Different Seasons: Four Novellas

The book had ink on the edge of the pages, the cover was wrinkled and finally there was a tag marked used on the cover that won't come off. I either leave the tag on or peel it off and damage the cover. Other than these 3 items the rest of the book seems fine.

Three different stories and they just are too graphic for me. He writes so in depth that I can picture it all and it gives me nightmares. I loved the way the story wound around to the hospital scene.

I love buying from the store. I am usually a happy customer. I ordered this book because I love the shawshank redemption and wanted to read it again. I ordered the hard cover cause I love to collect good hardcovers (especially Stephen king ones) what I got was a hardcover book that was the size of a soft cover book. when I looked back it does give demensions, but in all my years there have been large hard covers and then small soft covers. I should have know better but I just thought I got a nice deal. im gonna rethink my book buying. I love to buy and own books, but I literally live a block from a library, and with all the ways there are to purchase books now, I think ill wait to see it in front of me. im gonna order less now cause I wanna see it in front of me first now. sad.

I think I should have paid more attention to the details before ordering this book as it turned out to be a much smaller sized edition than the other Stephen king books in my collection. Its small but perfectly formed so I'm not too disappointed but ill probably try to buy the full sized edition at a later date. Memo to self; read the small print next time! Still a great set of stories and I enjoyed them again so not a total washout.

I bought this book used. I received the book but there were a few problems with it. Largely the old copy that was delivered reaked of mold to the point that I can't even open it without getting a headache along with prevalent staining.

Some wear and tear is completly understandable especially when I know that I'm buying the book used. But for 15 bucks, there shouldn't be the smell of mold bold enough to to prevent someone from reading it.

The Shawshank Redemption is possibly my favorite film, so I have been meaning to read the novella on which it is based for quite some time. I finally picked up Desperate Seasons, a compendium of four novel-length stories by Stephen King primarily for this story. I also enjoyed Apt Pupil while the other two stories did not really grab my attention.

I do not think I've ever seen a movie that is better than the book upon which it is based - of course, a writer can convey thoughts and emotions far more completely than a screenplay, so that is not surprising. However, in this case the movie is better than the novella - but that is not to say that King's work is inferior. After all, it is a story that runs to only 100 pages, but it is a fully formed story to which the movie is faithful. Sure, Timothy Robbins is way taller than Andy Dufresne and Morgan Freeman might not have been King’s image of Red when he was writing the book but both actors own their roles and it is hard to read the book without imagining those actors bringing the characters to life. I'm glad I finally read the story but am now keen to watch the movie yet again!

An Apt Pupil reads like a movie waiting to happen - and indeed it tried but failed on the big screen. This is a longer story running to a couple of hundred pages tracing the story of an old but still evil Nazi living a simple life in Southern California in his declining years who is befriended by a young boy-next-door whose sadistic and murderous streak is brought alive through his relationship with the aforesaid concentration camp soldier, Herr Dussander. Together, but separately, their evil sides are re / awakened as they embark on killing sprees of the local homeless until they are both brought down by their evil deeds. The story has too many farfetched coincidences to fully capture my buy-in but as a study in unadulterated evil it was an entertaining read.

I could not really get into the final two stories, so cannot really offer an opinion. Fall from Innocence is the basis for the film Stand By Me and A Winter’s Tale is a shorter tale about a woman giving birth. I’m glad I finally read Shawshank and would encourage other lovers of this movie to read the story. For the rest, it is up to the reader. However, King certainly demonstrates that his craft is not limited to the horror genre.

If you know me at all you know I have a love-hate relationship with Stephen King. Mostly love, but there is some hate. Sometimes.
I either love his books or hate them, there is nothing in between (ususally, of course). This one? I LOVED it.
I'm not a fan of novellas (or short stories, or, as King stated himself, forms too long to be short and too short to be long) in general, but those left me speachless.

Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption
Oh dear, what a wonderful story about hope. I've seen the movie before I've read the story and I kept picturing Tim Robbins as Andy and Morgan Freeman as Red (even though Red was specifically described as Irish, pale and ginger - hey, my imagination has no bounds!).
I loved how Andy's story was told, like a jiggsaw puzzle - with different pieces put together.
This story left me hopeful and happy.

Apt Pupil
This story is disgusting. It's really is. And I'm not even saying about the cat, the homeless or even the camp reminescences. What made me sick to my stomach were the protagonists. Both Todd and Dussander were vile and awful and repulsive. Even though it was an amazing gripping story.
It was interesting to see how those two became codependent, like they both held some sort of power over one another.
First thing I've dine when finished the strory was researching Mossad's pursuit of war criminals.The second was thinking about all of it. Is it even possible that such horrible things like war or camp could leave a person without a change? Can a person really put such experiences behind? Is there something like pure evil that one is born with? Was Todd born evil or is it Dussander's influence? Or maybe some sick mix of both? How would Todd's life go on if he never met the nazi? Would he eventually turn psycho?

The Body
Amazing coming of age story. It perfectly showed how people can change, how they can jump out of the box the others want to put him in. Or, on the other hand, how some, more or less gladly, stay inside of it.
Gordie was a wonderful narrator who sometimes in a funny way, sometimes in heartbreaking tone describes few days in the lived of young boys.
Chris story broke my heart. I kid you not.

Breathing Method
The shortest but the most confusing story. It was a bif creepy, but it was the ending that left me perplexed and wondering. Perplexed in this "what did just happen here?" way.

The gem of this book is Author's afterword.

This book is a collection of 4 "novellas", three of which have been made into movies but none of which are classic King horror stories. "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption" is probably the best known, but I honestly preferred the movie over the novella version. "The Body", which became "Stand By Me" in the movies, was excellent and my favorite in the collection. The longest novella in the collection, "Apt Pupil" also got made into a movie but is a little darker and more depressing. The final and shortest novella, "The Breathing Method", is somewhat strange and seems incomplete. All in all, this was probably my favorite Stephen King book yet (I've read about 8 so far) and clearly one of his best collections of "short" stories. Being familiar with the movie versions of some of these stories will help you pick up on the stories a little faster, but each of the stories stands up well on its own.

Three of the four novellas in this collection have been turned into well-known films, so if you've seen 'The Shawshank Redemption' 'Apt Pupil' or 'Stand by Me' you already know what you're in for.

This is famous for being King's first work of non-horror, yet his strengths shine through here as much as in his other work I've read. He writes kids and adolescents better than almost everyone, probably because he gets how fundamentally dark and complex being a kid is. And he seems capable of breathing life into even the most marginal of characters and situations he cooks up, even if they only appear for a paragraph of two.

For my money, I think 'Apt Pupil' is the standout here. He takes a silly B-movie conceit and turns it into a dark, ominous story about fascism and broken youth. I thought it was more horrifying than a lot of his proper horror. The Body (aka 'Stand By Me') is a wonderful, melancholy portrait of being of childhood friendship. And I couldn't help but read 'Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption' with Morgan Freemen's voice in my head. And 'The Breathing Method' ends everything on a chilling, wintry footing. If you want to read a famous writer working strongly outside of his usual métier, you will like this. As when I finished 'IT', this only made me want to go out and read more of him.

a must read even for the non-king readers. these three (i cant and wont include the body in this list) novellas are the best works of king , hard evidence of his genius - his " multi-genre" style he so effortlessly carries out for so many years. i sometimes suspect not two of his books are written by him but an army of ghostwriters. by the way, i am not a fan; i just appreciate the way his books amaze me as simple "paperbacks" every time i have a break from classical/contemporary (/heavy, stuffy,serious,academic) "literature".
i've watched the movie shawshank redemption many many times, still a mystifying story on printed page.
i've tired to watch the movie apt pupil but it was so bad that i had to quit. however, king's story is brilliant. better than dozens of more recent fiction and nonfiction books portraying the growing pains of a sociopath.
the breathing method is a story within a story. dark, disturbing, a psychological thriller bordering horror.
how SK accomplishes creating real characters in so few sentences..another mystery.
bottom line: even if you've watched the movies, erase try to forget all the images and read the stories. in fact, re-read them.

Dark. Disturbing. Unsettling. The novella Apt Pupil by Stephen King is all these things, and may be considered highly offensive by some. It’s also excellently written and thought provoking. If you are a fan of King, particularly his non-horror writing, I highly recommend this novella. The story revolves around two characters. Todd is a teenager, smart and curious, hard-working and excels at athletics. He also has a different side that will be revealed throughout the story. He comes to meet and form a relationship with an older man, a man that in a previous time was the personification of evil, an active participant in the atrocities that took place in the Nazi death camps. Todd knows of this evil truth, but instead of being repelled by it, finds it alluring, wants to know all the gory details of what transpired in the war. The story generally moves along at a brisk pace, with a few twists along the way. The ending, though perhaps not entirely unexpected, is nonetheless well done and full of suspense. Highly recommend. Also, if you like to listen to audiobooks, the great Frank Muller does the narration on this one, and as always, does a wonderful job. Here's a link to the audiobook.

Apt Pupil

This book includes four unrelated novellas by Stephen King and will probably be of most interest to those seeking out the source of two popular and beloved American films: The Shawshank Redemption and Stand By Me.

Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption is the basis of that first film and is a moving account of prison life with its irrational violence, boredom, corruption and redemption. It captures the voice of an everyman locked up almost his whole life, gives a portrait of his one great friendship, and tints the grueling life of prisoners with a sentimental nostalgia.

Apt Pupil is about a paperboy who recognizes a former Concentration Camp guard living among his suburban California neighbors and compels him to submit to be interviewed about his past as their relationship descends into murder and madness.

The Body is about a group of friends who set out to see the dead body of a boy hit by a train. The trip becomes an adventure across the wilderness of Maine full of obstacles like trains and leeches and a fearsome, possibly castrating, guard dog. It’s a great story which has justly become prime, nostalgic, Americana.

Lastly, The Breathing Method is a gory ghost story set in a mysterious club of elite membership in Manhattan where the membership gathers each Christmastime to tell stories of the uncanny.

These four stories have memorable characters and Stephen King’s characteristic normal, commonplace settings with off-kilter characters and happenings which produce an atmosphere of strange fascination. They conjure up an imaginary world that is normal though odd which brings into relief many things we recognize as familiar but haven’t looked as closely at as we should have.

Different Seasons is a collection of four novellas, three of which are some of the most incredible examples of American fiction produced in the 1980's. First, the book starts with Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, which most people know better without the movie star name attached. Frank Darabont's adaptation of this amazing story almost won best picture, which is understandable given the high quality of the source material. King delivers horror without a hint of the supernatural, scaring you to death with the prospect of wrongful imprisonment, solitary confinement, prison rape...all even more terrifying knowing that these things have actually happened to many innocent people .

Then comes Apt Pupil, a disturbing examination of a young man fascinated by death who becomes obsessed with the Holocaust. Through the past experiences of a former Nazi commander, he lives out his sickest imaginings and plumbs the depths of his sadistic nature. Again, nothing supernatural, but horrific nonetheless.

Third is The Body, which many know as the movie Stand By Me. Strange that director Rob Reiner altered the setting of the story, transplanting Castle Rock from Maine to Oregon, but he did capture the spirit of King's novella admirably. Four young boys set out on a secret adventure (who wouldn't be hooked by that premise alone?), but since it needs a macabre twist to be a King story, their potential treasure is the corpse of a local boy supposedly hit by a train. Though less than 200 pages, The Body achieves the feel of an epic story and is one of the most memorable of King's career.

Finishing the collection is The Breathing Method, a story with somewhat supernatural implications, but more about the power of human determination. A woman manages to give birth under some highly extraordinary conditions, demonstrating the frightening potency of intense willpower. It's not quite as exceptional as the other three stories in my opinion, but it's still a powerful novella. When you put these four stories together, you end up with the best collection of King's career, some of his most literary work, and one of his top ten books overall.

I am so familiar with the film versions of these novellas (well 3 of the 4 stories here) that I had forgotten the source material for those films could be found bundled into a single collection. I had read "Different Seasons" back in high school when Reagan was still President, but the only story I could vividly remember reading was "The Breathing Method" (the single tale found in this collection which has yet to be filmed). When I pulled this book from the shelf, I was pleasantly surprised at finding "Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption" was the first story!! For some reason I thought it came with the collection "Four Past Midnight". "Apt Pupil" I vaguely remembered, and "The Body" was turned into a favorite film "Stand By Me", but I wasn't sure how closely the film followed King's tale?

"Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption" - This story told through the eyes of Red, a prisoner serving time in Shawshank prison, is a page-turner of a story. Red tells the story of fellow inmate Andy Dufresne, a banker who was sentenced to life in prison for killing his wife and her lover. Andy, as Red believes, is one of the only, truly innocent men in the prison, and we follow Andy through his early days getting accustomed to prison life, and through the years not only adapting to life behind bars, but managing to carve out a life for himself. behind the grey walls. Andy's biggest request from Red is a post of Rita Hayworth.

