in-law Walt handed me a stack of books by an author I’d never read before and told me I should give them a try.

And this was how I was introduced to Stephen King. Walt suggested that I start with NIGHT SHIFT, a short story collection of tales that King had previously published in various magazines (mostly men’s magazines…so maybe some people were reading them for the great fiction).

I was immediately entranced by the storytelling skills of King, and like so many of us who live and breathe for reading, I didn’t want to put the book down. In my mind, I’ve probably romanticized these stories a little too much, because I’ve read better, but this was the start that boosted me into reading horror fiction, and therefore it holds a special place in my heart (despite the way some of these terrifying tales turn out!).

Here’s a sample from one of the stories, Night Surf, so that you can get a taste of King’s early prose…and it feels eerily relevant to our world today:

“So here we were, with the whole human race wiped out, not by atomic weapons, or bio-warfare or pollution or anything grand like that. Just the flu.”

The image of the book included here is the copy I own, but it’s not the one that Walt loaned me – which was the paperback copy with a hand, with the lower portion wrapped in gauze, and the hand and fingers have eyes. To me, it’s unforgettable, and I may need to get that version someday…

The stories from this collection that stand out to me (and remember, I read this close to 40 years ago) are:

Jerusalem’s Lot
Graveyard Shift
Night Surf
Sometimes They Come Back
The Ledge
Quitters, Inc.
Children of the Corn

But to be honest, there’s really not a bad one in the bunch if you enjoy King’s style of writing. If you’ve never read any of his fiction and want to give him a try, you can’t go wrong with NIGHT SHIFT.

And don’t forget to join us here again when I flip to the next Page!

Note: The first 32 pages of I Read This Book! originally appeared on Substack.

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