Book special: The 50 BEST Stephen King *short stories* ranked spoiler-free, in less than 19 minutes!
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- čas přidán 4. 07. 2024
- It's time for this month's book special, and time for another ranking! Specifically, I'm counting down my top 50 Stephen King short stories. It's all spoiler-free, so get involved and then let me know some of YOUR favourite King shorts in the comments!
Enjoy!
00:00 Intro
00:14 Welcome & context for this special
02:05 Stories 50-41
04:01 Stories 40-31
06:44 Stories 30-21
09:41 Stories 20-11
13:09 Stories 10-2
16:41 My favourite Stephen King short story
17:53 Outro
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I've wanted this ranking for so long. Thank you Dave.
Top three: 3) The Raft
2) One for the Road
1) 1408
You’re welcome! And that is a pretty great top 3!
I must reread The Raft x
1. The Jaunt
2. The Dune
3. Word Processor of the Gods
4. Willa
That’s a pretty strong quartet!
Jaunt is too good. First time I read that ending, my mouth was agape and I forgot to breathe.
I’m not surprised! It’s ace!
I reread that last night on yours and Dave’s recommendation- so very glad (and horrified!) that I did. What a concept, backstory, and ending!! Outstanding xx
So nobody mentions the short story that maybe stuck with me the most: Nona.
The mix of loneliness hitchhiking at night on snowy roads near Castle Rock and the corrupting beautiful/evil girl is really a vibe I got very much into.
This is a great shout - it was close to making my 50, it really was!
I’d forgotten Nona so thank you so much for reminding me. I will reread that in the next week xx
@@DrMattiLabbratt glad my comment inspired you to read it again
My favorite is Strawberry Spring.
One for the Road, Jerusalem's Lot, Grey Matter are also really decent.
Ones no one else has mentioned that I feel at least deserve a shout-out:
Children of the Corn
Lunch at the Gotham Café
You Know They Got a Hell of a Band
Herman Wouk is Still Alive
Gotham Cafe and Hell of a Band…love both of those!
Two last lines that will give you nightmares:
There are some huge rats in the walls, by the sound. ('Jerusalem's Lot', Night Shift)
ladyfingers they taste just like ladyfingers {'Survivor Type', Skeleton Crew)
Good night. Pleasant dreams!
Heck yeah!
Another great video. Have to read some of these. Sound brilliant.
Yes! His short work is incredible!
Love your channel! I’ve been subbed for a while, but I’ve never commented. I’m a huge Stephen King fan, and I’m still reading through all of his books for the first time. I’ve read almost all of his novels, and I’m about to get cracking on his short story collections. I can’t wait to get started. Watching this video makes me that much more excited. Cheers!
Excellent! Thanks so much for watching, thanks even more for commenting and *enjoy* those collections…they are great!
Oh man I can think of a few short stories that I really enjoyed by mr. King even though I've only read nightshift and skeleton crew
1. Grammar
2. Boogeyman
3. Quitters inc.
4. The ledge
5. Jerusalem's lot
Even though I lean towards Kings short stories and novellas I can appreciate Kings short stories that offer a wide variety of themes and tones. 🙂❤📚
Some nice picks there - and you’ve still got a load more collections to enjoy!
3. The night flier
2. The ledge
1. The mangler
Nice!
1. One For The Road
2. The Gingerbread Girl
3. Suffer The Little Children
4. Umney's Last Case
5. I Know What You Need
Nice picks!
Funnily enough I was rereading Suffer the Little Children last night. It truly is one of his greatest and utterly terrifying. “Robert” is living rent-free in my head today 😧😂
That description of when he changes is hideous, lovecraftian, madness! Yet it’s his behaviour when unchanged toward his Teacher which is the most haunting.
Merry Christmas fellow constant reader
Matti xx
Top video Dave again … im going through all of Stephen kings shorts stories at the moment ( I love a short story) problem is do I go from number one backwards or number 50 downwards And I am glad you picked my favourite as number one although number 12 should have been number 2 … Haha
Nice! I would just go through the collections as they were published - relive them all!
Great video! Your very different choices from mine just show, how diverse, innovative, accessible and appealing King is to everyone.
My top 10
1. Everything’s Eventual
2. Crouch End
3. 1408
4. In the Tall Grass
5. The Man in the Black Suit
6. The Ten O’Clock people
7. You Know They’ve Got a Hell of a Band
8. Lunch at the Gotham Cafe
9. One for the Road
10. The End of the Whole Mess
10 o’clock and hell of a band were close to my 50. I always struggled with Crouch End though - it just never clicked 🤷🏻♂️ thanks for sharing your 10, really appreciate it!
