Stephen King and the Dark Tower books

So, I've been struggling to find a book for awhile. I'm not sure what the last book was that really captured my attention, but I think it was Grapes of Wrath and that was early summer. But, that's usually the case. If I read something really tremendous, I have a hard time finding the next thing to get started on.

I just finished reading a book called The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver because Ams and Jess were ardently singing its (Kingsolver's writing) praises. To be honest, it was ok. I wanted to really be captured by it, but just wasn't. Don't know why.

So, last week, I was talking with my friend, Jeff, who was telling me that he was reading or just finished the latest novel in Stephen King's Dark Tower series.

Now, I've read a lot of Stephen King and really like most of what he writes. However, as I told Jeff, I'd read the first book of the Dark Tower series, The Gunslinger, and it was all I could do to finish it. I knew it was an early novel of King's (I guess it was his first) but I just didn't like it. The character's weren't written well and the story seemed so vague that I just couldn't stand it.

Jeff, as Amber had done earlier in the week, told me to give the series another shot. Yes, the first book sucked, but move on. Jeff also told me that I should consider reading the revised and expanded edition of the gunslinger which was better.

I still wasn't really convinced, but I told Jeff, that he'd loan me the revised edition, I'd consider it. That was about 3am Thursday morning (my birthday).

On Thursday afternoon, some other friends surprised me by stopping by and giving me a birthday present. This was surprising in itself, because they're really barely more than acquaintances. We ran into D&S at Walmart a couple of months ago, and stood and visited for awhile and have been trying to get together for dinner or something since and have yet to hook up mostly because the Shackletts are too busy.

Anyway, the gift bag had a couple of Star Wars figures (D isn into SW, too) a D&D poster, and low and behold: The expanded/revised edition of the Gunslinger!

Jeff told me that Jesus must be telling me to read the Gunslinger and give the Dark Tower series another shot...