17th out of 78 books
—
1,527 voters
Needful Things
by
Stephen King
Leland Gaunt opens a new shop in Castle Rock called Needful Things. Anyone who enters his store finds the object of his or her lifelong dreams and desires: a prized baseball card, a healing amulet. In addition to a token payment, Gaunt requests that each person perform a little "deed," usually a seemingly innocent prank played on someone else from town. These practical jok...more
Paperback, 790 pages
Published
1992
by Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
(first published 1991)
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Despite that The Stand is my favourite King novel, Needful Things comes a very close second.
In some ways it is a much more intriguing story in that it deals with a much more base issue: human greed and the things people will do for personal gain.
Leland Gaunt arrives in Castle Rock, the setting for a good handful of King’s novels, opening up a bric-a-brac shop. The thing is with this shop is that it always seems to have the customer’s most secret desire and Gaunt never seems to require much money...more
In some ways it is a much more intriguing story in that it deals with a much more base issue: human greed and the things people will do for personal gain.
Leland Gaunt arrives in Castle Rock, the setting for a good handful of King’s novels, opening up a bric-a-brac shop. The thing is with this shop is that it always seems to have the customer’s most secret desire and Gaunt never seems to require much money...more
May 23, 2011
Jahlia ((thing 10 Evil 1))
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
favorites
This. Book. Is. A. Masterpiece.
I loved when i read it a few years ago. Back then i was even more of a horror freak. I was hungry for it and king was my daily supplier. Needful things was awesome! Freakin amazing and i don't say that about a lot of books. I was a little frustrated by how long it took king to tell us what prices the residents of castle rock paid but this book was so good i couldn't even hold a grudge. Fitzpatrick! Kate! Noel! Casts! And above everybody else; author of once in a fu...more
I loved when i read it a few years ago. Back then i was even more of a horror freak. I was hungry for it and king was my daily supplier. Needful things was awesome! Freakin amazing and i don't say that about a lot of books. I was a little frustrated by how long it took king to tell us what prices the residents of castle rock paid but this book was so good i couldn't even hold a grudge. Fitzpatrick! Kate! Noel! Casts! And above everybody else; author of once in a fu...more
Stephen King’s approach to horror is much less about the supernatural than I think his reputation suggests. Before approaching his work back in high school, I was vaguely aware of books like Cujo, Pet Sematary, Christine and It (mostly due to their movie incarnations), and based on these, I assumed that King was all about the thrills and chills of the unexplained or just plain weird. It turns out the real horrors of his books are quite easy to explain, but no less frightening for this. Human nat...more
Beware of small little antique stores that appear in your town run by a man that makes you nervous. In a small town of Castle Rock where lots of weird things happen and where a number of stories are told, a tall, mysterious man sets up his shop called Needful Things and invites the locals to enter. His name is Leland Gaunt. He appears as a gentleman but under his taunt and dried skin he is made of pure evil. His customers really have nothing to buy from him but he is able to manipulate them into...more
I liked this one, it was cool. Not an entirely new concept is this "Needful Things", as I'm sure several people made that connexion between this novel and Bradbury's "Something Wicked This Way Comes". Comparatively speaking, there was more mysticism in the latter, as the former seemed to deal more with the mere brutality that can erupt out of a person when they must protect the material thing they love. Paranoia was the strength of the antagonist. Perfect human paranoia, hate and consumption. So...more
The last Castle Rock tale.
As a finale to one of Stephen King's most iconic towns, this book doesn't disappoint. King makes sure Castle Rock goes out with the kind of bang it deserves. Plenty of thrills and chills to keep you entertained. Although, be warned that if you haven't read the other Castle Rock books, you will be meeting a lot of spoilers for books like Cujo and The Dark Half along the way.
The story starts when a new junk shop opens on Main Street. The kind of shop that seems to have so...more
As a finale to one of Stephen King's most iconic towns, this book doesn't disappoint. King makes sure Castle Rock goes out with the kind of bang it deserves. Plenty of thrills and chills to keep you entertained. Although, be warned that if you haven't read the other Castle Rock books, you will be meeting a lot of spoilers for books like Cujo and The Dark Half along the way.