"Apt Pupil" - Todd Bowden is your typical American boy living in the suburbs. Todd is also a psychopath and he has learned that an old man living in his neighborhood is a former Nazi who was once commander of a Concentration Camp, overseeing the death of 3500 people daily during the war. Todd, is fascinated with the aging war criminal and wants to hear all about his experiences in the camp. At first the former Nazi is reluctant to talk to the boy but he soon begins warming to the subject, and the two find themselves in a bizarre parasitic relationship.

"The Body" - Four friends set off on an overnight trip along the railroad tracks in hopes of finding the corpse of a young boy that was struck by a train. Each of the friends come from vastly different backgrounds, and each has their own reason for taking on the journey.

"The Breathing Method" - At an ancient club in the heart of New York City, old men gather around the fireplace to swap tales on a cold winter night. On one blustery night, a retired doctor tells the story of one of his patients, and unmarried girl who finds out she is pregnant. The doctor introduces the young woman to the "Breathing Method", the practice of using short and long breaths during delivery.

While I enjoyed each of the story's, "Apt Pupil" drags on a bit long for me, it's "The Breathing Method" which I remembered most vividly, and not necessarily for the doctor's story (which is still an interesting story) but for King's creation of the club at 249B. I was instantly fascinated with the setting and the purpose of this "gentlemen's club". I would love to see King take us back to this club for another tale, I want to know more about the caretaker/valet Stevens, and as King writes there are "always more tales".

These stories are so well known thanks to their screen adaptations, I highly recommend you pick up this collection and give the original stories a read. Just a wonderful collection and one I'll be sure to re-visit again in the future.

Stephen King is the first apt pupil here. His mind is capable of probing a vast panoply of topics whose pathologies continue to chill and awe. If not a writer he could have become a psychologist because he is fully aware of what the mind is capable. The primary story in the collection of four novellas has to be "Apt Pupil" and the emergence of the skulking corruption in 13-year-old Todd Bowden's soul. Who knows when and how it might have shown itself as a grownup in the adult world? I can imagine.

"Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption" was a good read but merely a prelude to the frightening pairing of Todd Bowden and the fugitive SS death camp killer Denker. I could not finish "The Body" a third of the way through because I tired of the juvenile business although I knew Stephen King would deliver in the end. The story just went to show he can write in any kind of style or context. I settled down to the last narrative, "The Breathing Method", with a sense of comfort as though I were one of the old gentlemen seated around the fire listening to the storyteller.

That's the point about Stephen King. You never know....

Whenever I think about how mean people (and how inaccurate their assessments are) can be I think about how that over-inflated ego called Harold Bloom said that King wrote nothing but "penny dreadfuls", then said that was too charitable. Somehow this cheers me up about life, however, because it just goes to show that everyone has to suffer through other people's nasty comments in life. Because King does deserve to be the phenomenal success that he is, and the more I read the more clear it is that he is the quintessential voice of our times--someone with clear morality and a lucid assessment of the world around him.

And it's all told through these remarkably perceptive, frightening stories--in these stories nothing supernatural happens, and yet they are so poignant and full of adept observations about life and people. The Shawshank Redemption is probably one of the best stories ever told about human dignity and hope through terrible circumstances, and very understated. Apt Pupil--I like this story because it reveals what I've always considered to be the quite obvious nature of those who are obsessed with Nazis (allegedly from a historical standpoint), which is that there is a fine line between fascination and adulation, and ultimately emulation. People claiming to be horrified by the atrocious crimes of the Nazis who are yet unable to turn away from shows about them or who are openly attracted to their paraphernalia. And I love that King shows the way that there is not that much difference between what America claims to abhor about the Nazis and unthinking, violent nationalism anywhere (which we tend to praise if on the side of the victors).
"The Body" is so beautiful and painful to read I was really shocked and moved that it was so effective. It touches on these eternal truths about that time in childhood, the passionate love we have for our friends, being on the edge of young adulthood but still very much children. How deeply we feel everything--and how funny our friends could be. I laughed out loud at some of the points here. Probably one of the most brilliant short stories ever. "The Breathing Method" was terrifying but also exhilarating in a way. Absolutely wonderful stories, and a hundred years from now King's stories will be unquestioned additions to the cannon of late twentieth and early twenty first century literature.

1. Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption ... I saw the movie before reading this story, but I really enjoyed this story. You will enjoy the narrator, Red, even though he is a convicted murderer. This story really shows how people use each other for their own purposes, and it does it very well. I would recommend this story to any reader.

2. Apt Pupil ... This was my least favorite story of the four. To me, it seemed like a short story that kept going. I had to force myself to finish this story, and I was really let down by the ending. I would not recommend this story to other readers, but the other three stories make up for my disappointment in this novella.

3. The Body ... This story was the basis for the movie Stand By Me, which I saw some twenty years before reading this novella. I really enjoyed most of this story, as it really brings back memories of childhood friends and adventures. None of my childhood adventures were as exciting or scary as those that occur in these pages, but I had some friendships that seemed similar. The only thing I didn't enjoy about this story was the first excerpt of the narrator's writing. I don't think it added much to this story. However, I would definitely recommend this novella to any reader.

4. The Breathing Method ... The suspense King generates and maintains in this story is impressive. I think it is the shortest story of the four, but it seems even shorter because of the page turning pull it has. You will are pulled forward wanting to know more about the narrator, more about the club, and more about the doctor/patient relationship. I would recommend this story to any reader.

Most everyone loves the movie, "Shawshank Redemption." The only place you can find the novella upon which the movie was based is in Stephen King's, "Different Seasons," and that novella is a wonderful read. Another well liked, coming-of-age movie, "Stand by me," comes from a King novella also included in "Seasons," along with two other long stories.

This book is "Different" because this four novella collection are stories that are different from the typical supernatural stories for which King is known.

King is a master of characterization, helping you see inside the feelings, motivations, caring and concerns of the pivotal persons caught up in his intricately woven plots. For me, I find that even if I don't like some of the human monsters about which King writes, I generally care to find out what happens next. In "Different," for one of the stories, "The Body," I just did not connect to the characters and therefore did not connect to the story--and had to plod through. Another story, "The Breathing Method," is an incomplete novel, in my opinion, but I really connected to the characters and enjoyed the read.

And so it is with any collection of stories, or any novel for that matter: some you are really going to enjoy, others not so much. If only you find just one gem, and I found three in "Different," then the collection is worth picking up.

I read this book over 20 years ago. It was one of the first SK books I thought of trying out, seeing as my mom was a huge fan and there were always a few dozen of his books just waiting to be read. I remember she highly recommended it because she said it was not scary at all, as was the case with the other books that were lying around.

The paperback I read explained that since each story was too long to be a short story but not long enough to be a novel, each of them was called a novella, and there is one for each season. If you ask me, I'd say the length of these stories is just right - neither too short nor too long.

I clearly enjoyed 3 of them, namely The Apt Student, The Body (Stand by Me) and Rita Hayworth & the Shawshank Redemption. The Winter Tale (I don't remember the name) was not to my taste.

The Apt Student was great, and is more or less in consonance with SK's usual style, without being scary or too gory.

Both The Body and RHTSR are masterpieces. After reading over 30 of his books, I'd say that these are SK's most heartfelt and personal stories. They are full of thoughts and images (e.g. the doe in The Body) that are beautifully written, and are basically about true friendship: Gordy and his 3 friends in their search for the body, and Andy and Red while serving time at Shawshank. I believe anyone who has read these stories ends up loving these characters as though they were dear friends.

This book is definitely a must, especially if you're new to SK and his writing and are not yet used to the suspense (or to being outright scared, which is usually my case). I'm glad I started with Different Seasons and if you're new to SK, I strongly recommend you start here.

I am currently in the process of reading Stephen King's "Different Seasons," a collection of four novellas that represent the four seasons. Being as each story is its own separate tale (though King being King, I'm finding a few threads that connect the stories to each other and to other bits of his work), I'm electing to review each story as its own animal, instead of reviewing the "Different Seasons" book as a whole. And as is the case with any anthology, I'm finding that I enjoy some of these stories more than others, and that the quality of said work varies from story to story. I highly enjoyed the first story in the anthology -- "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption," more famously known as simply "The Shawshank Redemption" -- and was rather surprised to find it lacking the horror and supernatural/fantastic elements that are usually present in King's works, so I was expecting most of the other stories to follow suit.

"Apt Pupil," like "Shawshank," lacks any clear supernatural elements save some nasty dream sequences. However, unlike "Shawshank," it's definitely a horror story, drawing on psychological terror and the very real atrocities of our past to get its chills, and it makes for a very thought-provoking, but also very difficult and unsettling, read.

Todd is an exceptionally bright thirteen-year-old boy, living in a happy and relaxed home in his California town. Todd has a dark fascination, however, with the history and crimes of the Holocaust, and his investigations lead him to discover that his elderly neighbor, Mr. Dussander, is actually a former Nazi who operated a minor concentration camp. Instead of turning the man in, however, Todd blackmails him into telling him stories of his times at the camps, with all the "gooshy" details intact. What follows is a power game as man and boy try to blackmail one another, struggling to keep their strange bond and Dussander's past a secret... and it's a game that quickly spirals out of control as Dussander's accounts of his time in the camps awaken demons within both of them that were best left undisturbed.

This book is NOT for the faint of heart. It contains graphic depictions of human and animal torture and death, and if you like animals at all, cats especially, you'll probably hate the scenes of gratuitous animal cruelty in this book. (What happens to a puppy Dussander gets his hands on is never explained in the text, as apparently even King has his standards.) And it doesn't flinch away from the horrors of the Holocaust either -- though some of the scenes of torture, murder, and sadistic experiments are so lurid and over the top that I wonder if they have any basis in fact or if King simply made them up to make this novella all the more sensational. I suppose the true horror comes from the fact that such things MIGHT have happened, though naturally many of the people who know for sure are no longer in a position to tell us.

As horrifying as the descriptions of the Holocaust and its atrocities are, however, the truly terrifying aspect of this book is its psychological horror elements. In comparing and contrasting young Todd with the ex-Nazi Dussander, it shows that evil comes in many forms, and can spring up anywhere and not just in the blackest parts of our history. There's no tragic event of Todd's past that makes him suddenly become a monster -- it's more a slow descent into sadism and evil, culminating in some truly horrific scenes in the last third of the novella.

The novella isn't perfect, though. As stated before, some of the scenes of the Holocaust's horrors are so over the top that it becomes difficult to take them seriously. And some rather nasty scenes, including Todd's dreams of torturing a young Jewish girl, are described in such "loving" detail that one wonders if King is trying to glorify the violent events or portray them as bad. Also, it becomes a little difficult to imagine that Todd could keep some of the events of the story secret for as long as he did -- though perhaps he was simply able to fly under the radar by being such a "good pupil" that no one thought twice about him. The last third of the book also becomes a string of coincidences that can be a bit difficult to take seriously, but King keeps the suspense ramped up enough that one doesn't notice right away.

Bonus for sharp-eyed readers -- Andy Dufrense, one of the main characters from "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption," gets a mention in this book. I had to smile just a bit when I found it.

This book is a difficult read, and isn't for the squeamish or for anyone who is easily offended by the Holocaust being used as a plot device. But all the same, it's a fascinating look at the nature of evil, and the many ways it can emerge in an individual. I doubt I'll read this one again myself, but all the same, it was a fascinating, though rather gruesome, read.

When asked the question "What's your favorite book of all time"? It isn't a very easy question to answer. There are just so many wonderful books out there it becomes a chore to pick just one. But after reading Stephen King's Different Seasons, maybe that question will finally quit being as hard as it is.
Different Seasons contains 4 novellas, something he would try later with a bit less effect in Four Past Midnight and Full Dark, No Stars (both still excellent btw) and in it Stephen King has created something not only wonderful but timeless. Reading these you don't get the sense they're outdated, they'll never be outdated. The themes and characters will be just as powerful in the year 3012 as they were in the 80's and today. And if in the year 3012, the store still somehow exists and if someone happens upon my review I'd almost bet they'd agree fully.
The 4 novellas are followed

Rita Hayworth And The Shawshank Redemption - An absolute stunner. The story revolves about a innocent man wrongly accused of a murder he didn't commit and sent to the prison of Shawshank for life. I'm not gonna lie I've never seen The Shawshank Redemption, I know, I know. But I hear it's a masterpiece and I fully believe that. Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption is a story about hope, that with every bad in life their just may be a light at the end of a long horrific tunnel. The characters of Andy and Red are spectacular and the story is pure magic.

Apt Pupil - The 2nd novella in Different Seasons was also turned into a film in the late 90's which I have actually seen. Apt Pupil is the dark story of Todd Bowden, a psychopath in the making who blackmails a former nazi into telling him all the gruesome details of being a nazi and it's concentration camps. But soon enough the memories of these events spiral their lives completely out of control. Apt Pupil is astounding and disturbing all in one. It's a true psychological achievement. The sick friendship that forms between the two is compelling. And what Stephen King is able to do is almost make us like the lead characters and hope for a happy ending. Until you realize they're monsters and deserve nothing but to burn in hell. Bravo King! The film version waters down the story and ruins the message. A shame. So skip the film! One note, Stephen King wrote Apt Pupil after he wrote The Shining. You can tell, Apt Pupil is a masterpiece.

