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The Stand (Movie Tie-in Edition) Paperback – December 1, 2020

by Stephen King (Author)

4.6 50,834 ratings

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#1 BESTSELLER • NOW A PARAMOUNT+ LIMITED SERIES • Stephen King’s apocalyptic vision of a world blasted by plague and tangled in an elemental struggle between good and evil remains as riveting—and eerily plausible—as when it was first published.

One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years! This edition includes all of the new and restored material first published in The Stand: The Complete and Uncut Edition.

A patient escapes from a biological testing facility, unknowingly carrying a deadly weapon: a mutated strain of super-flu that will wipe out 99 percent of the world’s population within a few weeks. Those who remain are scared, bewildered, and in need of a leader. Two emerge—Mother Abagail, the benevolent 108-year-old woman who urges them to build a peaceful community in Boulder, Colorado; and Randall Flagg, the nefarious “Dark Man,” who delights in chaos and violence. As the dark man and the peaceful woman gather power, the survivors will have to choose between them—and ultimately decide the fate of all humanity.

"A master storyteller."—Los Angeles Times

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1328 pages
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English
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Anchor
Publication date

December 1, 2020
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4.19 x 1.99 x 7.49 inches
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0593313887
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978-0593313886
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Love didn’t grow very well in a place where there was only fear, just as plants didn’t grow very well in a place where it was always dark.
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No one can tell what goes on in between the person you were and the person you become. No one can chart that blue and lonely section of hell. There are no maps of the change. You just … come out the other side. Or you don’t.
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A boy does not need a father unless he is a good father, but a good father is indispensable.
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"[The Stand] has everything. Adventure. Romance. Prophecy. Allegory. Satire. Fantasy. Realism. Apocalypse. Great!"
—The New York Times Book Review

"A master storyteller."
—Los Angeles Times

“An undisputed master of suspense and terror.”
—The Washington Post

“King is one of the most powerful storytellers we have. His work satisfies on first reading and is even better the second time around.”
—Chicago Tribune

“Crackling . . . with explosive climaxes.”
—The Boston Globe

“[For] those who like their horror on a humongous scale.”
—Los Angeles Times

"As brilliant a dark dream as has ever been dreamed in this century."
—Palm Beach Post

“Peerless imagination.”
—The Observer (London)

About the Author

STEPHEN KING is the author of more than sixty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes If It Bleeds, The Institute, Elevation, The Outsider, Sleeping Beauties (cowritten with his son Owen King), and the Bill Hodges trilogy: End of Watch, Finders Keepers, and Mr. Mercedes (an Edgar Award winner for Best Novel and an AT&T Audience Network original television series). His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller. His epic works The Dark Tower, It, Pet Sematary, and Doctor Sleep are the basis for major motion pictures, with It now the highest grossing horror film of all time. He is the recipient of the 2018 PEN America Literary Service Award, the 2014 National Medal of Arts, and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

CHAPTER 1

Hapscomb's Texaco sat on Number 93 just north of Arnette, a pissant four-street burg about 110 miles from Houston. Tonight the regulars were there, sitting by the cash register, drinking beer, talking idly, watching the bugs fly into the big lighted sign.

It was Bill Hapscomb's station, so the others deferred to him even though he was a pure fool. They would have expected the same deferral if they had been gathered together in one of their business establishments. Except they had none. In Arnette, it was hard times. In 1980 the town had had two industries, a factory that made paper products (for picnics and barbecues, mostly) and a plant that made electronic calculators. Now the paper factory was shut down and the calculator plant was ailing—they could make them a lot cheaper in Taiwan, it turned out, just like those portable TVs and transistor radios.

Norman Bruett and Tommy Wannamaker, who had both worked in the paper factory, were on relief, having run out of unemployment some time ago. Henry Carmichael and Stu Redman both worked at the calculator plant but rarely got more than thirty hours a week. Victor Palfrey was retired and smoked stinking home-rolled cigarettes, which were all he could afford.

