5 Stephen King Books You Can Read in a Weekend

Thanks to the release of IT: Welcome to Derry, Stephen King fever is back. It also helps that he continues to put new work out and is active on social media. Needless to say, his books continue to entertain and scare people across the globe.

The slight issue with a lot of his books is that they are very long. It can take weeks or more to get through some of his most classic works, especially if you’re short on free time. But what if you have just a weekend free? With holidays coming up, you might have a few of them, and there are some great novellas and shorter King books that are more than worth breezing through.

1. Four Past Midnight
2. Different Seasons
3. Misery
4. Cujo
5. The Colorado Kid

Four Past Midnight

The book Four Past Midnight is actually a collection of novellas, published in 1990. It’s one of his most popular collections of novellas, with two of the stories being adapted into TV and feature movies. The great thing about this collection is that there are different types of horror for those who want some diversity throughout their weekend.

The Langoliers is the novella that will stand out the most, giving us a look at just how scary time travel can be. When a group of passengers on a plane ends up at an abandoned airport, they soon realize that something strange has happened. The fuel doesn’t burn, the food tastes off, and there’s a distant threat approaching them all.

Another novella is Secret Window, Secret Garden, which involves an author facing accusations of plagiarizing a novel. This is a story that takes some twists and turns you wouldn’t initially expect, with a take on split personalities.

Different Seasons

How about the first collection of works that King released? Different Seasons came out in 1982, and it contains a couple of favorites.

You’ll know Stand by Me, the movie adaptation of King’s work. However, you won’t find a novel of the same name. That’s because Stand by Me was based on the novella The Body. The story follows 12-year-old Gordie LaChance and his three friends who head out on a journey to find the body of a missing boy. However, this is more of a journey of them facing the realities of their current lives.

Then there’s Rita Hayword and Shawshank Redemption, which you’ll know as the movie The Shawshank Redemption. The story follows a man in prison for a murder he may or may not have committed, and his escape from a prison that is supposed to be inescapable.

Misery

When it comes to some of King’s most renowned works, there’s no doubt that Misery is toward the top of the list. The story follows Annie, a woman who is so obsessed with an author that she kidnaps him after he’s involved in a car crash. To top it all off, she holds him hostage to rewrite his latest novel.

The cabin is in the middle of nowhere, and there’s no way for this author to get in touch with friends and family. How can he escape? And what happens if he does give in to the demands?

One of the great tidbits about this novel is that the ending was supposed to be vastly different. It just goes to show that King doesn’t stick to a plan if he realizes there’s another way for the story to go.

Cujo

It’s hard to read fiction where something bad happens to a family dog, but Cujo is one of the great King novels to read in just a weekend. It’s more than just a story about a family pet. It’s one about sacrifice as well as fear.

There is an element of truth in King’s story. At least, when it comes to a growling St. Bernard. It turns out that while having issues with his motorcycle, King ended up at a shop on the outskirts of Bridgton, Maine, where a St. Bernard at the shop didn’t take a liking to him. The dog lunged for King’s hand, but fortunately, a mechanic stepped in to help.

The Colorado Kid

King isn’t just known for his horror. He can also do mystery, and The Colorado Kind is a great example of that. The novel comes in at just 184 pages, so you could get through it in one day!

The novel takes place over the course of a number of decades, starting with the investigation of a John Doe. At first, nobody even knows the name of this man, whose body has been found on a tiny Maine coast island. With very few clues, two people at the island newspaper end up enthralled in the investigation, but there are just constant dead ends. Can things change when they end up with a rookie reporter?

The series was loosely adapted into Haven. Yes, that’s the Syfy series that ran for five years and really was canceled too soon!