The Body - One of King's best, the Body is a coming of age story about 4 boys who hike through the woods to see a dead body. The novella was later turned into a fantastic movie called Stand By Me. Now TRY if you can to read the novella before you see the film. Though still outstanding even if you've seen the film first, Stand By Me was such a faithful adaption that if you've seen the film then you know all the events that will take place. Reading it is kinda like seeing the film again. But I love this story and I will admit I maybe shed a tear at the end :p
Wonderful

The Breathing Method - This is like the mysterious one of the bunch, the others were turned into films so you kinda know what to expect but this is like a blank canvas. Sadly it's by far the weakest of the set. But it's also very short and it's not it's fault it had to follow the three it did. The story follows a club where a bunch of old folks get together to tell fireside stories. The story that is told is The Breathing Method. A story of a pregnant woman and her breathing exercises that will forever change the future (you'll see, no spoilers!). Overall it was a fine novella. I didn't really care for the story of The Breathing Method and found it a bit dull and way too over the top to believe but the wrap around with the club is chilling, mysterious and icey just like the winter it promises. I actually wish the story was all about the club itself.

Different Seasons is astounding! An absolute must buy, must read even if you're not a King fan. Perfect is what it is.

I reeeeeeally wanted to give this 5 stars, since Different Seasons contains some of the greatest novellas I have ever ingested. But I simply can't excuse the fact that "The Breathing Method" is just a turd. The writing is magnificent, really some of King's best, and is a nice change from the horror stories he's best known for, but it's just not that great of a story, at least not compared to the three other gems in the collection. Sure the story keeps you enthralled, with just enough mystery and intrigue to make you wonder what will happen next, but at the end of the day, it's a goddam story about the breathing method for a woman giving birth. Why Stephen, why??!? You were on a roll and you rolled yourself right into a quicksand pit filled with laser-wielding sharks!
Anyway, if I could give the overall book 4.9 stars, I totally would, but I'm not about to round up, because I need everyone to know that I disprove of the final season. But seriously though, the rest of the three stories are AMAZING, and if you don't read any other Stephen King in your life, this should be on your list.
Also, it was very soothing to imagine that Morgan Freeman was reading "Shawshank" to me. That voice could melt a baby's face off. Mmmmmmmmm...

Published six years before I was born, Different Seasons is King's first `novella' collection, compiling four longer-than-a-short-story-but-shorter-than-a-novel stories. Three out of the four stories in this collection have been turned into Hollywood films (the exception being The Breathing Method), two of the films to great success and acclaim.

In a way, King was breaking new ground in the literary world of his time by being allowed to publish this collection, which he talks about in the book's afterword. Publishers weren't interested in this silly, obscure little thing called a `novella.' It was too short to publish as a novel and expect people to pay money for, and story collections in general have never brought in the same revenue as a novel in any genre or market. But thankfully, by 1982, Stephen King had some clout with the publishers and a more-than-dedicated fan base of readers. So, long story short, he brought the idea before his agent, and after some convincing, Different Seasons was introduced to the world. There's even a little tease in the title; this work is compiled of shorter stories, which is different than what King had normally published before (if that sounds like conjecture, read the Afterword. I'm paraphrasing King's own words, here).

Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption: How much honestly needs to be said about such a well-known story? The movie is very well known and, honestly, far more famous than the story, at least to the general public. I have found in my own circles that non-King fans are rarely aware that Stephen King even wrote the story. Anyway, this is one of King's best works, and it has a certain timelessness about it that is rarely found in contemporary literature. It is full of life in every sentence, made up of just the right balance of humor, real pain, and air-tight cleverness so that it concludes with a neat little bow that leaves you walking away with a smile. The movie, thankfully, is very true to the book and is equally well done.

Apt Pupil: Here is where things turn darkest in this collection (it is appropriately sub-titled `Summer of Corruption'). The story begins in 1974 and introduces Todd Bowden, a seemingly kind and innocent boy of fourteen who becomes obsessed with 1940's war magazines that he finds amongst the comic books at a friend's house. By way of his poring over these gruesome magazines, Todd discovers that one of his own neighbors, an elderly German man named Arthur Denker, is in fact a wanted Nazi war criminal who had changed his name and fled his previous life. Todd confronts the old man early in the story (where he also finds out Denker's true name; Kurt Dussander) to Denker's horror, as his secret had lain hidden for twenty-five years or more. What follows is a remarkably twisted game of (for lack of a better term) cat-and-mouse in which Todd blackmails Denker and threatens to reveal his secret if Denker doesn't recount to Todd all of the wretched, torturous things he performed on Jews during the war. It is slowly revealed that Todd is not so innocent as we were led to think, and his morbid fascination with concentration camp killing methods manifests itself in increasingly darker forms.
While reading this, I kept thinking to myself, early on, that I didn't know how it could keep going for as many pages as I saw were left. The story is deceivingly straight-forward at the start, to the point that I thought I had the end figured out. Well, leave it to King to take things in an unexpected direction (and where he took the story was, obviously, much better than what I had in mind). This is a chilling tale, though very well-crafted, and involves one of the most complicated and messy `friendships-turned-rivalry' I have ever encountered in literature.

The Body: Again, a well-known story, primarily for the success of the film adaptation Stand By Me. It is pleasantly straight-forward; four young boys in the 1960's go for a long journey to find something mysterious, and learn about their friendships and themselves along the way. For as reminiscent of a tale as this is, with many humorous moments of colorful adolescent dialogue and smiling glimpses of America-past, there is a stark human sadness, even darkness, present as well. None of the boys' home lives are very pleasant, and the confrontations with the `older kids' are downright scary. King can make a violent, unpredictable high-schooler more unsettling than the strangest of his other-worldly creatures.
King narrates brilliantly in the adult voice of Gordie Lachance, probably the most level-headed and mature of the boys in the story of their youth. His friendship with Chris Chambers is quiet and profound, while his connection to the other two boys is more surface-level. In all, this is not necessarily a happy story, but like many `coming of age' pieces, this too has both moments of joy and of tough, grown-up realizations.

The Breathing Method: The final tale in the collection is the shortest, as well as the most odd. It is narrated by a middle-aged Manhattan lawyer named David, though the focus is an abstract men's club that meets in the parlor of an old hotel. David attends numerous times over a series of months, only to find that most of the time is spent by the men ambling about on their own, sipping fine whiskies, reading books by the fire, playing pool, and closing each gathering with a story. These stories are bizarre and often macabre, as they all end with some sort of death.
The Breathing Method is a story (within the story) that an elderly physician tells the men of the club on the last meeting before Christmas. To tell it here would ruin the point of you reading it, but I will at least reveal that it begins very sweet and sentimental, and ends very strange.
While The Breathing Method piece of the narrative itself is interesting, the story as a whole seems somewhat misguided. There is an odd hint at things supernatural within the club, with suggestion that the gathering takes place in what might be a portal with doors to other worlds (King fans may even take this further to suggest it is loosely connected to the Dark Tower), though this is only briefly passed over in the closing dialogue and never expanded upon. There is a sinister Lovecraftian undertone to the atmosphere of the club which is fun, but again, only hinted at.

Different Seasons as a whole is a wonderfully diverse and multi-layered read, and displays King in top form, what's more is to see him excel at writing something other than horror. Though he has pursued other more `regular' genres in the years since, surely in '82 this book had to have helped solidify him as not only a master of horror, but rather a master of writing in general. It seems there is no medium or genre he cannot do, and do quite well.

Stephen King is such an excellent short story writer, that I wish he had stuck with that format instead of his long, rambling (often boring) novels. I first read this collection 10 years ago and have reread it several times.

In my opinion, "Apt Pupil" is the most horrifying piece he has ever written. I couldn't sleep after I read it. It was a terrifying reminder of the evil that ordinary people are capable of. The suspense as the old man and the teenage boy try to clean up a crime scene is almost unbearable. Stephen King's inclusion of supernatural elements in his books often feels tacked-on or ridiculous, and one of the best things about this story is that there is no supernatural silliness...except maybe, the suggestion that evil is like a communicable disease, which can be passed from one person to another.

I liked the other three stories too, but "Apt Pupil" is the one that stayed with me. He has published so much mediocre work that it's easy to forget he was once such a talented writer.

Different Seasons by Stephen King consists of four short (or long, depending on how you look at it) novellas that each conveys a different message and eliciting various emotions from the readers. When looking for my next book to read by the great man himself, I saw this book making it to someone's top 10 Stephen King's list and thought to give it a try since I've rarely seen it in a "top 10" list before. Usually, most readers put The Stand as number 1 but I hated that book personally. Up until now, Stephen King has been a hit or miss with the books I've read written from him. I wanted to try something a bit different and Different Seasons seems to be what I was looking for. Upon completion of the book, I came away with two awesome stories, one OK and one below average. It was a pretty good ride but there definitely were some things that I didn't like the more I got into the book.

Rita Haysworth and Shawshank Redemption
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While I had watched the movie a long time ago, I totally forgot that it was based on a novella by Stephen King himself. I really liked this story and I can see why it's one of the more popular one's taken out of Different Seasons. The mysteriousness of Andy Dufresne and his carefree attitude made things really interesting and you just can't help but wonder how it's going to end. Throughout the story, while you can't help but think about just how Andy will escape from Shawshank prison, this I don't think is a story about a simple prison break. There's much more to it than that. The story is being told through the eyes of Red, another prisoner in Shawshank and slowly but surely, he recounts his tale about Andy Duresne. How does Andy behave so differently from the other prisoners even though he's doing a life sentence? What does he know that others don't? I really liked the ending to this novella even though some might disagree. Some might find it as a bit of a cliff hanger but truly the author wanted you to finish the story for yourself and come up with your own conclusions. It was written beautifully and I truly believe this is the best novella out of the four in Different Seasons.

Apt Pupil
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The second novella is another one of my favorites and most memorable. It depicts of a young boy learning a dark secret on one of his elderly neighbors. I had no idea that this story was eventually going down the path of darkness and horror. When I did, it was amazing. Anytime you deal with Nazi's and the horrors of World War II, it definitely draws upon readers all kinds of emotions and feelings. Just how far can one's curiosity go until it completely devours them? This is what I love best about Apt Pupil. A young boy and an old man basically are at a tug of war to see who will relinquish first in their game of blackmail. The darkness of this novella is definitely what I consider bone chilling and it was great to see the author once again writing something as dark as this. The story immediately caught my attention right at the start and I found the story itself to be quite fascinating. I found myself loving the dark ending. It fits with the rest of the story so well!

The Body
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This novella revolves around a bunch of boys trying to find the missing and presumed dead body of a boy named Ray Brower. This is one of the first stories I've read where the amount of swearing and cussing really put me off. Personally, I cuss a lot in real life and so do my friends. I don't have a problem with that. In books, I also usually don't have a problem with it but The Body is the first that really got on my nerves for some reason. It's also hard to write from a first person's point of view of a young kid. The author just have to make this one kid more "mature" than the rest because if not, it would be a really hard read and readers will likely not fall in line with the protagonist themselves. The Body deals with friendship in an odd kind of way. I loved the characters of the boys but the story just went on and on. I definitely wanted it to end a lot sooner because I was losing interest. Towards the end, I actually skipped major chunks of sections when the author started to drift off only to refocus my attention back when there were dialogues between the characters. I would think watching the movie adaptation of this story would have provided for a better experience.

The Breathing Method
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This novella is definitely the worst out of the four in my opinion but fortunately it's also the shortest of them all. It revolves around a lawyer being invited to some special old man's club by his boss. The author spends a lot of time building the hype and mysteriousness of this club. No latter than that are the readers than tossed into a story told by one of the club's member about how a women going through childbirth should control their breathing. It's kind of weird and I'm sure not many readers know what to make of it at times. Just what exactly is the message here? What I got from it is the will and determination a single women has to go through to bear a child in that period of time. The ending to this story within a story was definitely gruesome and unexpected to say the least. The ending itself for the main story is quite disappointing because I feel that the whole mysteriousness of the club and the character Steven himself was totally unnecessary and a complete waste of time. Heck even the main character of David himself has no bearing whatsoever on the story and is just there as a filler to take up space.

Review: "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption" by Stephen King, in King anthology "Different Seasons"

This irrepressible, inscrutable short story by Stephen King is about bad people who are sort of really good people, and sort of good people who refuse to let really bad things become their way of life.

Red is a murderer, but we get past that in the first pages. Red is the philosopher-king of Shawshank Prison. For my money, Red is the point of the story. He repents his crime, he does the time, he comes to understand Andy Dufresne's untouchable devotion to regaining his rightful freedom, and Red finally, doggedly, walks the line of rock walls in hayfields in Buxton until he unearths the final proof of a friendship, and hope.