"Now what I say is this," Hap told them, putting his hands on his knees and leaning forward. "They just gotta say screw this inflation shit. Screw this national debt shit. We got the presses and we got the paper. We're gonna run off fifty million thousand-dollar bills and hump them right the Christ into circulation."

Palfrey, who had been a machinist until 1984, was the only one present with sufficient self-respect to point out Hap's most obvious damfool statements. Now, rolling another of his shitty-smelling cigarettes, he said: "That wouldn't get us nowhere. If they do that, it'll be just like Richmond in the last two years of the States War. In those days, when you wanted a piece of gingerbread, you gave the baker a Confederate dollar, he'd put it on the gingerbread, and cut out a piece just that size. Money's just paper, you know."

"I know some people don't agree with you," Hapsaid sourly. He picked up a greasy red plastic paper-holder from his desk. "I owe these people. And they're starting to get pretty itchy about it."

Stuart Redman, who was perhaps the quietest man in Arnette, was sitting in one of the cracked plastic Woolco chairs, a can of Pabst in his hand, looking out the big service station window at Number 93. Stu knew about poor. He had grown up that way right here in town, the son of a dentist who had died when Stu was seven, leaving his wife and two other children besides Stu.

His mother had gotten work at the Red Ball Truck Stop just outside of Arnette—Stu could have seen it from where he sat right now if it hadn't burned down in 1979. It had been enough to keep the four of them eating, but that was all. At the age of nine, Stu had gone to work, first for Rog Tucker, who owned the Red Ball, helping to unload trucks after school for thirty-five cents an hour, and then at the stockyards in the neighboring town of Braintree, lying about his age to get twenty back breaking hours of labor a week at the minimum wage.

Now, listening to Hap and Vic Palfrey argue on about money and the mysterious way it had of drying up, he thought about the way his hands had bled at first from pulling the endless handtrucks of hides and guts. He had tried to keep that from his mother, but she had seen, less than a week after he started. She wept over them a little, and she hadn't been a woman who wept easily. But she hadn't asked him to quit the job. She knew what the situation was. She was a realist.

Some of the silence in him came from the fact that he had never had friends, or the time for them. There was school, and there was work. His youngest brother, Dev, had died of pneumonia the year he began at the yards, and Stu had never quite gotten over that. Guilt, he supposed. He had loved Dev the best . . . but his passing had also meant there was one less mouth to feed.

In high school he had found football, and that was something his mother had encouraged even though it cut into his work hours. "You play," she said. "If you got a ticket out of here, it's football, Stuart. You play. Remember Eddie Warfield." Eddie Warfield was a local hero. He had come from a family even poorer than Stu's own, had covered himself with glory as quarterback of the regional high school team, had gone onto Texas A&M with an athletic scholarship, and had played for ten years with the Green Bay Packers, mostly as a second-string quarterback but on several memorable occasions as the starter. Eddie now owned a string of fast-food restaurants across the West and Southwest, and in Arnette he was an enduring figure of myth. In Arnette, when you said "success," you meant Eddie Warfield.

Stu was no quarterback, and he was no Eddie Warfield. But it did seem to him as he began his junior year in high school that there was at least a fighting chance for him to get a small athletic scholarship . . . and then there were work-study programs, and the school's guidance counselor had told him about the NDEA loan program.

Then his mother had gotten sick, had become unable to work. It was cancer. Two months before he graduated from high school, she had died, leaving Stu with his brother Bryce to support. Stu had turned down the athletic scholarship and had gone to work in the calculator factory. And finally it was Bryce, three years' Stu's junior, who had made it out. He was now in Minnesota, a systems analyst for IBM. He didn't write often, and the last time he had seen Bryce was at the funeral, after Stu's wife had died—died of exactly the same sort of cancer that had killed his mother. He thought that Bryce might have his own guilt to carry . . . and that Bryce might be a little ashamed of the fact that his brother had turned into just another good old boy in a dying Texas town, spending his days doing time in the calculator plant, and his nights either down at Hap's or over at the Indian Head drinking Lone Star beer.

