Hello everyone and welcome to the Stephen King cast, One Man's Musings on the Works of Stephen King.

Each week I will review one entry in the bibliography of Stephen King in the chronological order of publication.

Which brings us to 1991's Ultimate Small Town Tale, the much publicized final castle story where King finally explores the question of what happens when the devil

comes to town and opens up a shop that has everything that you need for a price.

This novel, of course, is needful things.

Now, I'm a huge Castle Rock fan.

I'm a type of fan in general for pop culture that loves little shoutouts, references,

Easter eggs.

I just, I love interconnectivity to stories.

I like when an author makes me stop, think, and piece together places, events, and characters.

So the ongoing saga of Castle Rock is one of the reasons why I always gravitated to Stephen King.

And my memories of needful things, the supposed last Castle Rock story, have always been very positive.

In fact, if you were to ask me, before I sat down and reread this again, what my favorite top five Stephen King books were,

and I'm sure that someday I'll devote an episode to a ranking like that,

I would say that needful things is in there.

In fact, I would say that it's very close to that list.

Whether or not it still is based on this reread remains to

be seen. But I have had nothing but great experiences reading this novel. The first time I read it,

I loved it. And then I remember the second time I read it, I think that I loved it even more.

I was in high school at that point. I just

remember specifically lying on my bed in the summer, the air conditioner blasting. I went out to

the grocery store. I got one of those, Reese's, peanut butter cup friendlies Sundays. I just remember eating that loving life loving reading this book

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