Well......WOW! These four LONG-short stories are ALL fabulous!RITA HAYWORTH AND SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION - 5 Stars"Get busy living or get busy dying."Everyone has probably seen the movie adaptation or read the book by now and knows the story about the wrongful imprisonment of banker Andy Dufresne, the horror of "the sisters" and his best friend at Shawshank Red, but if you haven't, you are so fortunate to have this amazing read ahead of you.The novel provides a bit more detail here and there about Red and Andy, is just as enthralling as the movie and unputdownable.APT PUPIL -4.5 Stars - Just a very nice and intelligent 13 year old....uh huh. Todd Bowden wants to be a P.I. when he grows up and is off to quite a start as he sleuths out a criminal of the most vile kind; and as his true unsettling nature begins to surface, our creepy apt pupil gets a whole lot more than he bargained for when he goes up against the master.Dark and powerfully evil, this unique story even has a cool Andy Dufresne tie-in, but dam.....why couldn't the butcher from hell stick to humans.....minus 50 basis points!THE BODY (re-read) - 5 Stars - Four young lads head out on an adventure to see 'the dead body' but what they find is trouble and a few hard lessons learned. Absolutely wonderful coming-of-age story converted to screen as Stand By Me. (once again, the written word wins over the audio version for me)THE BREATHING METHOD - 5 Stars"It is the tale, not he who tells it."The club is creepy.....The rooms mysterious.....The weather chilling.....The fire roaring, and The ghost story.....OMG! SHOCKING!

Different Seasons is what the word anthology was created for, ok slight exaggeration but you get the idea. This is four absolutely top of the literary tree, superb short stories, three of which have been made into films and I really enjoyed them all. First up we have Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, everybodys seen the film, its the story of 30 year old Andy Dufresne, who gets a life sentence in Shawshank for the murder of his cheating wife and her lover. The story is told through the eyes of someone who would call himself one of Andys few friends, a facilitator who would get the things that Andy asked for. The first thing of course was a large poster of Rita Hayworth for his cell wall but a more unassuming man you couldnt wish to meet, not outspoken but determined in his innocence and a plan that would take nigh on 27 years to accomplish. Next up is my favorite out of the four, Apt pupil, now I read this and immediately bought the film and while not 100% true to the book, its pretty damned good. I mean its got Gandalf as the Nazi in hiding Kurt Dussander, cant go wrong in my eyes. Todd Bowden at just 13 years old develops what some might call an unhealthy obsession with the war, the Nazis and the Holocaust. When he spots an old man he recognizes from his research, a sickness develops in his mind and he enters into a game with Dussander, one that starts off with him in control but rapidly develops into a nightmare.Dussander references Andy Dufresne of Shawshank directly as a banker who handled some transactions for him but is now in jail for murdering his wife. The Body is the third story and the film was called Stand By Me. Set in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine. After a boy from Chamberlain, Maine, named Ray Brower disappears and is presumed dead, Gordie Lachance and his three friends, Chris Chambers, Teddy Duchamp and Vern Tessio set out to find his body after telling their parents they will be camping out. On their journey, the boys, who all come from abusive, dysfunctional families, encounter some of the harsh truths of growing up in a small town that does not seem to offer them much in the way of a future.The story is told in first person by the now forty-something novelist Gordon Lachance and during the story he relates some of his early writing to his friends. On their trip we also come across a dog named Chopper who is compared to Cujo and Chamberlain is of course the setting for his first novel Carrie, the town Jerusalem's Lot is also mentioned. The final story is called The Breathing Method and is told through the eyes of David, a middle-aged lawyer. At the invitation of a senior partner, he joins a strange men's club where the members, in addition to reading, chatting and playing chess, like to tell stories, ranging from heartfelt to bizarre.One Thursday before Christmas, the elderly physician Dr. Emlyn McCarron tells a story of a patient who was determined to give birth to her illegitimate child, no matter what, despite financial problems and social disapproval. McCarron comes to admire her bravery and humor, and may even have fallen a bit in love with her. The breathing method is intended to help her through childbirth but when she goes into labor and is on the way to the hospital on an icy winter night. Her taxi crashes and she is decapitated, yet amazingly the breathing method triumphs in an almost macabre conclusion.Also posted athttp://paulnelson.booklikes.com/post/...

I'm going to try and do this book justice..but I know it's not going to happen so do me a favor, if you have never picked this book up just stop what you are doing and run get it.Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption:This is perfection. At 101 pages Stephen King packed a story that stays with me forever. I've been a fan of the movie version since the first time I viewed it. I was so pissed when Forrest Gump beat it out as the Oscar winner for best picture that year. I raged..I've since calmed down because Forrest Gump was a good movie also..but still. I've watched the movie so many times that I can quote passages of it from heart, and I'm not really a TV watcher. If it comes on I watch it. If it comes on again the next day. I watch it. To this reader the movie is a bit darker than Stephen King's story. This story is not horror. This story is about Hope..it's about picking yourself up every single day and keeping moving..it's about Redemption.Apt Pupil:To me this was the darkest story in the book. A young boy learns that a former Nazi general is living nearby and well he stalks him and then latches on to him. He honestly forces him into a strange relationship. They both are some of the most vile characters ever but you don't have to like the characters to realize what an amazing story this is.The Body:Another of my favorite films were made from this story-"Stand by Me"-I actually have not seen this movie in years but I will now.This story is sadness of remembering your childhood friends and some of the crap you managed to survive.Breathing Method:This one to me started slow. Then when the story unfolded I sat here and shook my head. A woman's desire to have her child out-weighed every obstacle in her course.And overall? This book was a full five stars. I would give it more if I could. It's hard to describe these stories. They aren't horror but they are about life. I wish I could have done them better justice..but I don't think there are words that can.This quote is in the afterword of the book, where Mr. King tells how he got typed as a horror author..not that there is anything wrong with that.I've been in love with these stories, too, and a part of me always will be in love with them, I guess. I hope that you liked them, Reader; that they did for you what any good story should do-make you forget the real stuff weighing on your mind for the little while and take you away to a place you've never been. It's the most amiable sort of magic I know.