The marriage had been the best time, and it had only lasted eighteen months. The womb of his young wife had borne a single dark and malignant child. That had been four years ago. Since, he had thought of leaving Arnette, searching for something better, but small-town inertia held him—the low siren song of familiar places and familiar faces. He was well liked in Arnette, and Vic Palfrey had once paid him the ultimate compliment of calling him "Old Time Tough."

As Vic and Hap chewed it out, there was still a little dusk left in the sky, but the land was in shadow. Cars didn't go by on 93 much now, which was one reason that Hap had so many unpaid bills. But there was a car coming now, Stu saw.

It was still a quarter of a mile distant, the day's last light putting a dusty shine on what little chrome was left to it. Stu's eyes were sharp, and he made it as a very old Chevrolet, maybe a '75. A Chevy, no lights on, doing no more than fifteen miles an hour, weaving all over the road. No one had seen it yet but him.

"Now let's say you got a mortgage payment on this station," Vic was saying, "and let's say it's fifty dollars a month."

"It's a hell of a lot more than that."

"Well, for the sake of the argument, let's say fifty. And let's say the Federals went ahead and printed you a whole carload of money. Well then those bank people would turn round and want a hundred and fifty. You'd be just as poorly off."

"That's right," Henry Carmichael added. Hap looked at him, irritated. He happened to know that Hank had gotten in the habit of taking Cokes out of the machine without paying the deposit, and furthermore, Hank knew he knew, and if Hank wanted to come in on any side it ought to be his.

"That ain't necessarily how it would be," Hap said weightily from the depths of his ninth-grade education. He went on to explain why.

Stu, who only understood that they were in a hell of a pinch, tuned Hap's voice down to a meaningless drone and watched the Chevy pitch and yaw its way on up the road. The way it was going Stu didn't think it was going to make it much farther. It crossed the white line and its lefthand tires spumed up dust from the left shoulder. Now it lurched back, held its own lane briefly, then nearly pitched off into the ditch. Then, as if the driver had picked out the big lighted Texaco station sign as a beacon, it arrowed toward the tarmac like a projectile whose velocity is very nearly spent. Stu could hear the worn-out thump of its engine now, the steady gurgle-and-wheeze of a dying carb and a loose set of valves. It missed the lower entrance and bumped up over the curb. The fluorescent bars over the pumps were reflecting off the Chevy's dirt-streaked windshield so it was hard to see what was inside, but Stu saw the vague shape of the driver roll loosely with the bump. The car showed no sign of slowing from its relentless fifteen.

"So I say with more money in circulation you'd be—"

"Better turn off your pumps, Hap," Stu said mildly.

"The pumps? What?"

Norm Bruett had turned to look out the window. "Christ on a pony," he said.

Stu got out of his chair, leaned over Tommy Wannamaker and Hank Carmichael, and flicked off all eight switches at once, four with each hand. So he was the only one who didn't see the Chevy as it hit the gas pumps on the upper island and sheared them off.

It plowed into them with a slowness that seemed implacable and somehow grand. Tommy Wannamaker swore in the Indian Head the next day that the taillights never flashed once. The Chevy just kept coming at a steady fifteen or so, like the pace car in the Tournament of Roses parade. The undercarriage screeched over the concrete island, and when the wheels hit it everyone but Stu saw the driver's head swing limply and strike the windshield, starring the glass.

The Chevy jumped like an old dog that had been kicked and plowed away the hi-test pump. It snapped off and rolled away, spilling a few dribbles of gas. The nozzle came unhooked and lay glittering under the fluorescents.

They all saw the sparks produced by the Chevy's exhaust pipe grating across the cement, and Hap, who had seen a gas station explosion in Mexico, instinctively shielded his eyes against the fireball he expected. Instead, the Chevy's rear end flirted around and fell off the pump island on the station side. The front end smashed into the low-lead pump, knocking it off with a hollow bang.

