Duma Key

Duma Key - Stephen King; 611 pages

First off, it took me more days to read this book than I expected it to take me to read any of the books. I was on pace to finish it on Saturday, but I had a conference to go to in Louisiana Sunday, and that mucked up Saturday. Then, you know what, the time spent in Louisiana was better spent not reading. However, I did get a couple hours reading time on the airplane, and now that I am back, I finished this book up.

I have to say the first 400 pages or so, I was enjoying the heck out of it. But as it drug along, I was really just wanting it to be over. Really, it reminded me of a Goosebumps book for adults, and that aspect isn't really a criticism; I enjoyed it. But after the first 400 pages, I was really ready for the action, and though the last 200 pages were action packed, I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as I enjoyed the set up. Up until the end, I was thinking this might beat out Flow My Tears as the new lead in best book of the summer, but Flow My Tears still stands in a steady, uncontested first place.

2,384 pages in 20 days for an average of 119.2.


1. Swine Not? - Jimmy Buffett; 256 
2. Moby Dick; or The Whale - Herman Melville; 870
3. The Stranger Beside Me - Ann Rule; 1,542 
4. Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said - Philip K. Dick; 1,773
5. Duma Key - Stephen King; 2,384
6. Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself - Alan Alda; 2,608 
7. Greenwich Killing Time - Kinky Friedman; 2,774
8. Murder in the White House - Margaret Truman; 3,009
9. Dexter in the Dark - Jeff Lindsay; 3,312
10. The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoyevsky; 4,080 
11. The Taking - Dean Koontz; 4,544
12. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe; 4,753
13. Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris; 5,025 
14. Middlemarch - George Eliot; 5,761
15. Beloved - Toni Morrison;6,036
16. The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne; 6,228
17. The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood - Howard Pyle; 6,368
18. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath; 6,612
19. Gadsby - Ernest Vincent Wright; 6,768
20. Pulp Fiction Selections - L. Ron Hubbard; 7,456
21. The Final Testament of the Holy Bible - James Frey; 7,856
22. Chili Dawgs Always Bark At Night -Lewis Grizzard; 8,125
23. The Greek - Pierre Rey; 8,573
24. The Pleasure of my Company - Steve Martin; 8,736
25. Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates - Tom Robbins; 9,200 
26. Possible Side Effects - Augusten Burroughs; 9,504
27. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote; 9,847
28. The Daybreakers - Louis L'Amour; 10,000