Andy remains a mysterious character, right to the end. We know he's innocent, we know he was cruelly and unjustly entombed and forgotten in hell, we know what he did in Shawshank, we admire his motivation, and yet we know the man only as Red knew him. Red was a passive observer, attentive to be sure, and responsive to Andy's intellect and his bulldog determination, but Red never penetrated Andy's mind, never really understood Andy's private self.

For me, as for Red, the man Dufresne had a full-length poster picture of himself taped to the top of his head, and we never were able to get behind the poster and get in to the real Andy.

En fin, I cheered Andy's escape, and I was happy that Red finally got on the bus to McNary, Texas, and I think the two will enjoy a decent life in Zihuatanejo....and I think they live in a different world that I do not know, and do not want to know.

Read more on my blog: Barley Literate by Rick

Different Seasons is a collection of four novellas, three of which are some of the most incredible examples of American fiction produced in the 1980's. First, the book starts with Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, which most people know better without the movie star name attached. Frank Darabont's adaptation of this amazing story almost won best picture, which is understandable given the high quality of the source material. King delivers horror without a hint of the supernatural, scaring you to death with the prospect of wrongful imprisonment, solitary confinement, prison rape...all even more terrifying knowing that these things have actually happened to many innocent people .

Then comes Apt Pupil, a disturbing examination of a young man fascinated by death who becomes obsessed with the Holocaust. Through the past experiences of a former Nazi commander, he lives out his sickest imaginings and plumbs the depths of his sadistic nature. Again, nothing supernatural, but horrific nonetheless.

Third is The Body, which many know as the movie Stand By Me. Strange that director Rob Reiner altered the setting of the story, transplanting Castle Rock from Maine to Oregon, but he did capture the spirit of King's novella admirably. Four young boys set out on a secret adventure (who wouldn't be hooked by that premise alone?), but since it needs a macabre twist to be a King story, their potential treasure is the corpse of a local boy supposedly hit by a train. Though less than 200 pages, The Body achieves the feel of an epic story and is one of the most memorable of King's career.

Finishing the collection is The Breathing Method, a story with somewhat supernatural implications, but more about the power of human determination. A woman manages to give birth under some highly extraordinary conditions, demonstrating the frightening potency of intense willpower. It's not quite as exceptional as the other three stories in my opinion, but it's still a powerful novella. When you put these four stories together, you end up with the best collection of King's career, some of his most literary work, and one of his top ten books overall.

Different Seasons is a collection of four novellas, three of which are some of the most incredible examples of American fiction produced in the 1980's. First, the book starts with Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, which most people know better without the movie star name attached. Frank Darabont's adaptation of this amazing story almost won best picture, which is understandable given the high quality of the source material. King delivers horror without a hint of the supernatural, scaring you to death with the prospect of wrongful imprisonment, solitary confinement, prison rape...all even more terrifying knowing that these things have actually happened to many innocent people .

Then comes Apt Pupil, a disturbing examination of a young man fascinated by death who becomes obsessed with the Holocaust. Through the past experiences of a former Nazi commander, he lives out his sickest imaginings and plumbs the depths of his sadistic nature. Again, nothing supernatural, but horrific nonetheless.

Third is The Body, which many know as the movie Stand By Me. Strange that director Rob Reiner altered the setting of the story, transplanting Castle Rock from Maine to Oregon, but he did capture the spirit of King's novella admirably. Four young boys set out on a secret adventure (who wouldn't be hooked by that premise alone?), but since it needs a macabre twist to be a King story, their potential treasure is the corpse of a local boy supposedly hit by a train. Though less than 200 pages, The Body achieves the feel of an epic story and is one of the most memorable of King's career.

Finishing the collection is The Breathing Method, a story with somewhat supernatural implications, but more about the power of human determination. A woman manages to give birth under some highly extraordinary conditions, demonstrating the frightening potency of intense willpower. It's not quite as exceptional as the other three stories in my opinion, but it's still a powerful novella. When you put these four stories together, you end up with the best collection of King's career, some of his most literary work, and one of his top ten books overall.

This version of Different Seasons marked the release of the film Apt Pupil. It has the obligatory photo of the movie's star, the late Brad Renfro, on the cover but nothing else different from other copies of the book. It's disappointing that movie tie-in paperbacks no longer have pages of movie photos inside like they did in the 70's and early 80's. Anyway, if you don't have the book already, this has all four stories in their original order.

First is Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, which most people know better without the movie star name attached. Frank Darabont's adaptation of this amazing story almost won best picture, which is understandable given the high quality of the source material. King delivers horror without a hint of the supernatural, scaring you to death with the prospect of wrongful imprisonment, solitary confinement, prison rape...all even more terrifying knowing that these things have actually happened to many innocent people.

Then comes Apt Pupil, a disturbing examination of a young man fascinated by death who becomes obsessed with the Holocaust. Through the past experiences of a former Nazi commander, he lives out his sickest imaginings and plumbs the depths of his sadistic nature. Again, nothing supernatural, but horrific nonetheless. In the film, Ian McKellan gives a chilling performance as the Nazi, Renfro is also outstanding as Todd, and David Schwimmer appears in one of his first roles as Todd's school counselor.

Third is The Body, which many know as the movie Stand By Me. Strange that director Rob Reiner altered the setting of the story, transplanting Castle Rock from Maine to Oregon, but he did capture the spirit of King's novella admirably. Four young boys set out on a secret adventure (who wouldn't be hooked by that premise alone?), but since it needs a macabre twist to be a King story, their potential treasure is the corpse of a local boy supposedly hit by a train. Though less than 200 pages, The Body achieves the feel of an epic story and is one of the most memorable of King's career.

Finishing the collection is The Breathing Method, a story with somewhat supernatural implications, but more about the power of human determination. A woman manages to give birth under some highly extraordinary conditions, demonstrating the frightening potency of intense willpower. It's not quite as exceptional as the other three stories in my opinion, but it's still a powerful novella. When you put these four stories together, you end up with the best collection of King's career, some of his most literary work, and one of his top ten books overall.

Different Seasons is a collection of four novellas, three of which are some of the most incredible examples of American fiction produced in the 1980's. First, the book starts with Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, which most people know better without the movie star name attached. Frank Darabont's adaptation of this amazing story almost won best picture, which is understandable given the high quality of the source material. King delivers horror without a hint of the supernatural, scaring you to death with the prospect of wrongful imprisonment, solitary confinement, prison rape...all even more terrifying knowing that these things have actually happened to many innocent people .

Then comes Apt Pupil, a disturbing examination of a young man fascinated by death who becomes obsessed with the Holocaust. Through the past experiences of a former Nazi commander, he lives out his sickest imaginings and plumbs the depths of his sadistic nature. Again, nothing supernatural, but horrific nonetheless.

Third is The Body, which many know as the movie Stand By Me. Strange that director Rob Reiner altered the setting of the story, transplanting Castle Rock from Maine to Oregon, but he did capture the spirit of King's novella admirably. Four young boys set out on a secret adventure (who wouldn't be hooked by that premise alone?), but since it needs a macabre twist to be a King story, their potential treasure is the corpse of a local boy supposedly hit by a train. Though less than 200 pages, The Body achieves the feel of an epic story and is one of the most memorable of King's career.

Finishing the collection is The Breathing Method, a story with somewhat supernatural implications, but more about the power of human determination. A woman manages to give birth under some highly extraordinary conditions, demonstrating the frightening potency of intense willpower. It's not quite as exceptional as the other three stories in my opinion, but it's still a powerful novella. When you put these four stories together, you end up with the best collection of King's career, some of his most literary work, and one of his top ten books overall.

This novella, Apt Pupil, was taken from Kings best selling Different Seasons book incorporating four stories.
Apt Pupil is my personal favorite. A chilling and sometimes brutal look at a teenagers obsession with violence.
When Todd Bowden, all American Baseball player, honor student and a very Apt pupil, finds out the identity of an old man who is former SS. And this man lives just down the street
Todd, being the only one who truly knows his secret past, has set a plan in motion that will stir deep dark demons into Todd's life. As well as the old man, Kurt Dussander.
Dussanders tales of murder, genocide, holocaust horrors and tales of mutalation and pain have not repulsed Todd, but instead filled his head with a hot glow of interest.
A demon waiting to be born, but how can such an apt pupil be so evil?
It is all here with Kings signature storytelling, cringing details and some of the best written character development I've ever been privy to read in a King story.
Riveting, revolting and impossible to put down.

Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption

I've got to say, I deeply enjoyed this short, wonderful story.

I normally don't like stories told from the first-person perspective, but this one got on top of me and quickly. It's in the voicing of the narrative, almost wholly, in how it works on you; sure, there are a lot of other great things going on in this story, like the character development and a lot of contextual stuff, but it's the voice that carries this great work of art. You really fall in love with these guys; they're just so likable, and their situation is so dire; they've been crushed down, so low, and this character is telling you how they got out of it all.

I'm also a sucker for fiction in which the villain or villains is the system itself, or members of the authority body. This novella definitely hits that on the nose, squarely.

I plan on watching the The Shawshank Redemption (Blu-ray Book) sometime in the next couple weeks, and will write a review based on the movie experience, too; when I do that, I'll include a comparison to the book in that review and update this review, also.

I just want to say it again... This is an amazing story, and I would recommend it to everyone; even people that aren't particularly into reading...

Apt Pupil

This novella was really disgusting at points. It's an assaultive work, and it hits all the senses with a sledge hammer.

On its face, it's a story about how easy it is to lose your morality; one thing after another, and sooner or later, you're an empty human being with nothing left but the desire to do awful things just to make the blood move again. It's about what it's like to lose everything good inside yourself, and know that you'll never get it back. You almost feel bad for the sinister characters in the piece, even though through the course of the narrative they've done unspeakable things.

One thing that came to mind immediately after finishing the novella was the raw, obvious similarities and correlations between 'Apt Pupil' and Stephen King's other child-gone-wrong book 'Rage'; in fact, it almost seems like 'Apt Pupil' is the story King was trying to tell with 'Rage' to begin with. 'Apt Pupil' is more developed than 'Rage,' certainly. It's got a lot more character work in the narrative and its voice is a tad more pronounced. It's far dirtier, too, because while in 'Rage' you knew very little, all in all, about the demented child killing everyone, in 'Apt Pupil' you spend the entire course of the narrative getting to know the child, and the places where his dark desires originate.

I'm very surprised that King ever removed 'Rage' from publication, if he has not removed this work as well. Even beyond their gross similarities, the essential nerve that's struck is the same. I read 'Rage' many, many years ago and it really worked on me; in exactly the same way this did, only in a less refined way. 'Rage' was blunt, without reason. The same conclusion is reached, though. Why would King remove 'Rage' but leave 'Apt Pupil' in print? I've watched interviews with him after Columbine and he seemed so passionate about it. He must know that there are millions of copies of 'Rage' out there, and that removing it from publications does nothing. But more than that, as the writer of the works, he also must know that the two books are like two brothers, one farther along and more developed than the other; the fact remaining that they come from the same family, and were raised identically. I don't understand why, if 'Rage' is so horrible that he felt he had to strike it from publication, why he wouldn't automatically decide to do the same for 'Apt Pupil'. The obvious answer is that Hollywood never came calling about 'Rage', but due to the other books in Different Seasons gaining success at the box office, Hollywood did come calling about 'Apt Pupil' and the movie was made before Columbine. So perhaps removing the book after to movie deal would be bad business. I'm not going to judge Stephen King for this kind of inconsistency; I just thought I'd point it out.

All in all, I think 'Apt Pupil' works for the right reasons, and I think it raises questions about whether sociopaths are born or bred to be what they are. I think it also shows a mirror to the American heart, and many people won't like what they see there.
I have not seen the movie, but plan to. I doubt it will even be in the same ballpark of serious as this novella was, for me anyway.
WARNING: This story contains horrific animal cruelty and violence against homeless and poor people. If you're sensitive to these kinds of things, don't read this story. The animal cruelty within the story really bothered me, but in my view it was needed to frame exactly how depraved the characters in the narrative truly were.

I gave it four out of 5 stars because of the pace of story, realism in the narrative, and the propulsive, assaultive style and how it worked on my brain. Many things can be said about Stephen King, but open thing is for sure: he keeps people reading like gangbusters.

The Body

One odd realization that slowly crept over me while reading the Body is that I may be one of the last people to be able to identify with it. A good portion of the story takes place on railroad tracks, with live trains on them, and these days those seem to be an endangered species certain to be gone altogether in the next twenty years. What trains remain after that will almost certainly be that of the Amtrak variety, and not the lumbering box car type in this story. With all the 'Rails to Trails' programs in ever small town I've been to recently, the trains won't be missed, either, i suspect. But without them, this story will fall to nearly blind, misunderstanding eyes, I fear. Sure, there will be historical TV programs and wikipedia pages on the old rail systems, but no one beyond my generation will have really experienced trains firsthand. I find that to be a sad thing, really, for many reasons; but certainly, it will impact the enjoyment of this story.