The story starts when a new junk shop opens on Main Street. The kind of shop that seems to have so...more
Ah, good ole' Stephen King. It's nice to know that he's always there with a ripping good yarn to give me a break from the steaks of heady non-fiction that I sometimes find myself in. Needful Things is the last of his stories set in the the town of Castle Rock and it follows a common pattern and set of themes that he has developed in other books: a malevolant force comes to a small community (most often in Maine) in order to wreak havok and is finally stopped by a noble hero, usually a law enforc...more
Needful Things is as brilliant a piece of writing as you will ever find, for the first 600 pages. The small town world of Castle Rock is convincingly rendered, right down to the petty politics and squabbles inherent in a place where everyone knows everyone's business and grudges have had a lifetime to fester. The town's curiosity is piqued when a new shop named Needful Things announces its grand opening. The shop's owner, a new man in town, is a master at knowing what people want and striking de...more
As with most Stephen King books, the story starts out normally and gets weirder and weirder with each page.
The concept behind it is a powerful one - greed, and the lengths to which people will go just to get something that they think they need. The town's destruction starts out slowly, but picks up pace very quickly.
There's a lot of blood and gore involved - some may think it's almost unnecessary, but I think, why not? Stephen King goes to that great length to show the effects of greed.
The endin...more
The concept behind it is a powerful one - greed, and the lengths to which people will go just to get something that they think they need. The town's destruction starts out slowly, but picks up pace very quickly.
There's a lot of blood and gore involved - some may think it's almost unnecessary, but I think, why not? Stephen King goes to that great length to show the effects of greed.
The endin...more
Mar 13, 2011
Peter
added it
Needful Things is right: A new shop called "Needful Things" arrives in the small Maine town of Castle Rock (where King also set Cujo and the novella The Sun Dog). The owner is the mysteriouse and creepy Leland Gaunt. Eleven year old Brian Rusk was the first customer and he got exactly what he wanted - a very rare 1956 Sandy Kaufax baseball card signed, to Brian. Cyndi Rose Martin was next and she got exactly what she wanted too. In fact ALL of the residents of Castle Rock got exactly what they w...more
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Jeden Abend, nein fast jeden Abend habe ich in den vergangenen Tagen darüber gelesen, wie Leland Gaunt seiner Kundschaft, durch den Verkauf verschiedenster Kuriositäten, verborgene Träume und Wünsche wahr werden lässt. In der beschaulichen und verschlafenen Kleinstadt Castle Rock scheint es seit der Eröffnung nur dieses eine Thema zu geben, nämlich die Eröffnung des neuen Ladens, den mit der grünen Markise und seinem ungewöhnlichen Namen. Die Aufschrift “Needful Things” weckt die Neugier aller S...more
Sep 06, 2012
Jane Stewart
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
paranormal-suspense
I did not enjoy watching normal, everyday people become fools and do nasty things to each other.
The author states this is a black comedy about greed and obsession. It’s not a genre for me. Instead of laughing at people, I was going ugh and oh - too much anger and stupidity.
Gaunt a demon (or devil) comes to town. He meets with many people. He knows each person’s weakness and greatest desire. He has a hypnotizing effect, fulfilling each person’s desire and compelling them to do a task. This task i...more
The author states this is a black comedy about greed and obsession. It’s not a genre for me. Instead of laughing at people, I was going ugh and oh - too much anger and stupidity.
Gaunt a demon (or devil) comes to town. He meets with many people. He knows each person’s weakness and greatest desire. He has a hypnotizing effect, fulfilling each person’s desire and compelling them to do a task. This task i...more
I first read this novel the winter it came out, in 1991. It was a good story--or at least I thought as much, a 14-year-old who spent much of Christmas Break wrapped in a Hudson Bay wool blanket on the living room sofa chewing through these pages, and would grow into a writer who learned an awful lot of his craft from reading and re-reading King--but nothing earth shattering. I never would have thought to re-read the book, but I happened across an audio book (read by King himself, which are alway...more
I was going to say that the reason I didn't like this book was the huge cast of characters, but that isn't true. Sure, the huge cast bothered me, but I've read books like that before, the problem was far more to do with the writing. The writing was belabored, tired, and trite. I say this with the utmost respect for King, but it was.
