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Different Seasons
Different Seasons
Author: Stephen King
An unjustly imprisoned convict seeks a strange and startling revenge...a teenager becomes both the puppet and the puppet master of evil...four rambunctious young boys plunge through the facade of a small town and come face-to-face with life, death, and intimations of their own mortality...a disgraced woman is determined to triumph over death. Th...  more »
ISBN-13: 9780451147646
ISBN-10: 0451147642
Publication Date: 1986
Pages: 507
Rating:
  • Currently 4.3/5 Stars.
 34

4.3 stars, based on 34 ratings
Publisher: Signet
Book Type: Paperback
Other Versions: Hardcover, Audio CD
Members Wishing: 0
Reviews: Member | Amazon | Write a Review

Top Member Book Reviews

reviewed Different Seasons on + 170 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 3
This book includes the stories that the movies The Shawshank Redemption, Stand By Me, and Apt Pupil were based on. Also included is a story called the Breathing Method that is one of King's better short stories. This is a great read. One of his best collections of novellas.
reviewed Different Seasons on + 69 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 3
This books is four novellas: Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, Apt Pupil, The Body and The Breathing Method.

All four novellas are great in the way that the reader is intrigued the whole time trying to figure out how it is all going to end. The Breathing Method is weirdest of the four.

FROM THE BOOK:
RITA HAYWORTH AND THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION
An unjustly imprisoned convict seeks a strange and startling revenge...The basis for the Best Picture Academy Award nominee, "The Shawshank Redemption".

APT PUPIL
Todd Bowden is one of the top students in his high school class and a typical American sixteen-year-old-- until be becomes obesessed with the dark and deadly past of an older man in town. The inspiration for the film "Apt Pupil" from Pheonix Pictures.

THE BODY
Four rambunctious young boys plunge through the facade of a small town and come face-to-face with life, death and intimations of their own mortality. The film "Stand by Me" is based on this novella.

THE BREATHING METHOD
A disgraced woman is determined to triumph over death.
aerikaj avatar reviewed Different Seasons on + 11 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 3
Very good read. For me, each story was better than the one before it. The Body and The Breathing Method were certainly my favorites.
roarlady avatar reviewed Different Seasons on + 24 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 3
Four KING novellas, of which 3 were made into movies. !. Shawshank Redemption..2. Apt Pupil..3. Stand by Me. If you are into the horror genre it just doesn't get any better than this...
l3rookeLuvsl3ooks avatar reviewed Different Seasons on + 60 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
I decidedly like King's short stories, novellas and shorter novels better than I like his longer works. This is a good group of novellas.
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scrapbooklady avatar reviewed Different Seasons on + 472 more book reviews
Stephen King is usually thought of as someone who writes stories about monsters and gore, actually his work is so much more. "Different Seasons" is a perfect example of this. It is a book with four different stories in it "Rita Hayworth And The Shawshank Redemption", "Apt Pupil", "The Body" and "The Breathing Method" and each one has it's merits. In these the proof that King is a master story teller is evident. If you haven't read King, this would be a great place to start.
marcijo28 avatar reviewed Different Seasons on + 320 more book reviews
Definitely worth reading even if you have seen the movies.
This book was 4 novellas: Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption (Shawshank Redemption), Apt Pupil (Apt Pupil), The Body (Stand By Me), and The Breathing Method (no movie.)
reviewed Different Seasons on + 4 more book reviews
i really love it . it was up to stephen kings higest standards
reviewed Different Seasons on + 7 more book reviews
Another great book written by Stephen King.... comprising of 4 novella's (3 of which were made into movies). Not all of the book is King's typical horror themes.... but still great to read.
reviewed Different Seasons on
All four novellas are great stories and three of them were made into good movies.
Bitzer avatar reviewed Different Seasons on + 95 more book reviews
Another great Stephen King book!!!
reviewed Different Seasons on + 191 more book reviews
This is one of the best books Stephen King wrote: Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redeption, Apt Pupil. The Body, The Breathing Method. These aren't horror stories . .they're novels that are both compelling and insightful.
ROSEO avatar reviewed Different Seasons on + 11 more book reviews
Includes Stephen King's great novellas:
Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption
Apt Pupil
The Body
The Breathing Method
reviewed Different Seasons on + 46 more book reviews
Sometimes collections like this can be hard to judge. Most of the time the author will have ups and downs, with one story that may appeal to one audience and another which appeals to a different one. Different Seasons, however, manages to provide a good body of work that should appeal to just about everybody.
To be clear on the content of the book, this is actually two novellas and two short stories--both Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption and The Breathing Method are both on par with such classics as "Bartleby the Scrivener." The format of the book is perhaps a little hokey--the stories follow the seasonal theme--but ultimately that artistic touch is irrelevant to the real appreciation of the book, at worst, and endearing, at best.

The stories themselves are excellent, a fact attested to by the production of three major films based on the first three of these pieces. The first presented is Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, and of them all, it's probably the best on the whole. The characters in the story are well written and, all things considered, it's really just a fine story with a positive message that you might not be used to seeing in Stephen King's writing. Second is Apt Pupil, which is more reminiscent of King's usual subject matter and tone, but still manages to provide an engrossing and interesting view into the nature of evil and the parasitic relationship that a man can develop with it. The Body is probably the most endearing of all the stories in the book, even if it is the roughest in terms of production. With a reflective, old-man-on-the-porch-in-the-sunshine voice, King is able to relate this tale of the loss of innocence and the passage into adulthood. The final tale is actually reminiscent of other, older authors than King. The Breathing Method uses several old tricks of such superluminaries as Melville and Hawthorne in its presentation, and manages to wrap an entertaining story around an allegorical examination of the writing process.

Taken as a whole, this collection is truly one of the most excellent efforts that King has ever put forth. While he still does tend to bloat a little (a complaint many have about his novels) in the middle two stories, all of them manage to create an atmosphere wholly their own and to take the mind of a reader away to another place, which, as King says in the afterword, is his first and highest goal. While little new ground is broken in the themes King analyzes, the themes themselves all still bear examination. His storytelling is at its height here, and this is a book that all readers should pick up at one point or another. It may not be horror, but that, in this case, cannot be said to be a failing, as King showcases his cross-genre talent. A truly fantastic book.
reviewed Different Seasons on
A collection of four EXCELLENT Stephen King stories!
scifimom avatar reviewed Different Seasons on + 48 more book reviews
four short stories, including the body which became the movie stand by me.
reviewed Different Seasons on + 9 more book reviews
Good read.
reviewed Different Seasons on + 4 more book reviews
Different Seasons is a collection of four stories. Included are the shorts that inspired the films "The Shawshank Redemption", "Apt Pupil" and "Stand By Me".
reviewed Different Seasons on + 13 more book reviews
Wow, great read from cover to cover. Just read Christine G's review. That really sums it up. Oh, then go pick this up and read it for yourself. Wonderful book.
reviewed Different Seasons on + 298 more book reviews
awesome stephen did a great job no surprise there.
reviewed Different Seasons on
another great Stephen King book!


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