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You Like It Darker

Stories
Brief Description
Includes a bonus story, "The Music Room" NAMED A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW TOP 10 HORROR BOOK OF 2024 WINNER OF THE GOODREADS CHOICE AWARD FOR HORROR FINALIST FOR THE 2025 LOCUS AWARDS "Stephen King knows You Like It Darker and obliges with sensational new... Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
$5400

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Includes a bonus story, "The Music Room"

NAMED A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW TOP 10 HORROR BOOK OF 2024
WINNER OF THE GOODREADS CHOICE AWARD FOR HORROR
FINALIST FOR THE 2025 LOCUS AWARDS

"Stephen King knows You Like It Darker and obliges with sensational new tales" (USA TODAY): From legendary storyteller and master of short fiction Stephen King, an extraordinary collection of stories that are "a master class in tension and full of King's dark humour" (The New York Times Book Review).

"You like it darker? Fine, so do I," writes Stephen King in the afterword to this magnificent new collection of twelve stories that delve into the darker part of lifeβ€”both metaphorical and literal. King has, for half a century, been a master of the form, and these stories, about fate, mortality, luck, and the folds in reality where anything can happen, are as rich and riveting as his novels, both weighty in theme and a huge pleasure to read. King writes to feel "the exhilaration of leaving ordinary day-to-day life behind," and in You Like It Darker, readers will feel that exhilaration too, again and again.

"Two Talented Bastids" explores the long-hidden secret of how the eponymous gentlemen got their skills. In "Danny Coughlin's Bad Dream," a brief and unprecedented psychic flash upends dozens of lives, Danny's most catastrophically. In "Rattlesnakes," a sequel to Cujo, a grieving widower travels to Florida for respite and instead receives an unexpected inheritanceβ€”with major strings attached. In "The Dreamers," a taciturn Vietnam vet answers a job ad and learns that there are some corners of the universe best left unexplored. "The Answer Man" asks if prescience is good luck or bad and reminds us that a life marked by unbearable tragedy can still be meaningful.

"King's skills as a storyteller remain undimmed" (The Minnesota Star Tribune) and his ability to surprise, amaze, and bring us both terror and solace is unsurpassed. "The titular darkness promised is as riveting and all-consuming as ever" (New York magazine). You like it darker? You got it.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781668037720

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 02 September 2025

Country: United States

Imprint: Scribner

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 32.0mm

Width: 141.0mm

Height: 212.0mm

Weight: 417g

Pages: 528

About the Author

Stephen King is the author of more than sixty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes Never Flinch, the short story collection You Like It Darker (a New York Times Book Review top ten horror book of 2024), Holly (a New York Times Notable Book of 2023), Fairy Tale, Billy Summers, If It Bleeds, The Institute, Elevation, The Outsider, Sleeping Beauties (cowritten with his son Owen King), and the Bill Hodges trilogy: End of Watch, Finders Keepers, and Mr. Mercedes (an Edgar Award winner for Best Novel and a television series streaming on Peacock). His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller. His epic works The Dark Tower, It, Pet Sematary, Doctor Sleep, and Firestarter are the basis for major motion pictures, with It now the highest-grossing horror film of all time. He is the recipient of the 2020 Audio Publishers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2018 PEN America Literary Service Award, the 2014 National Medal of Arts, and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.

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