Scared the living crap out of me! A wonderful read. One of King's best! ( )

Not a bad book, but not as good as Carrie, in my opinion. The first four parts of the book were great, but the last part got a little too silly for my tastes. It seemed to me that the story was going in the direction of a man who was simply going insane and that would have been a good way to conclude it without bringing in supernatural aspects of the hotel. It would have been interesting to see how everything was explained through Jack's insanity. But that's not how it was done. The story was well told, regardless, and King's attention to detail in his writing gets better with each book I read. ( )

I read "The Shining" about thirty years ago, it was only King's third book, but I had read several later works before this one. It was also the last Stephen King book that I read; it was so terrifying that it occurred to me it could be dangerous to my health. King has terrified more people than Osama Ban Lauden or El Queda ever dreamed of. This book should carry a warning label on its cover concerning its health risks; the TSA, DEA and OSHA should evaluate it for its addictive and toxic elements and place anyone transporting it under suspicion as a threat to our culture.

Do I hyperbolize? Only slightly. My reading of this in a darkened bus on a late night trip to O'Hare airport was frequently interupted by my having to turn around to see who or what may be behind me. As for addiction, a cable installer noticed a King novel on a table in my home, we started talking about King and spent the better part of a hour discussing his various works.

I recently read "Silence of the Lambs", the only horror work I've read since. I don't do horror any more. If "Silence" is horror, then "The Shining" is pure terror; five stars woefully understates the power of this work. ( )

This is one of the few books to have actually frightened me when I read it, not a sudden shocking horror that seems common in current books, but a slow creeping horror that gets under your skin and gets to you when you least expect it. To this day the imagery and ideas have a haunting effect when I think of them and the simplest things took on a horrifying aura.

I'll never look at topiary or fire hoses the same way again.

When someone is looking to be scared, even those jaded by modern horror movies, this and Ghost Story are the books I recommend the most. ( )

A classic haunted house story that is also about the process of going insane. Vintage Stephen King. ( )