For example, the huge cast of characters followed a largely identical format. With a book rocking 730 or so pages of small font, that's a lot of reading, and, as with...more
For example, the huge cast of characters followed a largely identical format. With a book rocking 730 or so pages of small font, that's a lot of reading, and, as with...more
Going to shelve my instant adoration--okay let's call a duck a duck, fan-girling--for all things S.King and say the few things that detracted from what would be a 5 star King novel.
-If you were to highlight and cut every redundant scenario. (a new character meeting gaunt, a new prank being played and the prankster saying basically "this is wrong but oh well" in many more words you could halve the book.
-Some things that happened (I won't go into detail to avoid spoiling for people who haven't rea...more
-If you were to highlight and cut every redundant scenario. (a new character meeting gaunt, a new prank being played and the prankster saying basically "this is wrong but oh well" in many more words you could halve the book.
-Some things that happened (I won't go into detail to avoid spoiling for people who haven't rea...more
Wow, this book was loonngggg. That and the mass of characters to keep up with are the main reasons why I knocked this book down two stars. I'm no good with names, in books or real life, and there were probably 20+ characters in this book and you need to remember who is feuding with who and what trick was played on them to really get it.
That being said, this book is based on a very interesting relationship with people and their stuff. While I knew before that some people love stuff and want to ke...more
That being said, this book is based on a very interesting relationship with people and their stuff. While I knew before that some people love stuff and want to ke...more
When I selected the book Needful Things, which had been sitting on my bookshelf for a couple of years (or five!) I thought to myself, ‘I can’t go wrong!’ as the book to get me back into being a bookworm and writing my personal reviews. But, unfortunately, I was wrong… I love a good book, and I like my horror stories.
Stephen King wrote some of the classics which were, in my opinion, Misery and, my all time favourite, The Shining.
One thing which really affected the joy of reading this book was t...more
Stephen King wrote some of the classics which were, in my opinion, Misery and, my all time favourite, The Shining.
One thing which really affected the joy of reading this book was t...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
I remember reading this probably in middle school--6th or 7th grade maybe. I wasn't allowed to read Stephen King books, as my parents deemed them too violent and explicit for my burgeoning mind. I was spending a week with my grandparents, and as per their way, we went to the bookstore to get a book for the week. I picked out Needful Things. They looked at the book, and inquired if I was allowed to read it. They suggested I move to the classics section, but I was bent on getting this book. They o...more
Never read Stephen King? Years ago I read On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, which is wonderfully written, informative and insightful. But, amazingly, this is my first Stephen King book of fiction.
Needful Things is about an old man, Leland Gaunt, who opens a store--called Needful Things--filled with curiosities in the small town of Castle Rock, Maine. Mr. Gaunt happens to have the very thing that each town person needs to fulfill his/her life...and at a price no person could refuse. His bargain...more
Needful Things is about an old man, Leland Gaunt, who opens a store--called Needful Things--filled with curiosities in the small town of Castle Rock, Maine. Mr. Gaunt happens to have the very thing that each town person needs to fulfill his/her life...and at a price no person could refuse. His bargain...more
A sleepy ordinary town gets a new resident and a new shop. In satisfying their curiousity about the shop and its merchandise the towns people find themselves caught up in an ever spiralling course of malicious and mean acts that are apparently minor but have repurcussions of cataclysmic proportions (end of the world stuff).
One man remains untouched by the influence of Leland Gaunt the shop proprieter and though constantly one step behind events nevertheless manages to save the town from itself w...more
One man remains untouched by the influence of Leland Gaunt the shop proprieter and though constantly one step behind events nevertheless manages to save the town from itself w...more
I am never moving to Maine. Stephen King has officially instilled a phobia. Needful Things was one of those lightning-fast horror reads. You get caught up in the rhythm of Castle Rock and once things start going bad, they spiral out of control so quickly, you can't put the book down to recover and take a breather. I was waaay too paranoid when reading this at night and you'd think I'd know better by now than to let Mr. King give me nightmares. The true excellence of Needful Things really lies in...more
My first thought when reading this book was that it's "cheating" to trick people into selling their souls (sort of) by making them think that some piece of trash is really their heart's desire. But when you get right down to it, people's worst actions come from desiring or feeling something, and believing that it is now THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE UNIVERSE. And then using that to justify anything. What they originally wanted or felt never ends up being worth the pain they cause for it, so wh...more
Pride.
