After devouring the entirety of Stephen King’s back catalogue (that’s a lot of books), I wanted to explore the books that most influenced the King of Horror himself.

Stephen King’s not shy about recommending books. He’s gone on the record twice with a list of his top 10 favourite books. He included an extensive reading list at the end of his superb On Writing. He included another extensive book and film list at the end of Danse Macabre. And his Twitter is filled with recommendations for great contemporary novels.

Stephen King’s Top 10 Favourite Books





When asked by Goodreads to list his top 10 favourite books, Stephen King drew up this incredibly interesting list. You’d probably expect King to rattle off a bunch of classic horror tomes, but nope. King came out with this fairly diverse list of prize winners, modern classics, and fantasy. All of them are fantastic books and well-deserving to be in a top ten list.

We’re not sure if Stephen King’s list of top 10 favourite books is in order, but if it is in order Lord of the Flies as number one certainly wouldn’t come as a surprise. Golding’s classic novel about a group of schoolboys stranded and fighting for survival on an island is a clear influence (thematically speaking) in around 20% of Stephen King’s own novels.

Stephen King talks about Lord of the Flies with passion in this video:

Stephen King on Lord of the Flies:

It opened my eyes and I thought, ‘Wait a minute! There’s a whole other level to this story right here.

According to Stephen King, you should be able to read any good book twice. And Lord of the Flies is one of those books that lends itself to many repeat readings.

You can check out Lord of the Flies, one of Stephen King’s favourite books, here.

If you’re an audiobook fan, Audible also has a fantastic reading of Lord of the Flies by the author William Golding himself.

If you don’t already have Audible, grab yourself a 30-day free trial and 2 free audiobooks here.

2. Ship of Fools by Katherine Anne Porter

We all know Stephen King is a huge classic rock fan. He even has his own band called the Rock Bottom Remainders. This makes me wonder if King came to Katherine Anne Porter’s novel the same way I did – after falling in love with The Doors’ same-titled song (inspired by the book).

Porter’s novel is about a group of disparate characters of different nationalities sailing from Mexico to Europe on a passenger ship and is an allegory for the rise of Nazism.

You can check out Ship of Fools here.

3. Watership Down by Richard Adams

If you’ve only seen the cover of Watership Down and never actually read it, you might think a children’s story about cute bunny rabbits is an odd choice of favourite book from Stephen King.

But Watership Down is anything but a children’s book. This is one of the most devastating survival stories you could ever read and fans of King’s have long noticed the influence of Richard Adam’s classic in works like The Stand and The Dark Tower Series.

Check out Watership Down here.

Stephen King actually wrote a review on Goodreads for this Pulitzer Prize winning epic novel about one man’s journey through the spy chambers of North Korea.

Here’s what King had to say about this book:

In a stunning feat of imagination, Johnson puts us inside Jun Do (yep, John Doe), a North Korean orphan who stumbles from poverty to a job as body double for a Hero of the Eternal Revolution. The closed world of North Korea revealed here—where businessmen are conscripted to work in the rice fields and the ruthless Kim Jong-il is still the Dear Leader—goes beyond anything Orwell ever imagined. The Orphan Master’s Son veers from cold terror to surrealistic humor with ease, and succeeds as both a thriller and a social satire. Put it on your shelf next to Catch-22.

Now if that doesn’t make you want to immediately devour this book, I don’t know what will!

You can check out The Orphan Master’s Son here.

The Hair of Harold Roux shared the 1975 National Book Award Fiction Prize with Robert Stone’s Dog Soldiers, but only Stone’s novel is remembered today. A shame because Williams’ semi-autobiographical novel-within-a-novel is a masterpiece.

You might not have heard of The Hair of Harold Roux but this novel is a favourite book not only of Stephen King but of Joseph Heller (Catch-22) and Andre DuBus III (House of Sand and Fog) too.

In an interview with The Atlantic, Stephen King had this to say about Thomas Williams:

He was a wonderful, wonderful novelist. He wrote a novel called The Hair of Harold Roux, which is one of my favorite books, about a writer named Aaron Benham. Benham says that when he sits down to write a book it’s like being on a dark plain with one little tiny fire. And somebody comes and stands by that fire to warm themselves. And then more people come. And those are the characters in your book, and the fire is whatever inspiration you have. And they feed the fire, and it gets big, and eventually it burns out because the book is at an end. It’s always felt that way to me. When you start, it’s very cold, an impossible task. But then maybe the characters start to take on a little bit of life, or the story takes a turn that you don’t expect …

And in an interview with The New York Times, Stephen King said that The Hair of Harold Roux is the book he returns to again and again.

You can read The Hair of Harold Roux here.

6. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

Ralph Ellison’s timeless classic novel about racial division is another one of Stephen King’s favourite books. This book tells the story of an unnamed narrator who shows what it’s like to be invisible because of the colour of his skin.

Here are some great quotes from this book:

“When I discover who I am, I’ll be free.”

“I do not know if all cops are poets, but I know that all cops carry guns with triggers.”

“Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat.”

“What and how much had I lost by trying to do only what was expected of me instead of what I myself had wished to do?”

You can read Invisible Man here.

7. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

Am I the only one seeing a common theme in Stephen King’s favourite books?

King clearly values devastating narratives that are beautifully written. And there are few books more devastating or written with more poetry than Cormac McCarthy’s masterful Blood Meridian.

You can read Blood Meridian here.

8. 1984 by George Orwell

Another dystopian classic that has its stamp of influence on a large majority of Stephen King’s prolific output.

You were probably forced to read 1984 at school and might hate it. But I implore you, and so does Stephen King in making this list, to give it another read.

You can read 1984 here.

9. American Pastoral by Philip Roth

And here’s another modern classic and Pulitzer Prize winning work in this list of Stephen King’s favourite books.

Stephen King, in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, recommends picking up the audio version of American Pastoral:

If ever there was an argument for audio as the perfect medium when it comes to novels and stories, it’s Ron Silver’s reading of the Pulitzer-winning American Pastoral. (That’s why it ranks No. 1 on my top 10 all-time list…) This is what happens when a prodigiously talented, fully invested reader really ”gets” sublimely written material. Silver delivers ”Swede” Levov’s story with a passion and a tenderness that only the spoken word can convey.

You can check out American Pastoral in book form here.

Or, if you want to listen to the audio version Stephen King recommends, pick up a free trial of Audible and grab 2 free books when you go through this link.

Of course Stephen King is a Lord of the Rings fan. Anyone who has read The Dark Tower Series can see that. In fact, Stephen King straight up admits he was paying homage to Tolkien’s series in the introduction to The Gunslinger:

The Dark Tower books, like most long fantasy tales written by men and women of my generation (The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, by Stephen Donaldson, and The Sword of Shannara, by Terry Brooks, are just two of many), were born out of Tolkien’s.

You’ve probably already read The Lord of the Rings or seen the films (who hasn’t?) – but if not, here’s your wake up call to read one of the greatest fantasy series ever put to paper.

You can read The Lord of the Rings here.





Stephen King’s Favourite Books

While this is an admirable list of favourite books and would serve as a good leaping off point for anyone wanting to read more great fiction, Stephen King himself acknowledges that this list could look very different on a different day.

Stephen King points out:

Not only that, but Stephen King has ANOTHER list of his top 10 favourite books (many of which overlap with this list):

Stephen King’s Favourite Books – A Great Reading List!

I love digging into the favourite books of my favourite authors. It’s like getting a reading list of books you know are going to be fantastic from someone who respect and admire.

If you’re a big fan of Stephen King, try out a few of his favourite books and see how you like them too!