I've had this good-condition paperback on my keeper shelves for years now, and I think it's time it went traveling. (This is the amusing edition with the inner cover showing the romance-novel cover-image of the novel-within-the-novel - featuring Stephen King's face on the studly, bare-chested hero!)

I read this one way back when it first came out, and it's one of my favorite King novels. It depicts real-world horror, nothing supernatural about it; it also deals with the dynamic between authors and their public, with popular book-marketing genres, and with writing in general, in a way that's revealing and also very, very funny. [When the typewriter started losing keys I just about lost it myself... although younger folk who've never used a typewriter might not empathize as strongly as I did!] Even the book-within-a-book, the "Misery Chastain" romance novel, is hilarious while at the same time reflecting the genre with deadly accuracy.

[The 1990 film version was quite good, and reasonably faithful to the book - too much so in a few scenes! - but it couldn't quite manage some of the manipulate-the-reader tricks that the book can! There's a TV Tropes page on the novel and film, with some entertaining tidbits.]

I left this book on the book-swap shelves inside the coffee house at around 3; hope the finder enjoys it!

*** Released for the 2015 Allergic to A challenge. ***

*** Released as part of the 2015 Movie release challenge. ***