@@DaveReadsKing Crouch End hit the spot for me as it truly terrified me to my core. I’m a huge Lovecraft admirer and reader also (as it Stephen), and I believe this influenced his writing in this story greatly.
I respect everyone’s choices like you, and enjoy hearing about them immensely and sharing our love of the greatest writer of our times imo. His ability to maintain the highest standard of storytelling, thought provoking, and rich character development across all genres of Horror, Science Fiction, Dystopia, Surrealism, Police Procedural, Alternative Timelines, Time Travel, Body Horror, Madness, Comedic , Womens Topics and more is just without precedent.
Crouch End will hit you hard if Lovecraftian Psychotic utter loss of reality/ slipping out of our reality and into others scares you. If not, it will leave you cold. I respect that.
I love your vids so please keep them coming.
Thank you fellow constant reader xx
@DrMattiLabbratt what a great comment, thank you. As for Crouch End, it’s definitely the Lovecraft stuff that doesn’t do it for me, but I appreciate King doing it all the same
@@DaveReadsKing I love and revel in all our differences in our love for the King!
@DrMattiLabbratt same! It’s one of the best things about being a constant reader!
hm, top ten?
10. Battleground
9. Everything's Eventual
8. LT's Theory of Pets
7. Bad Little Kid
6. The Boogeyman
5. Blockade Billy
4. The Word Processor of the Gods
3. The Reach
2. Ms. Todd's Shortcut
1. The Last Rung of the Ladder
Don't know ... tomorrow this top ten would be different, I suppose ...
Blockade Billy is a rogue choice but I love seeing your list - thanks!
3. The Sun Dog
2. N.
1. The Man In The Black Suit
Nice! I would count The Sun Dog as a novella but all three are crackers!
I had forgotten N!
I will reread with pleasure 🙂🙏🏼
Merry Christmas fellow constant reader
Matti xx
I think it would be a tie for me at number one. Either the jaunt or N. bummed that that second one did not make your list. Good list for sure.
Yeah, N was close but the Lovecraftian stuff does absolutely nothing for me sadly
Great compilation! You zoomed through them in record time.
There's a short film of "All That You Love..." with Joe Bob Briggs as the main character, and he's really good. No idea he could act. It's very moving.
"The Man in the Black Suit" and "The Road Virus Heads North" are both pants-crappingly terrifying.
About the stories with Dark Tower connections - I've never read any of the DT books and I think all of these stories hold up fine and feel complete, so readers shouldn't feel like they have to tackle DT first - just jump in.
Thank you, and thanks also for the heads up about that Joe Bob adaptation - I’ll keep an eye out for it. He’s also in the 1994 The Stand miniseries…plays Police Officer Joe Bob in episode 1!
My Top 10:
1-) Fair Extension
2-) Everything's Eventual
3-) Graveyard Shift
4-) Bad Little Kid
5-) Gingerbread Girl
6-) Little Sisters of Eluria
7-) Chattery Teeth
8-) Quitters, Inc.
9-) The Raft
10-) Mr. Harrigan's Phone
Bonus: The Breathing Method
Great list! I think The Breathing Method actually counts as a novella, but o agree that it is great!
The Jaunt will forever give me chills 🥶
Totally! It is killer!
I'll just list three of my favorites from "Night Shift," the first King Book I read (about 40+ years ago!) "Trucks." (It hit me reading this the first time that I'd BEEN in a diner like that!) "Sometimes They Come Back," and third "The Woman In The Room." In my opinion the last ties with "The Man In The Black Suit" as his most literary story, on a par with Stephen Vincent Benet.
Some great ones there - thanks!
I believe that the Woman in the Room is an unsung classic xx
1. One for the Road
2. Gray Matter
3. Road Virus Heads North
4. The Jaunt
That’s a pretty solid four!
How to narrow it down to 3? There's just no way, so I'll give you the first ones that come to mind:
1. The Last Rung on the Ladder - man, this one just always hits me right in the gut. Enough said.
2. Gramma - takes me right back to childhood fears. It feels very real until it doesn't. Then it gets even better.
3. Jerusalem's Lot - love the Lovecraftian style of this. It always gives me the creeps. Read in a dark room by candlelight for the full effect.
That’s a pretty great three!
I'm late, but top 3 so far in my readthrough of all the collections:
3 - Nona - Loved it, best romance I've read in horror so far.
2 - The Monkey - Why do people hate this story? It's so cool.
1 - Here There Be Tygers - Can't not love it.
Nice choices!
A fav of mine that I almost never hear discussed is Batman and Robin Have An Altercation.
