Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.75 AVERAGE
3.75 AVERAGE
There is a stretch of King books starting with Gerald's Game and continuing through to Duma Key where, until recently, I had not read the majority of. The exceptions were the Dark Tower books (IV, V, VI, VII), Bag of Bones, Lisey's Story. Which means I had never read Gerald's Game, Dolores Claiborne, Insomnia, Rose Madder, Desperation, The Regulators, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Hearts in Atlantis, Dreamcatcher, Black House, From a Buick 8, Cell, Blaze, and Duma Key. Outside of this period, my unread King books consists of only Christine, Thinner, The Dark Half, and End of Watch.
I have since narrowed that list down to Dreamcatcher, Black House, From A Buick 8, Cell, Christine, Thinner, The Dark Half, and End of Watch. 18 books down to 8.
Hearts in Atlantis is my most recent tally mark. I'm not sure why I've never read it. I'm guessing I would've read it sooner if I had known the strong ties the first (and longest) story in this book has to the Dark Tower universe. Regardless of the reasons, I have now read it and I quite enjoyed it. I thought the idea behind this book was pretty fun. Five stories across three decades and all tied together by a baseball glove (this story is not about baseball).
1960 Low Men in Yellow Coats: This story is, from what I can tell, the most highly regarded of the five. In it, we meet Bobby Garfield, John Sullivan, and Carol Gerber as best friends at the age of eleven. We meet Ted Brautigan (Dark Tower VII) who is on the run from the Low Men. I think King's talent for storytelling is at least partially due to his ability to write tangent storylines that are every bit as compelling as the main plotline (some may disagree here, haha), including meanderings of bullying from a group of boys, one of whom is William Shearman who will one day fight in Vietnam.
1966 Hearts in Atlantis: A story about Pete Riley, a college freshman who nearly ends his college career before it begins by becoming addicted to playing Hearts. He also briefly dates Carol Gerber and we meet Ronnie Malenfant, a fellow Hearts addict and future Vietnam soldier. This book covers the beginnings of the student protests of the Vietnam War. (Kenny Auster is also one of the Hearts-addicted students; the same Kenny Auster from Bag of Bones?)
1983 Blind Willie: A somewhat strange story about Willie Shearman (ex-bully of Bobby, Carol, and Sully) and how he pretends to be three different people in order to become a beggar on the streets of New York each day as a blind Vietnam vet. He views this as his penance for the role he played involving Carol. We also learn more about Carol's post-collegiate life which includes becoming involved in a militant anti-war group that culminates in a bombing at a recruitment office.
1999 Why We're in Vietnam: John Sullivan, who nearly died in Vietnam saving Willie Shearman's life alongside Ronnie Malenfant, is now the owner of a car dealership. When he learns about the death of another war-time friend, he attends the funeral and talks with their former Lieutenant Dieffenbaker. They talk about how their generation really could've changed the world but they sold out to materialism and convenience. He dies in a traffic jam on the way home from a heart attack but not before mysteriously acquiring Bobby Garfield's baseball mitt during a hallucination.
1999 Heavenly Shades of Night Are Falling: Bobby Garfield returns to his boyhood hometown after hearing about John Sullivan's death and being sent his old baseball glove by Sully's estate executor. In the glove is a 1960 copyright page of Lord of the Flies with Ted's handwriting telling him to tell Carol that she was "...as brave as a lion." After the funeral, Bobby goes to the baseball field he had spent so much time at or nearby as a child and sees Carol who now goes by the name Denise Schoonover. And so, the story comes full circle.
Love + Peace = Information
I have since narrowed that list down to Dreamcatcher, Black House, From A Buick 8, Cell, Christine, Thinner, The Dark Half, and End of Watch. 18 books down to 8.
Hearts in Atlantis is my most recent tally mark. I'm not sure why I've never read it. I'm guessing I would've read it sooner if I had known the strong ties the first (and longest) story in this book has to the Dark Tower universe. Regardless of the reasons, I have now read it and I quite enjoyed it. I thought the idea behind this book was pretty fun. Five stories across three decades and all tied together by a baseball glove (this story is not about baseball).
1960 Low Men in Yellow Coats: This story is, from what I can tell, the most highly regarded of the five. In it, we meet Bobby Garfield, John Sullivan, and Carol Gerber as best friends at the age of eleven. We meet Ted Brautigan (Dark Tower VII) who is on the run from the Low Men. I think King's talent for storytelling is at least partially due to his ability to write tangent storylines that are every bit as compelling as the main plotline (some may disagree here, haha), including meanderings of bullying from a group of boys, one of whom is William Shearman who will one day fight in Vietnam.
1966 Hearts in Atlantis: A story about Pete Riley, a college freshman who nearly ends his college career before it begins by becoming addicted to playing Hearts. He also briefly dates Carol Gerber and we meet Ronnie Malenfant, a fellow Hearts addict and future Vietnam soldier. This book covers the beginnings of the student protests of the Vietnam War. (Kenny Auster is also one of the Hearts-addicted students; the same Kenny Auster from Bag of Bones?)