A second realization hit me after finishing the book and having time to think. Kids don't smoke anymore; yes, kids who are 15-19 still start smoking, but that's not what I'm talking about. What I'm saying is that 12 year old kids don't try cigarettes anymore, and certainly don't smoke them regularly. The point can be argued, but what I'm saying is true, and I think everyone knows it. Kids not only don't smoke when they're that young anymore, they couldn't afford to even if they wanted to. The habit couldn't develop so young, now. Why am I bringing this up? Because it's another element in the story that people won't be able to identify with anymore, certainly not 10 years from now. With all the municipalities outlawing smoking in public places, even those of us that did smoke when we were that young are quitting, and will soon have the foggy memories of the act that old people have about, well, everything.
A third realization is that in 20 years, as manufacturing goes though it's final death throws in this country, all the talk of the mills will become another point wherein the reader won't be able to readily identify with the narrative.

Factories, rail roads, smoking: all pieces of America, and almost completely no more. Wild...

It's interesting to view the book in such dated terms, less than thirty years from its original publication in 1982. Even then, it was calling back to a time two decades before, to the 1960s, a by-gone era and time when things were altogether different. But the story would have worked in 1982 perfectly for anyone that read it at the time, because those trains were still moving and kids and parents alike were smoking up a storm and even those who didn't smoke saw it happen more than once in a daily by people young and old. By the late 1990s things had changed quite a bit, and by now, in 2011, it's like a totally different universe.

Am I saying the story suffers too much from age on the shelf? No, I'm not. I just find it interesting, looking at it now, at my age, and being able to look forward at the changes that are happening in our society. Even taking a look at stories written in the 1800s, there are things that people could identify with up until 25 years ago, with even more than a hundred year gap in the way; now, just a little under thirty years have passed and this story has been greatly displaced, as far as its ability to be in tune with the reader, and have a shared identity with them.

Anyway... what did I think of 'The Body'? I thought it was amazing. I love this story every bit as much as i loved 'Rita Hayworth and Shawshank redemption' and for the same reasons; the characters were just so likeable, and familiar to me; the story brought back memories of my childhood that i had long forgotten. In the familiarity, it was a better story than 'Shawshank' because although i've never been to prison, I have lived the kind of life the children in the story did, and I have lost people in much the same way. It's a gorgeous picture of the 19th century American childhood, and I fell in love with it immediately.

Stephen King, for all the bad things people say about him, puts story first. It shines here.

At its heart, the story is about a writer looking back on a single event in his childhood, and kind of reviewing how that event tuned him, and how it focused his fixation on mortality. I sense an autobiographical nature in the narrative, as though Stephen King is giving a little more of himself away in this one than he normally does. There is a lot of internal conflict in the narrative, and a lot of self-examination that feels right; it feels honest.

The inner conflicts center around how mortality affects people, how unfair life can be and how some people never make it, how death doesn't ask. If the book has a central theme, I would say that it would be to enjoy every moment you have, especially with friends.
The book, 'The Body' is definitely superior to the movie 'Stand By Me'; but only because it is more inclusive of the heart and mind of the storyteller. The movie is compressed, and doesn't have enough time to breathe. Movies cannot truly represent a novel or even a novella in its entirety, because of time constraints. I try not to judge them too harshly because of this. The movie is worth checking out; I'll probably end up watching it again.

The Breathing Method

Stephen King, even in his youth, was very, very good at having a narrative voice from the perspective of old men. Several of his short stories and novellas over the years have been about an old man looking back at an event in their life; usually that event is horrifying. His voicing of older characters has always been good; in Night Shift, the 'One For The Road' story, or in Everything's Eventual : 14 Dark Tales the story called 'The Man In The Black Suit' are great examples of this. 'The Breathing Method' is no different. It's a very good story, and a fitting end for such a fine collection.

I would say, however, that it isn't my favorite novella in this collection. I think the reason for that falls to the fact that I'm more interested in the surroundings of where the title piece story are told, than the story itself. The Club that isn't a club, as Stephen King puts it in the afterward. Part of what made me love the story so much is the mystery around the place, but I also have to say that it left me wanting to know more about that place; a lot more. The entire underlying concept was brilliant, and I can only hope he will either drop and older story from the vault that explores the place, or possibly write about it in the future.
It's not as good as `Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption' or `The Body', but I did find that I enjoyed it more than `Apt Pupil'; by a long shot.

The Collection

I can't really decide between `Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption' or `The Body' for a favorite in the book, but I'll say that it's `Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption' because I also loved the movie a lot, too, and the characters are so memorable; it's really unfair to compare them, due to the way the movie has become such a cult hit over the years, and how that influences the discussion.

I won't be getting rid of this book, ever. It's going to hang around, and I'll probably read it a dozen more times. Two of the books in this thing are just absolute classics. Love it.

For some reason, Stephen King's works just don't typically translate well to the big screen. Perhaps it's poor casting or low budgets or inferior translations from book to screenplay. I think the most likely reason is that you lose so much condensing his generally massive works down to fit within a couple of hours. That could explain why his television miniseries tend to be more popular. It would also explain why this collection of four shorter works produced three movies, two of which are among the finest of the Stephen King flicks.

Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption tells the story of a man who was wrongfully convicted and imprisoned for the murder of his wife and her lover. It's a good study on characterization. Given the six years I spent working in a county jail, I think his method of escape was highly unrealistic and unlikely, but good storytelling nevertheless (and maybe they were a lot more lax back then). The story produced the outstanding film The Shawshank Redemption, one of the very few movies I've seen that I believe may be better than the original story (it's close, though, in this case).

I've always had a fascination for World War II, so I really enjoyed Apt Pupil. In this story, we have a boy in the modern day America of the 1970's discover a Nazi hiding out in his town. He wants to hear all about the concentration camps. Together, they spiral downward into paranoia, darkness, and murder. A really fine story that did not translate particularly well to the big screen. I think it simply had to be sanitized too much to come in with an R-rating.

The Body was the basis for the film Stand by Me. This is a great story of four boys who set off just before the beginning of their fall semester of school to find a dead body. Rob Reiner did a great job of moving this to the big screen, and River Phoenix turned in quite a performance for his age.

The Breathing Method was, to my knowledge, never turned into a film. I'd be curious to see how it would do, especially given modern special effects. Here we have an older man who's invited to a club filled with books and brands that exist nowhere else where the "members" share tales. The namesake of this short work is the Christmas tale and makes up a good chunk of this short story.

This is a good all-around collection. Those seeking horror may be disappointed, because none of these are outright horror tales, although Apt Pupil ventures nearly into that territory, I'd say. However, if one is content with merely engrossing, well-told stories, then this collection, even given its age, is worth the time.

Apt Pupil was okay. Sick but okay, what with the holocaust anecdotes. It is, after all, a horror story.

Then I began reading The Body--a story about Sophia Loren who snubs all the men in town with insults when they hit on her so this guy decides to get even by.... (not really, although that would've been a better story)--it's really a story with little kids as its main characters and this time I couldn't take it. After 15 pages, I went on to the next story, so I don't know what the plot is. I don't know why Stephen King chooses to use kids as the foundation of his tales but it does get old and I'm really, really not into it. Think of it, combining little kids and horror. Something wrong with that picture. 'It' is a prime example. (see my review of 'it') The thing is, I've grown up and left my kiddie days behind.

Breathing Lessons--If King had chose to stick to the core story of the private club, which was romantic and intimate, not to mention great hooch, he'd have had a winning short story. But he starts telling this boring story about a pregnant woman. It did pick up momentum near the end and all in all, it was okay, but if he had stuck closer to the private club theme this one would be a true classic instead of a life support dud.

Shawshank Redemption was good from beginning to end--an inspiring story about a prisoner who was stronger than the prison he was trapped him, as an innocent man. Each page was compelling and light hearted enough to keep an otherwise dreary story rolling along. Yes, I'm reading things I should've read long ago.

After 14 Stephen King books under my belt, Needful Things is still the best. I even sent a copy to my brother for a xmas present.

Having never read anything by Stephen King before, I thought I'd give this one a try - mostly because this is one of the few books out of which came a good movie (The Shawshank Redemption). I had seen Apt Pupil on TV before, and even though I wasn't too mindblown, I decided to read the novella it was based on.

The first pages didn't really hook me much, style-wise, but quickly I was quite into it and kept reading for hours and hours, which never happens with a bad story. I read the whole thing in two readings or so, and decided I'd read more from that book. That's when I read The Body.

The Body is most likely my favourite story from this volume. I found it very impressive, very well-written, and profound in many ways. I was happily surprised to find out that Stephen King was actually a great author (or at the very least, that he could be a great author - again, I emphasise that I can't compare with anything else he wrote).

Then I read the first novella of the book, the one the Shawshank Redemption movie is based on, and it was a good read, but having seen the movie (and liked it a lot), I was biased, and so I assume I would have been quite impressed had I not seen the movie and remembered it so well.

The Breathing Method, in my humble opinion, is the least of these four stories. It's far from bad, but it doesn't have the epic proportions of the other stories. This one feels much more like a short story than a novella. It covers much less ground, and it's a story within a story, so you don't really settle down on one character; all of this is alright, I'm just saying it's more a short story than a novella for these reasons. I didn't dislike it but it's definitely not as good as the previous stories.

All in all, I was thoroughly impressed by Stephen King. I didn't really know what to expect with this book, except for the plots of the stories whose movies I had seen. It does sound like King wrote this to show that he could write good stuff, and stuff that didn't involve supernatural freaks and other entities from B movies (excepting The Breathing Method, which does have some sort of supernatural-ness going on). I think The Body is definitely a most excellent novella and I'd recommend it to everyone: it's about four kids who go on a trip to discover the dead body of someone their own age. It's extremely touching, and the narrator of this is a writer, and you can see, I suppose, King's own reflections about his career. King exposes a rather vast vocabulary, a usually intriguing style, and not a dull page in that massive book. I read in other reviews here that this is very different from what King writes: I can't say, but this is absolutely excellent. King does things I wouldn't do as an author (like free indirect style), but it fits his stories and style, so you get used to it when it's used at all.

With this book alone, Stephen King earned my respect. I admit I didn't give the author much credit before - mostly because of some of the terrible movies based on his work - but because of Different Seasons, I know the man has real talent. Whether he applies it to his other books, I cannot say, but now I know he is probably vastly underrated.

Extremely recommended. Perhaps more to readers who aren't usually King's readers, or simply to readers who can read something other than horror from King. I again insist that The Body is one seriously good novella; and I haven't seen the movie, and I had never heard of it when I read this one. If nothing else, give The Body a try.

"Different Seasons" by Stephen King, © 1982

'Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption'

This is a wonderful story. Andy Dufresne was tried and sentenced to spend a spell of time in prison. As it turns out, it was a true miscarriage of justice, but that happens and you just get on with your life. Red is the narrator and the closest thing Andy has to a friend in the klink. Mr. King must have done some research to get the feel and ambiance of prisons that pervades this story. It is a lot of information you just do not see or think about when you are not in there, but it is there if you think about it. The stuff that happens, the schedules, the personal problems, etc., makes you happy you are not there, but you also feel you could weather the life if you had to.

'Apt Pupil'

This is the story of the descent into insanity. Todd Bowden discovers there is a Nazi war criminal in his town. He goes to talk with him. He wants to know what it was like to kill all those people and how and who helped and what they were like. You do not realize how crazy this is until the end. It is so sad. Todd was such a good student, then he got all turned around, through no fault of this war criminal. In the end he was a very 'apt pupil.'
Mr. King walks the fine line of describing this insane boy and his mentor, but not getting into the thought process. You understand that the insanity has taken over, but you do not get into the head of the person so much as to find out what they are thinking, as you just know what they do is a comfort to them.

'The Body'

This is a precursor of "It." A pretty good story of a bunch of kids acting like kids: out exploring, playing games, climbing trees. The jist of this story is a that a boy from the town has gone missing for a long time and he has not been found. One of this group has a brother who talks, within earshot of this one boy, about where the body is. So the group plans and goes off to see this macabre sight.
It is interesting that in this story, as well as the next, there are stories within the story. Mr. King poo poos these stories, but they are pretty good to me.

'The Breathing Method'
David has been invited to join his boss, George Waterhouse, in some club he belongs to. They are lawyers during the day. This club is something else. It seems to have an endless supply of rare and obscure books, and rooms for pool or other games. It is never mentioned who pays or is charged for drinks, if anything. This club is the sort of place anyone would be welcome in and comfortable at. A British type of ambiance pervades the establishment. I want to get to be here. It sounds so quaint and congenial.
But, this is not the main part of the story. This is actually a story of a story. At first you wait for something to happen to David, but nothing does, and eventually you realize that he is just leading up to the storytelling that is the reason for this story. The inner story is truly outlandish, but you enjoy the telling and that it turns out as well as it does.
This is the story I got the phrase, "Pretty as a day," from. I used to tell Mary that, and, "You are the most beautiful sight I have ever seen," (from an article by Rachel Ray talking about Vermont in the Fall) at least once a day, but no more. I embarrassed her and so I really should not do that.