That is the moral of the story along with its warning: the consequences of pride. At first, it seems like a tale of greed and possession, but I have to heed that is, much like the storefront of Needful Things, a mere façade. The greed of keeping in tow what on possesses is the initial catalyst for the mayhem that ensues within the little town of Castle Rock, but it is the pride of defending one's self against those who offend that sends people to their deaths within this allegory.
Here is...more
That is the moral of the story along with its warning: the consequences of pride. At first, it seems like a tale of greed and possession, but I have to heed that is, much like the storefront of Needful Things, a mere façade. The greed of keeping in tow what on possesses is the initial catalyst for the mayhem that ensues within the little town of Castle Rock, but it is the pride of defending one's self against those who offend that sends people to their deaths within this allegory.
Here is...more
Apr 13, 2010
Tee Jay
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
horror,
stephen-king
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
Caveat emptor [stia in guardia il compratore!]
Detesto usare una frase così logora, ma non riesco a trovare un sinonimo decente: mi aspettavo di più.
Cose Preziose è considerato uno dei capisaldi della carriera di Stephen King. E, sebbene non gli si possa dir nulla sul piano stilistico, è, innanzitutto, inutilmente prolisso. Sì, insomma, quasi ottocento pagine di tessitura della ragnatela, e una risoluzione veloce come un colpo di forbici. Zack.
Oh, è sicuramente un affresco di meravigliosa accurat...more
Detesto usare una frase così logora, ma non riesco a trovare un sinonimo decente: mi aspettavo di più.
Cose Preziose è considerato uno dei capisaldi della carriera di Stephen King. E, sebbene non gli si possa dir nulla sul piano stilistico, è, innanzitutto, inutilmente prolisso. Sì, insomma, quasi ottocento pagine di tessitura della ragnatela, e una risoluzione veloce come un colpo di forbici. Zack.
Oh, è sicuramente un affresco di meravigliosa accurat...more
After finishing this book I walked out of my bedroom blinking in the sunlight! This is by far the longest book I've ever read. And it's probably for that reason that I'm not giving it higher than 3 stars.
*spoilers*
The premise is an interesting one. The devil offers something to you that you really want and in return you owe him a favour. The object of your affection becomes so hypnotic that you are completely blind sighted and turn crazy with your own obsession to the point of violence.
I think...more
*spoilers*
The premise is an interesting one. The devil offers something to you that you really want and in return you owe him a favour. The object of your affection becomes so hypnotic that you are completely blind sighted and turn crazy with your own obsession to the point of violence.
I think...more
If anyone understands the quirks and foibles of small town life it is Stephen King. For much of his career King has been setting many stories and novels in little niches of his mythical Maine (and some beyond) and giving us a glimpse of how these small communities exist. King's town of Castle Rock has been home to tales like Cujo, The Dead Zone and "The Body", and has shown the dark side of human behaviour. But in Needful Things he literally explodes the town's characters, history and mythology...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stephen King Fans: Needful Things | 153 | 313 | May 09, 2013 12:17am | |
| Goodreads Librari...: Add an Edition | 2 | 17 | Dec 17, 2012 01:32pm | |
| Goodreads Librari...: ISBN number problem | 3 | 22 | May 04, 2012 10:07am | |
| Stephen King Fans: Needful Things Movie | 12 | 75 | Feb 05, 2012 11:50pm |
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Stephen Edwin King was born in Portland, Maine in 1947, the second son of Donald and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King. After his parents separated when Stephen was a toddler, he and his older brother, David, were raised by his mother. Parts of his childhood were spent in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where his father's family...more
More about Stephen King...
Stephen Edwin King was born in Portland, Maine in 1947, the second son of Donald and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King. After his parents separated when Stephen was a toddler, he and his older brother, David, were raised by his mother. Parts of his childhood were spent in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where his father's family...more
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