Yes, I enjoyed that one plenty - definitely a deeper cut!
I definitely agree with about Skeleton Crew, not my favorite collection, but the highs are super high, are top 20, top 10 is fairly similar
Absolutely!
I know I’m gonna get flack for this, but I just love one for the road because Salem’s lot is one of my favorite kings ever and I just love the setting and everything about it
No flack from me…One For the Road is great!
Autopsy Room 4 is definitely one of the best in Everything's Eventual
That whole collection is so good!
When you ranked "Trucks" and "Battleground" so low I was like, oh no, Dave and I might not be friends anymore. But I can't quit you, man.
Phew! 😅 and they still made the top 50! Lot more below them than there is above 😊
No mention of Dolan's Cadillac or The Little Sister of Eluria. Both top 20 for me.
Fair enough! Dolan’s Cadillac I like ok, but I actively dislike the Little Sisters…it just did nothing for me sadly
I might do an insane video after I read You Like It Darker where I rank every story in his short story collections haha
Ooh yes! Just doing the 50 was tough enough!
@@DaveReadsKing yup, great video!
Can't argue with "The Jaunt", and "Willa" would have made my top 3. "The Moving Finger" would be near the bottom of my list.
Willa is exceptional! X
That’s fair enough! 😊
Thanks for the video! I’ve only read Night Shift and Skeleton Crew but my top 4 are:
4. The Reach
3. The Jaunt
2. The Ledge
1. Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut.
That’s a pretty great 4! I think you’ll enjoy the other collections 😊
Great ranking!
3. The Jaunt
2. N. (if that counts as short story)
1. Mrs Todd's Shortcut
I never got what's so special about "1408" though, story as well as film. But really everybody else loves it, I'll accept that. 😂
Thanks for sharing your three, appreciate that!
my three are the same. "N" is fantastic and really stayed with me
Night shift is the scariest one for me. Rats freak me out. But Cain Rose Up really left me disturbed. Being in the mind of someone who's snapped and starts a mass shooting rampage. And the man who loved flowers.
Cain Rose Up is a great suggestion - dark af
Cain Rose Up ! Another I must reread. I’m loving this channel as its turning into a book club for me 🙂
I get so little down time with my work, and you wonderful fellow constant readers are flagging up these recommendations for me to go to when I’m on a rare break!
Thank you all xx
@DrMattiLabbratt thanks for being part of it!
8:33 You say: "im not the biggest Dark Tower head" while having 10 dark tower books clearly visible on screen 🤭
😂 well, this is why you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover…I love those covers 😂
What a thankless task, great list, but mine , today anyway are
1. Willa (beautiful writing )
2. One For The Road
3. Jerusalams Lot
Ok theres a slight bit of me being biast to a certain story here, and id like to drop an honuary mention for Thing We Left Behind, but honestly Willa....what a piece of writing.
Willa is so good! And I am in no way surprised by your other two 😂
Suffer the little children is easily my favorite in Nightmares and Dreamscapes, which is EASILY my least fav collection from King lol
Same!
My fav ten are probably (chronological, not ranked):
The last rung on the ladder
The Raft
Gramma
That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is In French
1408
N
Blockade Billy
Under the Weather
That Bus Is Another World
Summer Thunder
I had forgotten “That thing” and “That Bus” !
Incredible stories!! Thankyou so much for posting your Top 10 and reminding me 🙏🏼
I will reread your Top 10 now with great excitement and pleasure
Merry Christmas my fellow constant reader
Matti xx
@@DrMattiLabbratt That's great! The shorter, more ephemeral, stories are typically the ones that stick with me. For example I often think about Summer Thunder, which is a story that I don't see mentioned often.
@@tdrdavies2 Yes! I completely agree with you there.
Can’t wait to start your list - with that recommendation I may start backwards with Summer Thunder xx
Cracking list, thanks for sharing!
Waiting Since You Finished Rating All Novels !
I like saving one big ranking for the end of each year 😊
Your dog suits you. Freud or Froyd 🥰
Ha! He’s an idiot but I guess he’s ok
@@DaveReadsKing like I said, he suits you. I guess you’re okay too 😂 jk all brutal. Great job! Do a video where you show all the UK COVERS and a video where you show all of Stephen King’s portraits and select your favorite 😍 lol do it for the ladies
@learnlanguageswithDi 😂 I love those ideas!
No mist in top 10?? 😢
Ah, The Mist is a novella, so it’s in my novellas ranking czcams.com/video/U0Cmo3wGzNQ/video.htmlsi=km7_1xq5pdEvVWLX