This is an Online Internet Book Club on The Stand: Expanded Edition: For the First Time Complete and Uncut (Signet) by Stephen King. Discuss this book, share your thoughts, make comments, ask questions, offer responses...
Description
In 1978, science fiction writer Spider Robinson wrote a scathing review of
The Stand in which he exhorted his readers to grab strangers in bookstores and beg them not to buy it.
The Stand is like that. You either love it or hate it, but you can't ignore it. Stephen King's most popular book, according to polls of his fans, is an end-of-the-world scenario: a rapidly mutating flu virus is accidentally released from a U.S. military facility and wipes out 99 and 44/100 percent of the world's population, thus setting the stage for an apocalyptic confrontation between Good and Evil.
"I love to burn things up," King says. "It's the werewolf in me, I guess.... The Stand was particularly fulfilling, because there I got a chance to scrub the whole human race, and man, it was fun! ... Much of the compulsive, driven feeling I had while I worked on The Stand came from the vicarious thrill of imagining an entire entrenched social order destroyed in one stroke."
There is much to admire in The Stand: the vivid thumbnail sketches with which King populates a whole landscape with dozens of believable characters; the deep sense of nostalgia for things left behind; the way it subverts our sense of reality by showing us a world we find familiar, then flipping it over to reveal the darkness underneath. Anyone who wants to know, or claims to know, the heart of the American experience needs to read this book. --Fiona Webster
Book Club Questions for The Stand (Fiction)
Suggested Book Club Questions for The Stand: Expanded Edition: For the First Time Complete and Uncut (Signet) (Fiction)
The following book club questions provide a starting point for creating a reading group discussion on The Stand:
- Did Stephen King emphasize any specific themes throughout The Stand? What do you think Stephen King is trying to explain with this theme?
- What was unique about the setting of The Stand and how did it affect the storyline?
- Could you relate to any of the characters? If so, which ones and why?
- How do characters change or learn throughout The Stand? What events caused these changes? Have you or someone you know experienced the same thing?
- How does The Stand reveal Stephen King's own perspectives about people and the world? For a lively discussion, describe why you think Stephen King is liberal or conservative.
- Did certain parts of The Stand affect you emotionally? Why did it evoke those emotions?
- Did Stephen King's point of view on things lend new perspective to your own view of the world?
Book Club Questions for The Stand (for Non-Fiction)
Suggested Book Club Questions for The Stand: Expanded Edition: For the First Time Complete and Uncut (Signet) (Non-fiction)
The following book club questions provide a starting point for creating a reading group discussion on The Stand:
- Did Stephen King make persuasive arguments in The Stand? Did The Stand change or reinforce your opinion on the subject?
- What did you learn from The Stand?
- How does Stephen King present the information and did you enjoy it?
- How is Stephen King biased within The Stand? Is there a political slant to what is being discussed and how does it impact the book?
- What, if anything, does The Stand make you want to read next? Why?
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