Almost deliberately, the Chevrolet finished its 360-degree turn, hitting the island again, broadside this time. The rear end popped up on the island and knocked the regular gas pump asprawl. And there the Chevy came to rest, trailing its rusty exhaust pipe behind it. It had destroyed all three of the gas pumps on that island nearest the highway. The motor continued to run choppily for a few seconds and then quit. The silence was so loud it was alarming.

"Holy moly," Tommy Wannamaker said breathlessly. "Will she blow, Hap?"

"If it was gonna, it already woulda," Hap said, getting up. His shoulder bumped the map case, scattering Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona every whichway. Hap felt a cautious sort of jubilation. His pumps were insured, and the insurance was paid up. Mary had harped on the insurance ahead of everything.

"Guy must have been pretty drunk," Norm said.

"I seen his taillights," Tommy said, his voice high with excitement. "They never flashed once. Holy moly! If he'd a been doing sixty we'd all be dead now."

They hurried out of the office, Hap first and Stu bringing up the rear. Hap, Tommy, and Norm reached the car together. They could smell gas and hear the slow, clocklike tick of the Chevy's cooling engine. Hap opened the driver's side door and the man behind the wheel spilled out like an old laundry sack.

"God-damn," Norm Bruett shouted, almost screamed. He turned away, clutched his ample belly, and was sick. It wasn't the man who had fallen out (Hap had caught him neatly before he could thump to the pavement) but the smell that was issuing from the car, a sick stench compounded of blood, fecal matter, vomit, and human decay. It was a ghastly rich sick-dead smell.

A moment later Hap turned away, dragging the driver by the armpits. Tommy hastily grabbed the dragging feet and he and Hap carried him into the office. In the glow of the overhead fluorescents their faces were cheesy-looking and revolted. Hap had forgotten about his insurance money.

The others looked into the car and then Hank turned away, one hand over his mouth, little finger sticking off like a man who has just raised his wineglass to make a toast. He trotted to the north end of the station's lot and let his supper come up.

Vic and Stu looked into the car for some time, looked a teach other, and then looked back in. On the passenger side was a young woman, her shift dress hiked up high on her thighs. Leaning against her was a boy or girl, about three years old. They were both dead. Their necks had swelled up like inner tubes and the flesh there was a purple-black color, like a bruise. The flesh was puffed up under their eyes, too. They looked, Vic later said, like those baseball players who put lampblack under their eyes to cut the glare. Their eyes bulged sightlessly. The woman was holding the child's hand. Thick mucus had run from their noses and was now clotted there. Flies buzzed around them, lighting in the mucus, crawling in and out of their open mouths. Stu had been in the war, but he had never seen anything so terribly pitiful as this. His eyes were constantly drawn back to those linked hands.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Anchor; Media tie-in edition (December 1, 2020)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 1328 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0593313887
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0593313886
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 4.19 x 1.99 x 7.49 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #25,728 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #505 in Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction (Books)
- #1,249 in Horror Literature & Fiction
- #3,047 in Suspense Thrillers

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Stephen King

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Stephen King is the author of more than fifty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His first crime thriller featuring Bill Hodges, MR MERCEDES, won the Edgar Award for best novel and was shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger Award. Both MR MERCEDES and END OF WATCH received the Goodreads Choice Award for the Best Mystery and Thriller of 2014 and 2016 respectively.

King co-wrote the bestselling novel Sleeping Beauties with his son Owen King, and many of King's books have been turned into celebrated films and television series including The Shawshank Redemption, Gerald's Game and It.

King was the recipient of America's prestigious 2014 National Medal of Arts and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for distinguished contribution to American Letters. In 2007 he also won the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America. He lives with his wife Tabitha King in Maine.

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Jane

I enjoyed being part of this group of characters.

Reviewed in the United States on August 10, 2012

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THE STAND by Stephen King.

WHAT IS THIS BOOK ABOUT?
The story begins with a virus killing 99% of the population. We meet several survivors in separate towns. They stay in town a while, then begin traveling on motorcycles, bicycles, or walking. The travelers start out alone or with one other person. Along the way they join with others. A man called Randall Flagg is creating his own empire, dictator style, with evil intentions. His headquarters are in Las Vegas, Nevada. Survivors with criminal tendencies are drawn toward Flagg. Good folks are drawn to Boulder, Colorado, where they form a community called the Free Zone.