All in all, these are some very good stories. The second one is the worst, but mostly that is because I did not like the subject matter.

Stephen King is one of the greatest authors around. I've read over 20 of his novels and I've read one of his novella collections ("Four Past Midnight") and most of the short story anthology "Night Shift."
I can honestly say that "Different Seasons" is one of his finest books...In fact, it's one of the finest books I've ever read. A true masterpiece. Three of the four novellas were adapted into successful films (one of them, everyone has seen, and is considered one of the finest films ever made). The book begins with "Rita Hayworth & Shawshank Redemption" which not only succeeds in showing King's depth as a writer, but also Frank Darabont's skill as a writer and filmmaker. The novella does not differ very far from the film version, almost nothing was removed from the novella for the film. But the changes that were made are terrific and only brought out more humanity and depth for the film. The story is narrated by Red, a lifer at Shawshank prison who tells us about Andy Dufresne, a banker wrongly imprisoned for the murder of his wife and her lover. It's terrifically entertaining and, surprisingly, short at only about 100 pages. The next story is "Apt Pupil," adapted into a film
by Bryan Singer in 1998. I've seen the film version, but I don't remember a thing about it. This novella was my favorite of all of them. It explores the human and teenage psyche very well and is the most compelling of all the novellas. I, honestly, did not want to put it down. "The Body," was, of course, adapted into the 1986-film "Stand by Me." I've seen that film once or twice, but, once again, do not remember much of it. The story is a bit uneven and the dialogue is incredibly lame
(did people really talk like that in the 1960's), but it is entertaining and the characters are charming enough. The final novella, the black sheep you could say, is "The Breathing Method." The story of a lawyer who goes to a club where the "members" (although there are no "members") tell stories. One story is about a young woman who gets pregnant and is determined to have the baby no matter what. The story is interesting enough, but really hits it's peak in the final pages. Very haunting images that King conjures up in one's mind. It's no exaggeration when I say that this is one of the best books I've ever read. It has its weak points in the final two stories, but few books are perfect...This book isn't perfect, but it is very entertaining and compelling. Few authors achieve theatricality in their writing as well as King does and I highly recommend "Different Seasons" to fans of Stephen King. Even if you're
not a fan of Stephen King, this novel is terrific and I'm sure it will appeal to you horror fan or not. A masterpiece.

GRADE: A

This was one of the first Stephen King books I read and it remains a favorite to this day. I've reread Apt Pupil, Rita Hayworth & The Shawshank Redemption, and The Body so many times my old paperback has almost fallen apart. I enjoy The Breathing Method as well, but I haven't read it quite as many times as the other three.

Apt Pupil to my mind is possibly the single most chilling thing I've ever read where there isn't a supernatural protagonist. The fact that the horror here is all too human is what makes this novella so terrifying. The parallel courses taken by the old man and the boy as the story progresses were shocking and disturbing to me when I first read it. Not until I read Silence of the Lambs did I read anything as compelling about the darkness in the human soul.

By contrast, Rita Hayworth & The Shawshank Redemption shows the resiliency of the human spirit, despite oppressive circumstances. Written with amazing insight, this is one of my all time favorite stories. It's well plotted and thought out and contains not an iota of the supernatural. I encourage people who belittle Stephen King or dismiss him out of hand as a mere horror writer to read this story. In this novella, you get his rich characterization and attention to detail without having your socks scared off.

And as for character, we come to The Body. This is a story about growing up and the changes that occur as adulthood looms. There is a darkness at the heart of this story about four friends who journey through the Maine woods to see a dead body. It's not so much the story of the body, as how the dynamics of that friendship will be affected by what happens after they've seen it. Again a story with no supernatural elements, but strong characters and heartwrenching details. In a lot of ways, growing up is letting go of things, things often you don't want to let go of, and this novel captures perfectly the pain of losing those things.

The Breathing Method closes out the book, the lone horror tale among the four, although you could argue that all of the stories have some horrific elements. This story doesn't seem to have the deeper themes of the other three stories, but still is an enjoyable yarn. It is the story told by a doctor of a nightmarish delivery of a child, as well as the story of the enigmatic gentleman's club in which he tells the tale. While it may not seem as deep to me, it was still an enjoyable story. Stephen King's details are meticulous as always and his descriptions of characters and settings in this story are particularly evocative. It's not a very frightening story, more on par with a creepy Twilight Zone episode. It's probably the weakest of the four stories here, but having said that, it's still pretty good.

This book was a wild, and intense ride, and helped me look at things a a very different way. I understood (from the afterword) King's need to write something other than horrer. I myself like to write short horror stories and there's always something there telling me to write a grand fantasy or a bizarre science fiction. The books themselves were each different like the seasons they were named for. Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, a book about a willfull man named Andy Dufresne who is wrongly put in jail and uses his own mind and sense of self to stay sane and escape. It was one of my favorites. Though some parts were slightly gruesome, it was all in all a hope inspiring, flax golden tale. When you think about it after you read it, it reminds you of flowers blooming and fending off sudden frosts and cold spells, just like the season of spring for which it was named.
The Apt Pupil, my least favorite, is about an adolescent boy who figures out his elderly neighbor is really an old Nazi Death Camp officer and tortures him for his own enjoyment, twisting his own mind, and retwisting the ming of the old man. This story was too long and too intense, just like summer can be. The whole book was like riding a demented roller coaster from Hell. I enjoyed the story sometimes, but sometimes it was just to violent, too demented, or at some points too corrupted. I had to put the book down for a week or two after the old man baked the stray cat in his oven. It was way too sad and mean. I guess I liked it simply because I like horror, but it was just too "icky".
The Body was the best story of them all. It was about four boys who venture far away from home to find the body of another boy their age. It was cool and calming just like fall. Everything in the story was so beautifully detailed. The author constantly said that words diminish the thoughts and sights and sounds you have seen. It is so true. I can't realy explain the reason without diminishing the thought so I won't. The most beautiful part of the story was when Gordon woke up on the morning after they had spent their first night by the railroad tracks. The morning is so sweet and calm, with the birds waking up and singing their morning songs, and the squirrels, and the deer. That was a beauitiful story and I think everybody should read it.
The Breathing Method was...interesting. Everybody says that it was horror and stuff, but even with decapitation, and premonitions of doom, I think this story was more mysterious than just plain scary. It was dark and cold like winter. It is about a man who goes to a bizarre club (for club is the only word one can describe it as) and hears a strange story of a strange birth. I think the most interesting part of the story was the club and the bartender. The club had endless rooms, and when you were alone in it suddenly everything seemed dark and frightening rather than a warm and nice atmosphere it kept when full of people. There were srtange books that existed nowhere else in the world but there, and a strange slithery liquidy bump was heard by the narrator. King leaves the club up to our wild imaginations which lets the story remain unhidden forever. I wonder if King has any ideas about the strange club of his own making. This story was definitely very good.
All in all I would've given this book a five had there not been such graphic parts in The Apt Pupil. I know most people probably won't read this whole review because it is too long, but I think you should anyway. I think that if you are a human and you are capable of reading, you should read Different Seasons. It will change the way you look at the world if nothing else. My last word: May your path be filled with corn syrup (or other sugary substances)

I've said it before and I'll say it again: even without using any supernatural elements in his stories, Stephen King is a brilliant author. The strength of his storytelling is in his characters and the first three stories in this book make that very apparent.
I've seen the movie SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION a couple of times, so I knew the ending. Nevertheless, I found this novella to be engrossing. The first person narration gives the story a personal feel, even if the narrator isn't who the story is really about. Using this technique, the reader doesn't really get into the head of the main character, but that makes the story all the more intriguing since we don't know what he's planning or thinking or even what his true motivations are.
APT PUPIL (I haven't seen this film) was scary because it was so realistic. We see the characters going from a respectable student and a quiet old man to two people giving in to their base desires. While one of them welcomes this as a return to things familiar, we see the other one struggle against them, knowing that they are wrong, but not being able to do anything about it. This is a truly horrific story, but it contains none of King's usual supernatural elements.
The third story, THE BODY, is the best in the book. I've only seen the first twenty minutes or so of STAND BY ME (which is based on this story), so I didn't really know what to expect. Some of King's best work comes when he is telling coming of age stories of teens or pre-teens. IT and CHRISTINE were brilliant and I now have to put this story in that category. No true horror here, just a story about four ordinary friends in middle America spending the last weekend of the summer together. This is King's trademark brilliant character interaction and development. The story itself isn't all that exciting, but watching these boys together makes the story a very enjoyable read.
Finally, we have THE BREATHING METHOD. While not as engrossing as the other stories, it does get back to King's supernatural twist at the end. I enjoyed reading it, but it just didn't grab me the way the others in this book did. I'm not sure I can really pinpoint why because the characters were just as developed.
Anyway, if you're a King fan, you'll definitely enjoy these stories. If you haven't read King before, don't read these expecting to be surrounded by the macabre. These truly show off King's strengths as a storyteller by stripping away all the horror and supernatural elements. He's probably one of the best writers in America today and these stories prove it.

"Different Seasons" is an electrifying collection of Stephen King 'novellas', stories that fall into that literary twilight zone of being too hefty to be short stores, but also too short to be full novels. It was originally published in 1982, and all four of the stories within were knocked off by King after completion of larger works early in his career. All are stunning reads, consisting of some of the best stuff he's ever done. A linking theme loosely connects things, where each work represents a season of the year both in setting and in tone. Here is each one in a nutshell:

HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL: RITA HAYWORTH AND SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION
This one has the least horror, but even so it doesn't shy away from detailing the torture of life behind bars. It is told in the first person by Red, a lifer in Shawshank prison who is the "guy who can get it for you". As supplier to the various needs of his fellow prisoners he has developed a cynical view of his surroundings. That is, until Andy Dufresne becomes a guest in the stone hotel. In Dufresne, Red sees a man refusing to succumb to despair, even though he has been railroaded by extreme bad luck and a corrupt justice system. The story develops a feeling of legend around Dufresne, and through his ordeals and triumphs he wears a cloak of dignity that inspires Red to refuse to surrender to his own situation as the years wear on. The microcosm of prison life allows for microscopic examinations of the players involved, and the characterizations here are the strongest in the four tales. Like the predictability of changing seasons we have an idea where things are going, and as we move to the seemingly inevitable conclusion the story develops an almost fairytale quality, set in a stone prison instead of a stone castle. What transpires in the final third would seem impossible, if not for King's greatest strength as a writer: the ability to make the impossible seem completely probable.

SUMMER OF CORRUPTION: APT PUPIL
My favourite of the four, because it strikes a perfect balance between a good story and deeply shocking horror. It is largely contained to two characters: young, all-American Todd Bowden and the elderly Arthur Denker, who closely guards a devastating secret. The chemistry between the two becomes this story's greatest asset as they enter into a hellish psychological dance. Forming a symbiotic relationship, they feed off each other in horrible ways as Denker a.k.a. Dussander starts as teacher to Todd's "apt pupil"...but perhaps Todd is teaching his instructor a few things as well? They provide two separate characterizations of evil that are played masterfully off each other by King: in Dussander we have an obvious atrocity of the past, and in Todd, American rot and deviousness gilded by a brilliant white smile. Again King telegraphs the ending for us, but as the story slides towards the inexorable conclusion, it's the journey of these characters through the Hell they've created for themselves, as opposed to their ultimate destination, that keeps us riveted.

FALL FROM INNOCENCE: THE BODY
This story may not be usual bucket of guts one might be expecting from King, but it's not without its own form of fear and horror...fear of leaving the paradise of childhood behind, the horror of growing old, the terror of losing cherished friendships forever. Four young friends set out on an adventure to find a dead body in the woods, but what they really discover is the fact that their own lives are about to change with the inevitable coming of adulthood. The tale is told by one of the four as an adult, now a horror writer who has found brilliant success in both books and movies...sound familiar, anyone? It is easy to believe that King has taken real people from his own past as inspiration, as the characterizations here are as clear and vibrant as a frozen snapshot in time. Adding to the biographic nature are two stories-within-the-story that are proffered as works by the main character; they're really two works by King that were published in magazines very early in his career. When I read 'The Body', I always imagine the places of my own youth, the tree house, the back alleys, the train tracks, as the places in the story.

