All caught up...

My first thought was to title this post "Done and done", but let's not kid ourselves.  I'm caught up is all.  I half expected to go online after finishing End of Watch and see announcements for another dozen books.
But no.  Not yet.

So, yeah, what to say after reading Stephen King's complete bibliography and taking about six years to do it?

It has been a wild ride.  I know I've made it up to be something more than it really is. But 55 novels and 10 short story collections is quite a bit to get through.  To really get a grip on it all, I think I'll need to go back and read the whole of this blog.  Bit I'm not quite ready for that.  A while ago I read some of the early posts and couldn't help cringing.  All youthful (ha!) ambition and exuberance, throwing opinions all over the place like I had even a clue what I was talking about.  Not that I know anything now.  At least now I know that I don't know shit.  But that's OK.  This is the internet.  Giving a voice to those with nothing to say.

Enough of that.

So, what's next?  Comics.  Lots of comics.  I've a few series to catch up on: Ta-Nehisi Coates's Black Panther, Kim & Kim, Animosity, The Revisionist, Civil War II: Kingpin. With most of those, I'm only an issue behind as it was only in the last couple of weeks that I completely abandoned everyone but Uncle Steve.
Past that, I've got a Marvel Unlimited subscription to properly dig into.  I got it last year sometime, ostensibly for my son's benefit, but I was always going to give it some hammer.
After that, I'll be taking a step ladder to my "to read" pile and see what's what.  In the short term, I'll be heading into F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night.  My lovely friend Amanda and I talked about starting our own little book club a few years ago following our visit to North Carolina.  We did read Walker Percy's The Moviegoer and almost got going on The Last Gentlemen, but didn't manage to keep it up.  Now seems as good a time as any and the idea of maintaining closer contact with a friend is a massive boon.

I'm not sure whether to keep on blogging.  Posting about other books and doing the whole journal thing seems to go against the purpose of this blog.  It was/is a specific accompaniment to reading Stephen King.  Aside from recording and collecting any thoughts or reactions, it's main purpose was to maintain momentum and encourage progress. I don't know.  We'll see. In the end, I had no idea of the blog's audience.  The stats on the blogger account page suggest someone's looking at the posts, but I couldn't say whether it's more than bots dropping on search terms.  I've never encouraged discussion, mainly because I haven't given much value to my opinion, so there hasn't been much reader interaction.  All my own fault.  But it has served its purpose well enough for me.  I got to the end.
Maybe I'll just read books and keep my opinions to myself. Maybe I'll write bits and bobs in an attempt to see whether my brain still works. Yeah, we'll see.

Before I go, I'll give one note of thanks to Laura.  She keeps a blog at http://devouringtexts.blogspot.com where she has not only been reading all of Stephen King, she also reads and reviews (like proper reviews!) zillions of other books.  And engages with her readers in a warm and lovely way.  Go read her blog.

Here's the full list of books that I've trawled through:

Novels

Carrie (1974)
'Salem's Lot (1975)
The Shining (1977)
The Stand(1978)
The Dead Zone (1979)
Firestarter (1980)
Cujo (1981)
Christine (1983)
Pet Sematary (1983)
Cycle of the Werewolf(1983)
The Talisman (1984; with Peter Straub)
It (1986)
The Eyes of the Dragon (1987)
Misery (1987)
The Tommyknockers(1987)
The Dark Half (1989)
Needful Things (1991)
Gerald's Game (1992)
Dolores Claiborne (1992)
Insomnia (1994)
Rose Madder (1995)
The Green Mile (1996)
Desperation (1996)
Bag of Bones (1998)
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (1999)
The Plant (2000; unfinished)
Dreamcatcher (2001)
Black House(2001; with Peter Straub)
From a Buick 8 (2002)
The Colorado Kid(2005)
Cell (2006)
Lisey's Story (2006)
Duma Key (2008)
Under the Dome (2009)
11/22/63 (2011)
Joyland (2013)
Doctor Sleep (2013)
Mr. Mercedes (2014)
Revival (2014)
Finders Keepers (2015)
End of Watch (2016)

The Dark Tower series
The Gunslinger (1982)
The Drawing of the Three (1987)
The Waste Lands (1991)
Wizard and Glass (1997)
Wolves of the Calla (2003)
Song of Susannah (2004)
The Dark Tower (2004)
The Wind Through the Keyhole (2012)

Richard Bachman novels
Rage (1977)
The Long Walk (1979)
Roadwork (1981)
The Running Man (1982)
Thinner (1984)
The Regulators (1996)
Blaze (2007)

Short fiction collections
Night Shift (1978)
Different Seasons (1982)
Skeleton Crew (1985)
Four past Midnight (1990)
Nightmares & Dreamscapes (1993)
Hearts in Atlantis (1999)
Everything's Eventual (2002)
Just After Sunset (2008)
Full Dark, No Stars (2010)
The Bazaar of Bad Dreams (2015)