Intro

Hello and Welcome to this episode of the podcast, "The Mnemonic Tree", where we add a single mnemonic leaf to our Tree of Knowledge.

I’m Jans you Mnemonic Man and today's episode is on the prolific American author Stephen King. Stephen King has published over 60 novels and numerous short stories and is generally known for his work on horror, the supernatural, and fantasy genres. He is one of the best known and most successful authors in the world with many of his novels adapted into some of the biggest movies of our time. The “Shawshank Redemption”, The Green Mile, and “The Shining are just to name a few.

Along the way he has had some dark times with an extremely disturbing incident that happened when he was just age four which I will elaborate on a little bit later in “Five Fun Facts”, and also getting hit by an out-of-control caravan which tossed him 14 feet, back in 1999 when he was 51.

He has sold around 350 million books and our mnemonic today will be on Stephen King’s top six books.

So, with no further ado, we will begin with a summary from Wikipedia.

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Wikipedia Summary

Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author of horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, crime, science-fiction, and fantasy novels.

King was born in Portland, Maine, on September 21, 1947. His father, Donald Edwin King, a traveling vacuum salesman after returning from World War II, was born in Indiana with the surname Pollock, changing it to King as an adult.[11][12] King's mother was Nellie Ruth King (née Pillsbury).

Called the "King of Horror",[2] his books have sold more than 350 million copies as of 2006,[3] and many have been adapted into films, television series, miniseries, and comic books.[4] He has also written approximately 200 short stories, most of which have been published in book collections.[5] His debut, Carrie, was published in 1974, and was followed by 'Salem's Lot, The Shining, The Stand and The Dead Zone. Different Seasons, a collection of four novellas, was his first major departure from the horror genre. The novellas provided the basis for the films Stand by Me and The Shawshank Redemption. King has published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman and has cowritten works with other authors, notably his friend Peter Straub and sons Joe Hill and Owen King.

Several of King's works have won the Bram Stoker and August Derleth Awards. He has also won awards for his overall contribution to literature, including the 2003 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters,[6][7] the 2007 Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America [8] and the 2014 National Medal of Arts.[9] Joyce Carol Oates called King "a brilliantly rooted, psychologically 'realistic' writer, for whom the American scene has been a continuous source of inspiration, and American popular culture a vast cornucopia of possibilities."[10]

Extracted from: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_King#Philanthropy]

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Mnemonic

Stephen King – Top 6 Books Mnemonic – TTTISM

(Picture Stephen King playing the guitar with the Melbourne band TISM along with wearing their standard headdress, a Balaclava)

1. The Green Mile

2. The Shining

3. The Stand

4. It

5. Salems Lot

6. Misery

Five Fun Facts

1. Not only has King published numerous books under his name but also under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. Why you ask? Well, it was because it allowed him to publish more than the accepted one standard book per year.

2. People come from all over the world to view Stephen King’s house which is situated at 47 W. Broadway, Bangor in Maine. Apart from looking like a haunted house straight out of one of King’s novels, it is one of the most photographed houses in America.

3. The book “Carrie” was found in the trash by Stephen King’s wife. King was not happy with his first draft so threw it in the bin. His wife found it, read it, and convinced King to give it another try.

4. There is darkness in King’s writing and also in his life. Though he cannot remember, when he was just four years old, he went out with a friend to play by the railway tracks. King returned home later but tragically without his friend who had been run over by a train. His mother had the unenviable job of picking up the pieces and placing them in a wicker basket.

5. King got the idea for “The Shining” when he went on a family holiday to the Stanley Hotel in Colorado. After the book’s success, he wrote an adapted screenplay for Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick was not a fan of King and refused to even read it, instead writing his own with novelist Diane Johnson. King took a firm disdain to Kubrick’s version so much so that he wrote his own version of “The Shining” for the ABC which starred Steven Weber and Rebecca De Mornay.

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Three Question Quiz

Q.1. Stephen King follows which baseball team? Options are New York Yankees, Detroit Tigers, or Boston Red Sox

Q.2. What was King’s first published novel?

Q.3. What is King’s longest book? Options are The Stand, It, or Salems Lot

Bonus Q. Name the two actors who starred in the movie adaption of “Misery”?

Bonus Q. What breed of dog is Stephen King’s “Cujo”?

Mnemonic Recap

Stephen King – Top 6 Books Mnemonic – TTTISM

(Picture Stephen King playing the guitar with the Melbourne band TISM along with wearing their standard headdress, a Balaclava)

1. The Green Mile

2. The Shining

3. The Stand

4. It

5. Salems Lot

6. Misery

Three Question Quiz Answers

Q.1. Stephen King follows which baseball team? Options are New York Yankees, Detroit Tigers, or Boston Red Sox

A. Boston Red Sox

Q.2. What was King’s first published novel?

A. Carrie in 1973. Though it was his first to be published, it was his sixth novel

Now, just speaking of novels. The other night I was taking out the bin and there was a man out on the street throwing Stephen King novels at people walking down the footpath. Anyway, I couldn’t figure out why. Then “It” hit me!

Q.3. What is King’s longest book? Options are The Stand, It, or Salems Lot

A. The Stand, which was published in 1978 and was a stupendous 1,152 pages long, and that was after around 400 pages were cut!

Bonus Q. Name the two actors who starred in the movie adaption of “Misery”?

A. James Caan who played novelist Paul Sheldon and Kathy Bates who played his biggest fan former nurse Annie Wilkes.

Bonus Q. What breed of dog is Stephen King’s “Cujo”?

A. A Saint Bernard which was inspired by a real big, angry Saint Bernard he came across at a motorcycle repair shop

Word of the Week

auberge

[ oh-bairzh ]

noun

an inn; hostel.

Example