This isn't the first time that I've read this, but as is always the case I give a quiet groan at the length of it and then promptly get so swept up I no longer care that it's 600+ pages. (Which doesn't stop me groaning again the next time I read it, the prejudice against length being more firmly seated than individual recognition, apparently.) But it's just very, very compelling - even though you know exactly what you're going to get. Look, this is a haunted house story. Things start out okay, then get mildly creepy, then turn to custard, and finally Chekhov's Boiler does it all in. Even if you haven't read it before you know what's going to happen.

Thing is, the Torrance family is living a quiet little suburban nightmare long before they get to the Overlook. Alcoholism, family violence, and though they're dragging themselves up out of the pit and into functional happy relationships again, a haunted house (hotel) is not a place in which to build a home. And watching Jack Torrance, especially, unravel in all the ways he's quietly been terrified that he could, is riveting. And all the while his wife and son are struggling to separate what-could-have-been with what-is, which is also what-could-have-been in another life, or in mirrors. Redrum indeed.

The Shining isn't my favourite of King's books. That will always be Carrie and, my love for haunted house fiction aside, that bloody clown is still scarier than the Overlook, creepy as it is. (Although, to be fair, if The Shining doesn't have a clown it also doesn't have that god-awful pre-teen gang-bang, so it's six of one and half a dozen of the other there.)