Since publishing his 1974 debut novel Carrie - a horror about a clairvoyant schoolgirl - in 1974 Stephen King has written over 65 novels and over 200 short stories.
His books have been turned into a multitude of Hollywood blockbuster, including The Shining, Stand by Me, Misery, The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile and It.
He’s wrote under the pseudonym Richard Bachman in a bid to break away from horror and has now published books in a number of genres, including his fantasy epic The Dark Tower.
With so many books to choose from, it’s hard for a Stephen King beginner to know where to start.
To help out, we’ve had a look at how the millions of readers of book website Goodreads have rated his books.
Here are the top 13.
9. 'Salem's Lot
King's classic 1975 vampire novel 'Salem's Lot is rated an average of 4.26 from 116,026 reviews. "'Salem's Lot is a small New England town with the usual quota of gossips, drinkers, weirdos and respectable folk. Of course there are tales of strange happenings - but not more than in any other town its size. Ben Mears, a moderately successful writer, returns to the Lot to write a novel based on his early years, and to exorcise the terrors that have haunted him since childhood. The event he witnessed in the house now rented by a new resident. A newcomer with a strange allure. A man who causes Ben some unease as things start to happen: a child disappears, a dog is brutally killed - nothing unusual, except the list starts to grow. Soon surprise will turn to bewilderment, bewilderment to confusion and finally to terror." | Contributed
10. The Waste Lands
Completing the top 10 is the third part of The Dark Tower series. The Waste Lands has an average rating of 4.25 from 224,463 reviews. "Roland has altered ka by saving the life of Jake Chambers, a young boy, in New York. Now they exist in different worlds, paradoxically sharing memories. Roland, Susannah and Eddie must try to draw Jake into Mid-World then follow the Path of the Beam through an urban waste land to the Dark Tower." | Contributed
11. It
Just missing out on a top 10 place is It, with an average rating of 4.24 from 1,122,09 reviews. "Derry, Maine is just an ordinary town: familiar, well-ordered for the most part, a good place to live. It is a group of children who see - and feel - what makes Derry so horribly different. In the storm drains, in the sewers, IT lurks, taking on the shape of every nightmare, each one's deepest dread. Sometimes is appears as an evil clown named Pennywise and sometimes IT reaches up, seizing, tearing, killing . . . Time passes and the children grow up, move away and forget. Until they are called back, once more to confront IT as IT stirs and coils in the sullen depths of their memories, emerging again to make their past nightmares a terrible present reality." | Contributed
12. The Drawing of the Three
The second book in King's The Dark Tower fantasy series is his 12th best book according to readers. The Drawing of the Three scores an average rating of 4.23 from 265,529 reviews. "In the second novel of Stephen King's bestselling fantasy masterpiece, Roland of Gilead, the Last Gunslinger, encounters three mysterious doors which open - for Roland, and Roland alone - to different times in our world. He must draw the three who should accompany him on the road. The first door opens to 1980s New York, where Roland joins forces with defiant Eddie Dean. The second leads to the 1960s and conflicted civil rights activist Odetta Holmes. The final door reveals Jack Mort, a deadly serial killer, in the 1970s. Mort is stalking Jake, the young boy Roland met in Mid-World. As titanic forces gather, a savage struggle between underworld evil and otherworldly enemies threatens to bring an end to Roland's journey toward the Dark Tower..." | Contributed