The movies are faithful to the novellas with only slight changes that streamline their cinematic versions.

If you love the movies The Shawshank Redemption and Stand by Me-based on these novellas-then you will also love these stories. The novellas 'Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption' and 'The Body' are both affecting literary depictions of the power of friendship, something I love to see in fiction. I decided to buy the book through Audible. Unfortunately, there are some not so great moments, too. But there is one thing he and I agree on: there is some literary greatness within the cover of Different Seasons. I read their review of Different Seasons with great interest, although I disagreed with most of the James Smythe's assessments. Was it time for a personal reconsideration of Stephen King? I've recently discovered that there are a lot of critics doing this, particularly The Guardian's 'Rereading Stephen King' column is giving it a go. I read quite a bit of Stephen King in my teen years (Cujo, Carrie, Night Shift), but I hadn't read Different Seasons, the book of four novellas-two of which were the basis for these movies. The source material had to be great to make such fantastic movies.

If you don't believe me, then go look on Rotten Tomatoes ( here and here). The kids loved both movies and I was very pleased to see that the films held up beautifully with time. My wife and I had seen the movies when they first came out but our children had not seen either movie. “The wondrous readability of his work, as well as the instant sense of communication with his characters, are what make Stephen King the consummate storyteller that he is,” hailed the Houston Chronicle about Different Seasons.I recently watched The Shawshank Redemption and Stand by Me with my wife and children. This novella became the movie Stand By Me.įinally, a disgraced woman is determined to triumph over death in “The Breathing Method.”

In “The Body,” four rambunctious young boys plunge through the façade of a small town and come face-to-face with life, death, and intimations of their own mortality. Next is “Apt Pupil,” the inspiration for the film of the same name about top high school student Todd Bowden and his obsession with the dark and deadly past of an older man in town. This gripping collection begins with “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption,” in which an unjustly imprisoned convict seeks a strange and startling revenge-the basis for the Best Picture Academy Award-nominee The Shawshank Redemption. Stephen King’s collection of novellas, Different Seasons available here bound by hand in laser-etched, hand-dyed leather.Ī “hypnotic” ( The New York Times Book Review) collection of four novellas-including the inspirations behind the films Stand By Me and The Shawshank Redemption-from Stephen King, bound together by the changing of seasons, each taking on the theme of a journey with strikingly different tones and characters.

Four seasons stephen king