1983 Blind Willie: A somewhat strange story about Willie Shearman (ex-bully of Bobby, Carol, and Sully) and how he pretends to be three different people in order to become a beggar on the streets of New York each day as a blind Vietnam vet. He views this as his penance for the role he played involving Carol. We also learn more about Carol's post-collegiate life which includes becoming involved in a militant anti-war group that culminates in a bombing at a recruitment office.
1999 Why We're in Vietnam: John Sullivan, who nearly died in Vietnam saving Willie Shearman's life alongside Ronnie Malenfant, is now the owner of a car dealership. When he learns about the death of another war-time friend, he attends the funeral and talks with their former Lieutenant Dieffenbaker. They talk about how their generation really could've changed the world but they sold out to materialism and convenience. He dies in a traffic jam on the way home from a heart attack but not before mysteriously acquiring Bobby Garfield's baseball mitt during a hallucination.
1999 Heavenly Shades of Night Are Falling: Bobby Garfield returns to his boyhood hometown after hearing about John Sullivan's death and being sent his old baseball glove by Sully's estate executor. In the glove is a 1960 copyright page of Lord of the Flies with Ted's handwriting telling him to tell Carol that she was "...as brave as a lion." After the funeral, Bobby goes to the baseball field he had spent so much time at or nearby as a child and sees Carol who now goes by the name Denise Schoonover. And so, the story comes full circle.
Love + Peace = Information
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Interesting how the different characters all are connected in some way.
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I always end up liking best the most 'un-King' stuff he writes. That's why I loved 'Wizard and Glass', for example. And I'm sure going to miss the Dark Tower Universe, the Low Men and others. All things serve the Beam...
I've read six of the seven Dark Tower series by Stephen King and this book was recommended as a tie-in before reading the final book. Hearts in Atlantis is five short stories (really two novellas and three short stories) with overlapping characters. The first in the book: Low Men in Yellow Coats has a direct Dark Tower tie-in (the Low Men) and one of the main characters - Bobby Garfield - also appears in book seven, so this is good background to have.
If not for the Dark Tower, I probably would not have read this book and would certainly have missed out. I loved these stories and I think they would appeal to someone who isn't a Stephen King fan. The first novella is the only with any horror/supernatural elements and they are relatively mild. The rest are simply stories of people impacted in different ways by the Vietnam War. While King is known mainly as a horror writer, he is a fantastic storyteller overall - probably one of the best coming-of-age storytellers of his time (evident in Low Men). I also greatly admire the way he weaves together characters, events, and places in his universe of stories.
If not for the Dark Tower, I probably would not have read this book and would certainly have missed out. I loved these stories and I think they would appeal to someone who isn't a Stephen King fan. The first novella is the only with any horror/supernatural elements and they are relatively mild. The rest are simply stories of people impacted in different ways by the Vietnam War. While King is known mainly as a horror writer, he is a fantastic storyteller overall - probably one of the best coming-of-age storytellers of his time (evident in Low Men). I also greatly admire the way he weaves together characters, events, and places in his universe of stories.
Actually read it years ago, but didn't remember it very well. Odd collection. Touching in places. As a huge King fan who could just never get in to the Dark Tower books, the five pages or so of Ka and Breakers is a bit annoying...and I can't say I understood the story Blind Willie or why King loved it so much he published it three times...but I liked the whole thing well enough.
Sounds like a soap opera hey. But no - it's five short stories by Stephen King, with the first one being by far the longest, taking up half the book. It was also the best, but even so, I found that it dragged on. The relationship between young Bobby and old Ted was lovely, with a little bit of fantasy in there, but I would have liked more of a plot. Weirdly, the title story is the second book, and there's a movie called Hearts in Atlantis but it's not that story, but the longer story about Bobby and Ted. I wonder if it has more of a plot. Not my favourite Stephen King. Would recommend plenty of others above this.
like all of Kings books totally readable but one of m y least favorites
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Hearts in Atlantis has highs and lows as it contains five separate stories, some much better than others. All stories focus, at least tangentially, on Carol and Bobby, two well-formed characters King introduces to us as kids and follows through adulthood and old age. The best of these stories is the first which takes up about a third of the novel. It features Ted Brautigan and connects heavily with the Dark Tower series. It's a good story and King is at his best when depicting middle school aged children coming of age. The next story is average at best, about a group of college students who get addicted to playing the card game Hearts and how they react to the war in Vietnam. This story didn't work as well, as it wasn't altogether bad, just slow and lacking a punch. The next two stories are very brief and focus on side characters introduced in the initial story. Both are strange in a supernatural sense but not all that memorable. The final story wraps up the arc of the two main characters and gives the book a nice ending.