REVIEWER'S OPINION:
Before I read any Stephen King, I thought most of his books would be about monsters, horror, screaming, slashing - things in horror movies. I was wrong. I'm finding a lot of depth and interesting character development. His bad guys are not all that different from some of the serial killers in mainstream crime fiction and thrillers.

The Stand has some paranormal, not a lot. Several characters have psychic dreams or a psychic sense at times. The Stand is one of Stephen's longest books. The paperback is 1439 pages. I was never bored. I became attached to the characters. In the preface Stephen says "When I speak (which is as rarely as possible), people always speak to me about The Stand. They discuss the characters as though they were living people, and ask frequently, "What happened to so-and-so?"... as if I got letters from them every now and again." Personally I feel that way. I'd like to think about the characters in the future.

Stephen makes everyday conversations interesting. There are many characters in this book, but it didn't feel like too many. We are with a guy in Arkansas for 25 pages, then a guy in New York for 12 pages, then a woman in Maine for 11 pages. I like a linear time line and I like scenes with natural endings. And most of the time the scenes met these requirements. My biggest problem with Stephen's book "It" was stopping scenes in the middle of action and jumping around in time. I'm pleased to see the author used "better methods" in this book.

This is a post apocalyptic world. By the end of the book some of the good guys die, but others have happy endings. Normally I would avoid books with this setup because I don't want to be depressed. Other authors might tell this story with deep digging into grief and loss. This book was not done that way. I was pleased that I was not depressed.

I was pleased to see a romance. A couple meets, they eventually get together, and have a happy ending. For those whose don't like abusive husbands, you'll like this. This is the way guys should be. He cares for her happiness.

There is a homosexual rape scene in detail. Also there is a telling (after the fact) of women held against their will and repeatedly raped.

This is the expanded edition published in 1990. Much was cut for the 1978 edition. Stephen added back cut parts and a lot of new writing for the 1990 edition. I would not want to read the cut version.

IS IT PERFECT? NO.
I had a few questions that were not answered, such as why Flagg was losing his powers, and what was the purpose of the pregnancy. Also I did not like Flagg's ending. I wanted something worse to happen to him.

The narrator Grover Gardner did an excellent job.

DATA:
Narrative mode: 3rd person. Unabridged audiobook reading time: 47 hrs and 52 mins. Swearing language: strong, including religious swear words and racial slurs. Sexual language: moderate to strong. Number of sex scenes: about 14, most briefly described. Setting 1990 - 1991 various U.S. locations. Book copyright 1978 and 1990. Genre: apocalyptic paranormal fiction. Ending: happy for many of the good guys, bad for most of the bad guys.

OTHER BOOKS:
For a list of my reviews of other Stephen King books, see my 5 star review of Carrie posted 5-11-12.

16 people found this helpful

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Negan 88

A Little Late to the Party: Retro Review

Reviewed in the United States on September 16, 2019

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I have been quite late to board the Stephen King train, but I am glad I finally have. Better late than never right? Maybe King’s works intimidated me just a little bit. Especially his gigantic tomes. However, I am happy to say that the more I read the more I truly love Stephen King, and his masterfully written works.

I will keep the synopsis of The Stand by Stephen King brief, because I am sure everyone at least knows the basic premise. I read the Complete and Uncut Edition, the only edition I can find without shelling out a lot of dough, and if Mr. King felt that it was of value to reprint issues of the original 1978 edition I most certainly think he would do so. I also believe that if King didn’t believe the Complete and Uncut Edition was not superior there would be the choice between both editions at book stores. It makes sense. A lot of people would buy both just to see differences. I know I would. Which would mean more money for the publisher, and Stephen as well. So I feel that the Complete and Uncut edition is worth reading the extra pages considering it is King’s full vision of The Stand.