A WINTER'S TALE: THE BREATHING METHOD
Where we return again to mysterious 249B East Thirty-fifth street, NYNY. First glimpsed in King's short-story collection 'Night Shift', it's a gentlemen's club where every Christmas season the members gather for a tale told of the uncanny, recited to the flickerings of strange colours in the hearth. We get two stories here along with two narrators; one is provided by barrister David Adley, and is currently the lengthiest portrait of the club and its shadowy existence we've had from King, along with the Christmas story presented by doctor Emlyn McCarron. 'The Breathing Method' is the most horrific work of the bunch as it comes to a crescendo of intensity and hovering madness at the end of McCarron's tale, but it is also a strangely touching story of grim resolve to bring new life forth in spite of a prejudiced, uncaring world.

Four incredible stories, by a writer fully flexing his literary muscles. Out of the four, it's usually 'The Breathing Method' that gets the shortest shrift from reviewers. But any King fan will be thrilled by the lingering view it affords curious 249B. Both the club and the story McCarron relates have a beautiful, darkly ominous quality. One really can imagine the hallways behind those heavy wooden doors twisting off forever. But perhaps attendant Stevens was really talking about the great, seemingly endless reads that Stephen King has locked away behind his twisting psyche: "A man could get lost..."

With many books of short stories there's always one that's your favourite and the rest as a result seem disappointing. This certainly isn't the case here as each of the four novellas is both original and compelling in their own way. The first 'Rita Hayworth And The Shawshank Redemption' is vastly different from the epic movie that it became, mostly due to its lack of subplots that the film inserted in (such as one prisoner's conditions after his release). It's difficult to say which is better - the movie is probably much more famous than the book - although the novella does have the advantage of being told entirely from the character Red's point of view, giving a distinct impression of isolation not only from events in the prison but also from the outside world.
The second story, 'Apt Pupil', is possibly one of the most disturbing books ever written and I've actually heard it wasn't originally going to be included due to its disturbing content. It concerns a 13 year-old boy Todd's fall from innocence as he forces an undiscovered Nazi war criminal to tell him what really happened in the concentration camps during the War. Whilst this in itself is horrific, King really draws on the twisted and parasitic relationship between the two leads to create a very human horror that is very unlike anything I've ever read before.
'The Body', the third book, goes a long way in dispelling the myth that King is only capable of writing horror. A rites-of-passage sort of saga it's almost profound in the way that the central character looks back on his childhood and sees an experience of trekking with friends to see a dead body as not just a stroll through the woods but a lifechanging experience. The frequent, almost nervous, references to the future are beautifully and realistically done without ever falling into pomp or pretentiousness.
Many readers have strangely said that 'The Breathing Method' isn't very good. Indeed, it's the only novella in the collection that hasn't been adapted into a film. However, it's story within a story about a young woman in the early 1900's who finds herself pregnant, her relationship with her doctor and her determination to keep her baby alive again comes right back to the human horror. Although jabs at the corsetted society of the day are clear, it is the woman's determination that King focuses on and the final to the story really is spectacular and highly original.
To put it bluntly, I have never read a collection of short stories quite so unique and interesting as this one.

I remember reading this book when it was first released in 1982. I had graduated from High School the previous year and college was proving too boring. So I read. And read. And read.
Three of the four stories in this collection are absolutely some of King's best writing ever. The last story, "The Breathing Method", is not one of my favorites. In fact, I don't like it at all but am quite thankful that it is the shortest of the tales. The other three stories make up for everything (AND MORE) that is lacking in this "Winter's Tale".
The first story is "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption." It is not true horror (ala King) but rather is the story of determination and the will to live. This story (and one to follow) is perhaps the best story King ever got adapted to the "Big Screen". It is compelling, thoughtful and has a deeper meaning than just escaping from prison. Andy Dufresne is 'Every Man's Man"...a true survivor and conqueror.
The second story, "Apt Pupil", is in my opinion the most disturbing King story ever published (a close second is 'Misery'). Those of us who are "Baby Boomers" remember clearly our parents and grand parents talking about WWII, the Nazis and the horrible things that were done in the Prison Camps. This story brings to the forefront of our minds how closely related "horrorable" and "thrilling" really are, sort of like the thin line between Love and Hate. Insanity comes when that line between being repelled by the thing of horror is replaced by an obsessive need to have that which "bad".
And then there is "The Body". I don't think this is as good of a story as "The Long Walk" (written as Richard Bachman) but it certainly is an interesting look at "Boyhood". This story was also adapted for the "Big Screen" as a quality product and perhaps the screenplay was even better than the novella. Regardless, "The Body" once again brings to the surface hidden fears, and desires, that all of us have experienced both in our youth, and now in our maturity.
For me, Stephen King has not necessarily improved with "age". But at least three of these stories will always be on my top 50 list for short Novellas. As an aside, I think that Stephen King has made the Novella an acceptible genre for writers...his latest effort, "Hearts in Atlantis", shows how a writer can interelate the Novella into a larger and more encompassing "Opus".

I really liked three of these stories. I started with Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption because like a lot us I thought the movie was really, really good. King's novella seems driven more on high energy and wit than the calm, cool deliberation with which the film was made, but it was just a lot of fun to see King have fun without bringing in supernatural elements.
Likewise, I really enjoyed The Body -- a story about adolescence giving onto adulthood. There were a couple of lapses in the story (like why would the train conductor report Gordie and the gang for crossing the trestle, but the boy *hit* by a train wasn't reported at all), but King's characteristic wit and charm keeps the story more than afloat.
The most interesting story to me was The Breathing Method. Nowhere in King's early work does he sustain a nearly flawless, increasing intensity of atmosphere within a story IMHO than in The Breathing Method. There are smaller doses of this ever-intensifying mood quality in a King short story "Quitters, Inc." from Night Shift (1978), and the sprawling version of this in The Shining, but this may be the longest version of that tight-ship kind of story where King keeps the story's focus so clearly in mind. On the other hand, some readers might find the point-of-view shift in The Breathing Method too high-falootin' or artsy. Reviews of fiction are so subjective.
Apt Pupil was the most disturbing of anything I've ever read of King's fiction. It seemed like he was trying to get his mind around the kind of evil that was Nazi-ism, but King approaches this from a point of view just a little too witty for my particular tastes. I am only one reader, of course, and I have read a couple reviews that really applauded Apt Pupil, so hey, maybe it's worth checking out...
All in all, I think reading this collection of four shorter works by Stephen King was time well spent. Furthermore, if you're coming to King for the first time and wanna try a more psychologically suspenseful story, check out The Breathing Method. King builds an anticipation and a fear by making the reader wonder what is *really* going on at the club. I feel like I'm pretty much being incoherent at this point so I'll wrap up this review...
God bless and happy reading! (I hope this review was at least somewhat coherent and helpful)
Stacey

'Different Seasons' is probably Stephen King's best single book and one whose appeal is certainly nor restricted to the fans of the horror genre where he has made his bones. Three of the four novellas in this collection are clear example of the amazing reach of King's artistry when he writes a book for reasons that extend beyond the fat paycheck that he gets for each of his (several oversized and overrated) works. Incidentally all these three have been adapted onto film.
The first story 'Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption' is a classic prison drama. Andy Dufresne, a slick banker, finds himself facing a life sentence for murder that he didn't commit. The story deals with how Andy maintains his free spirit within his harsh confines negotiating favors with cons and cops alike until one day something happens that causes him to lose his cool, and then...the story moves very smoothly and has a crackerjack finale. King neither glosses over the brutalities of prison life nor exploits them for cheap shock value (This is one area where the film version fails: It is much too designed to appeal to the schmaltz-loving Oscar crowd and presents an overly sanitized version of the book's setting).
'The Apt Pupil' is perhaps the only true horror story in this collection. But unlike some of King's typical works, the horror in this story is entirely psychlogical. A bright young boy with a keen interest, nay obsession, in the events of war and destruction latches onto a Nazi crminal-in-hiding and under threat of exposure forces him to reveal the gritty detail of the torture camps only to find that he has landed himself into a terrible cat-and-mouse game with the old Nazi, each holding a wire that would pull the plug on the other's life. King draws a terrifying contrast between the boy's 'bright american teenager' existence and its dark underbelly exposed in his dealings with the war criminal. The tension and frenetic pacing of the plot at no time allow the reader to relax but then why would you want to? I can't say about the film: I didn't see it since I'd heard that they had altered the climax which I could not accept for this story. Read to find out.
'The Body' is my personal favorite in this collection. It is King's own reputation of being a pulp-horror writer that prevents a wider audience being granted to this little gem of an emotional experience, really I dare anyone to read thru the opening passage without brushing a tear or swallowing a lump in the throat. Four young boys go camping in an expedition to see the body of another boy who they heard had been hit by a train. No, the body doesn't suddenly rise up and cause havoc in the countryside. Instead the story, a la Peter Weir's classic film 'Picnic At Hanging Rock' probes into the lives and minds of these boys as they explore the woods for their quarry. Perhaps it is the first-person narrative and the funda of the protagonist being a writer that suggests this but I have a feeling that this is perhaps a story with strong influences from King's own life as a kid in Maine. The skill of his writing here is given an edge by his amazing strength as a chronicler of 60's America and by the rawness and honesty of the young characters' emotional states. They are people we know and many of us have grown up with. We laugh with them and feel the same fears and confusions that they do as they find themselves cruelly wrenched into an adolescence that they are hardly prepared for. If there is a story which defines King as a writer to me this is it. The film features all the plot events faithfully event but somehow misses out on the wild spirit of the story.
The fourh story 'The Breathing Method' is disappointing in that it really does not match up the standards set by the ones that precede it. It deals with the travails of a woman who is determined to give birth even at he cost of her life and beyond. The only interesting aspect of this tale is the setting in which its is narrated, a unique old-world club wherein members share bizarre experiences and anecdotes. King used the locale again in 'The Man Who Wouldn't Shake Hands' a story from an exceptionally good collection called 'Skeleton Crew'. It also features one of King's coolest lines: '(it is) the tale, not he who tells it.'

I read this book after seeing Stand By Me and The Shawshank Redemption and learning that they were both novellas written by Stephen King and published in the same book. Stand By Me was based on Stephen King's story The Body and The Shawshank Redemption was based on Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption.
Both of these novellas were extremely well written and show that Stephen King's primary talent is not for horror but for storytelling. The two stories grab you and keep you turning the pages until they are done and leave you wishing for more.
The Body is a maturation story involving preteen boys who are on the cusp of throwing away their lives but two of whom have an excellent chance to mature into kind, happy adults. It is a poignant story of childhood. King manages what few authors can: he makes preteens sound like preteens rather than adults or babies.
Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption is the story of an adult sent to prison for murdering his wife. In prison, he learns how to be truly human and also tutors his friends in how to make it through a prison term without losing the ability to live life on the outside. It is an outstanding story.
Apt Pupil has also been made into a movie--this time one of the same name. It is the flip side of Stand By Me. It tells the story of a teenager who is at the cusp of maturing into a normal adult but gets seduced by evil. The boy discovers that a neighborhood man was once a Nazi war criminal. Rather than turning him in, he talks the man into reliving his experience with the boy. It is chilling to see how easy it is for someone who has discovered something evil to get caught up in the evil. However, the boy and the older man are not fleshed out well enough to make the story as good as it could have been.
The last story is a supernatural tale. It is quirky and told in a different way from most of King's works. The edges are fuzzy; it is more atmosphere than plot. I enjoyed it, but it may not be for everyone.

The first story (Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption) is excellent. The characters are believable, the situations are normal, yet extremely interesting. This could've been a full novel, since when I finished it, I wanted to know more about it. It's a very beautiful story about freedom, and how far a man will go to achieve it.
The second story (Apt Pupil) is radically different from the first. This is a dark and disturbing, and (like the first one), very very good. I felt that in the beginning, the story moved way too fast. I would've liked to know about the concentration camps, to know more about how the conversations between the boy and the old man. But in the end, the story slowed down to the perfect pace, and the perfect ending.
The third story(The body), although not as disturbing as the second, it's still somewhat dark in my opinion. I've seen the movie countless times, so I can't really judge it. I was bored throughout the story, because I knew all the details. But I think someone who hasn't seen the movie will enjoy this story just as much as the first two, if not more.
Like most reviewers here, I disliked the fourth story. There's not enough background info on the characters, not enough build-up before you start caring about the woman in the Breathing Method. But what really ruined it was the ending. The supernatural element was ridiculously gratuitous, totally out of place, and unnecessary. It started off well, but since King didn't expose the 'weird' element until the very end, it seemed rushed and improvised, as if he re-read it and said "not enough blood and aliens", and decided to add them. *sigh*
Oh, and I really liked how the second and the third stories referred to the first one.
If the book maintained only the first three stories, then it would definitely earn five stars. But the title would've been seriously compromised.

