#CarrieAt40: Crash and Carrie by SIMON CLARK

SIMON CLARK On the web: http://www.nailedbytheheart.com On Twitter: @hotelmidnight He confessed to me: ‘Carrie didn’t sell at all well, you know. Not, that is, until the film came out, then sales of the book went through the roof.’ The man making this confession was Bob Tanner who ran New English Library in the 1970s and […]

#CarrieAt40: Cracking the Mirror by STEVE CAVANAGH

STEVE CAVANAGH On the web: stevecavanaghwriter.blogspot.co.uk On Twitter: @SSCav Like a lot of people of my generation, I first learned about Stephen King through the world of film. When I was eight years old my parents rented a video recorder. They were just too damn expensive to buy in the early eighties and even then, […]

#CarrieAt40: Horror in the Everyday by LLOYD SHEPHERD

LLOYD SHEPHERD On the web: http://www.lloydshepherd.com On Twitter: @lloydshep I’m looking at the copy of Carrie that I bought in 1981. It’s the New English Library paperback edition. On the front is a picture of a girl with blood running down her face, in front of a bolt of lightning. On the back are three […]

#CarrieAt40: My Thoughts on Carrie by MARK WEST

MARK WEST On the web: http://www.markwest.org.uk On Twitter: @MarkEWest As a kid of the ‘70s and ‘80s, I grew up with Stephen King and was aware of him – and a certain book – before I really knew who he was or what he did. During the ‘70s, my Dad was a fan of paperback […]

#CarrieAt40: So High School by SARAH LANGAN

SARAH LANGAN On the web: sarahlangan.com On Twitter: @SarahVCLangan I first read Carrie in high school, which, given my personality and social status, worked about right. What surprised me was the humanity allotted to the characters– Carrie White is sympathetic and tragic. Sue Snell and her Tommy are good kids. The bad kids, well, they’re […]

#CarrieAt40: Carrie White at 57 by BEV VINCENT

BEV VINCENT On the web: http://www.bevvincent.com On Twitter: @BevVincent On Facebook: bev.vincent A lot of people think of Carrie as Stephen King’s first novel, but it wasn’t—not by a long shot. It was his first published novel, but by the time it came out he had already written over a half dozen books, most (but […]

#CarrieAt40: The Beginning by JOHN CONNOLLY

JOHN CONNOLLY On the web: johnconnollybooks.com On Twitter: @jconnollybooks Carrie wasn’t the first Stephen King book that I read. That honour goes to ‘Salem’s Lot, King’s second novel, which I must have read in the late seventies, or 1980 at the latest. (I have a clear memory of a classmate in school pressing The Shining […]

#CarrieAt40: A Regular Guy by ALISON LITTLEWOOD

ALISON LITTLEWOOD On the web: http://www.alisonlittlewood.co.uk On Twitter: @Ali__L I don’t actually remember the first time I read Carrie. I can remember reading it, of course – I’ve done so more than once – but not the when and where. It would have been when I was pretty young, and busy reading everything I could […]

#CarrieAt40: CARRIE by Stephen King

CARRIE Stephen King (www.stephenking.com) Hodder & Stoughton (www.hodder.co.uk) £7.99 And there is, of course, the knowledge that Carrie went home on Prom Night. Why? It is hard to tell just how sane Carrie’s motives were by that time. She may have gone for absolution and forgiveness… In any event, the physical evidence seems to indicate […]

#CarrieAt40: From Film to Book by BOOK GEEK

BOOK GEEK On the web: bookgeeksays.blogspot.co.uk On Twitter: @Book_Geek_Says Stephen King is of course a deity of the horror/suspense/scifi/fantasy fiction world, ok, maybe just of the world in general. I will fully admit that until 2009 I was only aware of SK’s work due to film adaptations. My first experience of which was watching Misery […]