Paul Sheldon Misery by Stephen KingSheldon, a novelist who is taken hostage by his “No 1 fan”, is now so bound up with James Caan, who played him in the hugely successful movie adaptation, that it’s hard to think of him as anyone but Caan. There are some crucial differences that make it worth reading the novel, however. Not least the fact that when Annie Wilkes performs the famous “hobbling” operation in the book, she doesn’t, as she did in the film, smash his ankles with a sledgehammer. No, she saws off his feet and blowtorches the stumps to cauterise them. A fine example of what you can do on the page that you can’t do on the screen

Photograph: Moviestore Collection/Rex Features