I first read this book when I was at a lousy college in Oregon. A friend of mine was into Stephen King, and I'd just discovered that I liked him, and I plowed through all of this guy's King books in a semester, including The Stand.

This book has stuck with me the most, and it is the one I keep returning too. While the fourth "Season" The Breathing Method, never did anything for me, the other three stories in it, Apt Pupil, The Body (Stand By Me), and Shawshank, are astounding. This is King before he was hugely, massively famous, and before his publisher would have had the faith in him to publish all of these things separately. The three have all been made into films. All of the above should tell you something.

If your King exposure has only been through his massive novels, or through the movies or TV series of his work, read this book. This is a King most people don't know, clever, sincere, almost innocent, certainly by comparison, and above all, sensitive. Two of the books deal with adolescents at a time when King was still close enough to the topic to deal with them well. This is most likely King pre-coke, typing away in his laundry room after a hard day of teaching, and it shows. Sentimental without being silly, touching without being mushy, and impacting when you least expect it, this is King's first work of Literature vs. Genre Fiction, and the fact that these works are remembered more as films than as his stories is sad.

I listen to the audio versions of the three stories I love from this often. Read by Frank Muller, they are flawless interpretations, and bring wonderful new life to familiar stories. I would read this book to my kids when they passed 13 or so.