The Stand is an epic story of massive proportions! The amount of characters throughout are immense, diverse, some you love, and some you hate. The year is 1990, and the world is about to be nearly obliterated by a pandemic, plague, or virus. Take your pick. When something goes awry at a military base in California death soon follows the path of a family into Arnette, Texas. From here the telephone game of deadly infectious disease is set into motion.

There are some that are unaffected by the Captain Trips virus, and their stories are who we follow. Stu Redman, Frannie Goldsmith, Harold Lauder, Nick Andros, Tom Cullen, Lucy Swann, Nadine Cross, Lloyd Henreid, Trashcan Man, Mother Abigail, the mysterious dark man Randall Flagg, and my personal favorite Larry Underwood. Now that is not to say there aren’t others, Glen, Ralph, Sue, Dayna, Judge Farris, and I could go on. The characters in this epic novel are expansive!

Following the lives of survivors King weaves a story that at the core is about survival, and good versus evil. As all of the survivors begin having strange dreams they casually may mention it to others, and they believe it is pure coincidence. However, as more and more join together their dreams are too much alike to be coincidental. They all set out on a journey across the United States to answer their dreams, to see what happens next, and to make their stand.

I honestly do not believe any review of this epic masterpiece that has enthralled readers for many years can be praised properly in a simple book review. I was attached to The Stand from the start of chapter one! I had a difficult time putting it down, and now I understand the hype of this novel, why it has impacted so many readers lives, and inspired others to go on to adapt this work into mini series. I plan to watch the newest mini series, and rewatch the 1994 mini series as well. However, I believe I will revisit this blog, and add my comparisons at a later time. It is quite a lot of information to digest! Nevertheless, a fantastic piece of literature to have linger on the mind for a long time to come.

Overall, I give The Stand Complete and Uncut by Stephen King five perfect stars out of five! I cannot find any fault in the novel, I loved so many characters, and even though Larry is my favorite Nick and Tom come in close behind. I also absolutely enjoyed picturing these characters as my own, and if I had control of casting actors who I thought would play the character the best. The Stand is absolutely an epic journey that I am happy to say has become one of my top five Stephen King novels I have read to date! Until next time, my friends.

56 people found this helpful

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Nessa

A Long Journey

Reviewed in the United States on April 11, 2024

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This was a reread for me, and I did not enjoy it as much this time around, but it was still very good. I feel like there were many 'unnecessary' parts to the story, but overall, you get wrapped up in the characters. I found myself thinking about them when I was not reading about them! A grand and emotional ride for sure.

2 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Book came in great condition and on the Date they told me

Reviewed in Canada on February 29, 2024

Verified Purchase

I’ve read the Stand 4 times. Finally got my favourite book in hard cover. Great story by the best horror writer of our generation.

Fábio do Nascimento Monteiro

Bom custo benefício.

Reviewed in Brazil on May 8, 2023

Verified Purchase

No geral, eu gostei da qualidade do livro, achei apenas que fosse maior visto o tamanho da versão em português. As páginas tem um tom acinzentado de um "papel de jornal", as letras têm um bom espaçamento, o que permite grifar e fazer pequenas anotações. Comprei com o intuito de estudar inglês, acredito que será de grande valia.

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AMH

Entretenido

Reviewed in Spain on March 27, 2024

Verified Purchase

Solo he leído unos cuantos capítulos, pero me parece entretenido, como la gran mayoría de libros de stephen king.

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Anurag Singh

Beautiful Hardcover Edition

Reviewed in India on December 30, 2023

Verified Purchase

This is one of the most beautiful hardcovers I own. The pages are of:
•decent thickness/smoothness
•no printing ink marks
•little see-through
•nice fragrance

The binding is:
•sturdy
•fully openable, with all of the text easily visible
There are illustrations in some pages, and aesthetic designs at the start of every chapter.

Drawbacks to this hardcover edition:
The book is quite heavy. With a book stand, the heaviness is hardly an issue; but it seems impossible to read just holding it.

3 people found this helpful

LS

Perfect

Reviewed in Italy on October 21, 2023

Verified Purchase

Must have

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