Most people think that Stephen King just writes stories about monsters and gore, but if any of them actually read all of his books they would see that his work is so much more. Different Seasons is a perfect example of this. It is a book with four novellas in it and each one has it's merits. The first and third are Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption and The Body, both which have been praised not only for the novellas themselves but for the films based on them. Both of these stories are interesting, compelling and a joy to read. In these the proof that King is a master story teller is evident. His ability to write characters that jump off the page is inspiring. The second story Apt Pupil was a surprise for me, in that I enjoyed it so much. The story is about a young boy Todd, obsessed with the holocaust who blackmails a German man who worked at the camps and illegally hid and came to the US. The great thing about the book is that you truly can't say who is the actual monster, or for that matter the worse of the two, the man or the boy. Excellent reading! The fourth story The Breathing Method is perhaps the weakest of the 4. It's pretty straight forward, about old men who have a club and they sit around and tell stories, usually of disturbing or weird nature. Don't get me wrong it has its moments, creepy ones at that but compared to the other 3 stories which are fantastic and hard to follow The Breathing Method is so-so. Overall you should read this book, all of the stories are fast paced and interesting. A must read, even if you're not a fan of horror or King. Give it a try.

Until I started reading King myself, I had always thought of him as a horror writer. The first book I read by King was IT. After reading that, I realized that he wasn't just a horror writer, but was a good writer who happened to write supernatural tales. Then I read DIFFERENT SEASONS and I realized that King wasn't just a good writer, but is one of America's greatest living authors. King doesn't write to impress the acadmia of America. Instead he writes to tell a story. However, like all great writers, he manages to tell his story, yet subtlely examines social issues all while exploring the different sides of human nature and without distracting from the story.
I consider DIFFERENT SEASONS to be some of King's best work. Four novellas are contained within this book, each one examining a different season of the year and a different view of human nature: from the uplifting RITA HAYWORTH AND THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION to the terrifying APT PUPIL to the loss of innocence in THE BODY to the winter's tale of THE BREATHING METHOD. Each story offers a unique perspective at the nature of humanity. My favorite story in the collection is Shawshank and my least favorite is Apt Pupil. Many people do not like The Breathing Method, but that has to do more with the style than the story (out of the four tales it is the one that would be most difficult to turn into a film) and it is the only one with any supernatural undertones. Like all of King's writings, this was a fast read and quite entertaing. However, it is also the most enjoyable King work and one of his most thought-provoking. It's not just a "good thing", it's one of the best of things.

Apt Pupil is the story of an intelligent, resourceful student and a former Nazi officer as these two come to know each other in the most personal ways. Throughout the story you are constantly wondering who has the upper hand, who is telling the truth, and who will be the one to make it out alive without getting caught. My experience with King novels is limited, but this one certainly makes me want to delve more into his writing. I wasn't so much disturbed as I was intrigued with the main characters. What drove both of them to violence and to isolate themselves from the rest of the world is the interesting part. They are both great at faking their superficial roles in life to the point that they even excel at what it is they are supposed to be while wrestling with what they actually are: killers.

Wow, this collection of four novellas really packs a punch. It's been nearly fifteen years since I've read a King novel (where have I been?) I've forgotten how riveting his prose is. This was a welcome homecoming of a book for me especially since I had seen three movies adapted from this writing. I was aware of only one of these being screen-adapted, namely "Apt Pupil." While the movies were hughly entertaining, the colorful style of King comes through in greater detail here. If I had to rate the four stories, I would name "The Breathing Method" as being the best, but not necessarily from the literary perspective, but on pure suspense, intrigue and terror. The ending caught me quite off-guard. And the "club" was piece of King's pure imagination. The imagery was just wonderful and the story left me with the feeling of being on the edge of the unknown, being just scared enough (or wise enough) to keep me from crossing over like the charactor himself. King has a way of translating that emotion to the reader. On a side note, I noticed a thread of melancholy woven through this story which almost provoked a tear or two from my eye. My least favorite would have to be "Rita Hayworth/Shanshaw Redemption." Perhaps because I saw the movie which gave away most of the plot previously. "Apt Pupil" tended to drag toward the center and fizzle a little with a predictably quick and pat ending. The only unpredictableness being King's unpredicatability in ending a story. "The Body" was indeed a breath of fresh air on the timeless subject of teens coming of age. I had visions of my own childhood upon reading. I also heard from other sources of the semi-biographical nature of this tale and King hints at this throughout "The Body." This, as with most of the novellas relied heavily upon violent images to drive them, but I wasn't overly offended by any of this. Sexual imagery was also used and fortunately not abused as with most author these days. Obviously, fiction, being close to reality, as some would argue, cannot be written without some nuance of these elements. Fortunately, King includes them with what I think is intelligent application. On final review and summation, I would recommend this quartet of spine-tinglers to any reader who isn't worried about losing a few nights sleep. Pleasant dreams. solo.

Of all the King books I've read, I enjoyed Different Seaasons more than any other. Perhaps because I have a drawerful of novellas, ( I can't write a story longer than 200 pages to save my life)I felt a kinship with the author on this group of works. I doubt that anyone likes all four of the stories contained in the book, but I also think everyone who reads it likes at least one of them. I personally thought "The Body" was his best, possibly because it captured so beautifully the lives of young boys in the late 50's. I certainly knew someone like each of the characters, and proabably WAS one of them. (Or a combination of them.)And when I read Gordy's tale of the pie eating contest, I laughed out loud, to the point that my wife thought I was possessed. Apt Pupil and Rita Hayworth were good, but didn't really grab me, and Breathing Lessons reminded me of the old Monkey's Paw story that frightened me so as a child. But criticizing King's work is like second guessing a man in the batters-box. He's there, by God, and he writes AND gets published. One can point out his shortcomings, but there has never been a perfect author in this world, and never will be. Take this book for what it is... a collection of STORIES... not an effort to change the world, or revitalize the literary world. And, to all those English profs at obscure colleges who complain of King's fluff, when you've published as much as he has, I'll listen. Get in the batters-box, take a few cuts, then tell us King's not very good.

Which is kinda funny considering that this isn't an actual novel, but a collection of short stories.
The first stroy, "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank redempetion" is about an innocent man being sent to prison. It is told from another inmate's perspective and is quite good although not the best story in the collection.
Apt Pupil is the next story, about an all american boy and an ex-nazi, who start a sick parasitic realtionship. There is alot of meaning to the story about how one cannot look into the abyss without the abyss looking back. The story is kind of spooky, and truthfully I didn't like it, but I appreciate it's exisytence all the same.
The Body is the third story and it is about 4 boys who set of to find a dead body. It is a coming of age story. The character of Chris Chambers is totally unforgettable, and I could easily identify with Gordie. The story gives you a look into the lives of Chris and Gordie, that was very well written. This one is my favorite.
The Breathing Method is the fourth and final story in the collection. It is about a woman who is pregnant and not married, in the first half of the century. She dies before giving birth, but I won't reveal anything more than that.
I go through "seasons" with this book when one story is my favorite, each has had a turn. King is the worlds best writer. Here you have been invited to slip into 4 different worlds. Don't miss your chance. Buy this book.

Like most folks here, I didn't know King was the creator of such works like The Shawshank Redemption and Stand By Me until long after he'd written those stories. I can say this without hesitation though, that Different Seasons is one of the most powerful works of fiction I've ever read.

The Body, my favorite piece in Different Seasons, is one of those stories that stays with you long after you've put it down. It has its elements of being scary, but overall its a tale of friendship, much as is the case with Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.

You get the sense that King placed many of his own, real memories into The Body, and you also get the feeling that this is his tale (although it's merely fiction) and there's a part of you, as you read, that says, "This is REAL. This author really believes this."

That's when you know you're reading something amazingly profound. Each word has a reason in The Body, each sentence another tunnel to get you where King wants to take you. This can't be said for all of King's works, but it is certainly, colosally present here.

I know many critics hound King for overstating and sometimes, seemingly out of spite, understating, but those that do seemingly skipped past Different Seasons. Note to critics: READ THIS ONE.

If you've never read Stephen King before, this book is an excellent place to start, as it will show you that King is much more than just a "horror" writer. In this book, King has crafted four novellas which provide countless insights into various aspects of life and the human condition. Three of the four stories have been made into movies--you may have seen them and never known they were based on King.
The first novella in the book, "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption," is clearly the best (it also produced the best movie, The Shawshank Redemption). The premise is simple--a wrongly accused man is sentenced to life imprisonment--but the story itself is rich and enveloping. To say that this engaging, intricately woven tale is heartwarming is somewhat trite, yet the theme of the story, "hope springs eternal," shines through like a beacon.
Also compelling are "The Body" (made into the movie Stand by Me) and "Apt Pupil." Both are coming of age stories which center around young teenage characters, yet the first focuses on triumph, the second on tragedy. The final story, "The Breathing Method," was my least favorite, but it fits with the redemption theme that is interlaced throughout the book; plus, fans of King's forays into horror will get a taste of the macabre here. Whatever your specific preference, you are sure to find a favorite tale in this book.

This collection of stories has to rank as my favorite. Most people have seen the adapted movies: Stand by me; The Shawshank Redemption; and Apt Pupil, but the stories offer much more in the way of entertainment. What you get from King is nice, fluent prose, and good intellectual writing that builds the stories leaving the reader with an indelible mark of enjoyment. All the stories in this compilation are great reads; however, Apt Pupil would have to be my top choice. The plot of Apt Pupil is simple and engrossing. A young boy--a boy with curiosity that swells to unbelievable proportions--is enthralled with a Nazi living in his town. Todd--the young apt pupil--wants to hear of all the torture and torment of the concentration camps. Once these horrifying images are burned into his memory, he begins to change and so does the storyteller. I would have to say one of King's best. The other stories, although superb, are not quite as entertaining as apt pupil.
If you're a fan of Stephen King, you must add this book to your collection. If you've seen the films, you have not fully experienced the depth and emotion of the stories. Maybe now some people will revisit the novellas and short stories that pepper King's bibliography. These are gems, and should be read more than once. Buy the book.

First off, I am a big Stephen King fan. I really enjoy his style and the diversity (more on that later) of his writing.
This book, a collection of four "long stories", is truly a gem.
The four stories are "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption", "Apt Pupil", "The Body", and "The Breathing Method".
Most readers can relate to Shawshank and The Body, which have been made into big hit movies, and somewhat with Apt Pupil which was also made into a movie, although not as well known. (For those unaware, The Body was titled "Stand By Me" in Hollywood) Oddly enough, it was the fourth and final story of the collection that had the biggest impact on me.
Shawshank was an absolutely beautiful piece of literature, and an even better movie. This, in itself, is strange when talking of King novels turned big screen. The movie followed the story very closely. The biggest difference is that the movie goes into more detail of the prisoners becoming "institutionalized" through the trials of Brooks, the librarian. For those who haven't seen the movie, where have you been?
Apt Pupil is the story of a young, impressionable boy who discovers a World War II Nazi war criminal living in his neighborhood. The two develop a relationship which leads to some very dark, disturbing things occurring. It's a good story, but in my mind the lesser of the four.
The Body centers on four boys who trek across Maine in order to find a dead body. Each of the four boys have a totally different family background, which I think makes for a great story. Gordie, the narrator, manages to have the reader relating to each of the four boys. Gordie, has an essentially anonymous homelife. The other four boys have problems of their own. The actual event of finding the body is sort of anti-climatic. But that leads me to the main thrust of this review.
The final story really isn't much of a story, but it left the biggest impact because of my love for King's writing. In this story, the motto is.... "It's the tale, not he who tells it." It's about a club of eccentric men who meet to tell stories. This story, combined with the afterword, makes a statement about King's writings... in my opinion. King has been stereotyped as a horror writier, but those of us who have read The Dark Tower series, and The Green Mile, among others, know better. He is just a brilliant, diverse writer. But is it so much what he writes, or the tale that he tells? I'll leave that to you to decide.

No wonder this guy can write so well. He's probably seen it all.

This is a must have collection for all stephen king fans. Even if you wanted to own only on book by stephen king; this would be it. It's the perfect compilation of short stories.

Apt pupil - Powerfully driven to the point of parnoid danger.

The Body - Gripping story of four friends who find out more about themselves on the road to life.

Rita Hayworth and the shawshank redemption - It is undescribable to be able to put down in words just how good this one story is. The rare gem that we've all been searching for. It's almost like finding a peice of history and sharing it with the world. The narrative character, Red, is so rich with his words that he is one of the greatest narrators of all time. You''l just melt with compassion for andy defrense. He's the regular joe that is the main point of the story. You'll probably read this one over and over again. I know it's one of my favorites.

The Breathing method - although shrouded in vague descriptions; it does have it's perks. It's another weird tale to tell your friends gatthered around the fire place on halloween night.

Enjoy!

Stephen King at his very best, stepping outside the horror genre and flexing his literary muscle.

Two films based on this collection of novella's went on to great critical acclaim, The Shawshank Redemption and Stand By Me (The Body) both received Academy Award nominations for best adapted screenplay (an award that Mr. King should have shared in, the films so closely follow the books that you almost wonder why a screenplay was needed). I believe that, if not for being typecast as a genre writer, these two novellas alone would have established him as an author of literary merit.

The situation described in the book and the use of the Shoah are quite different. A high school student discovers an old man in his neighborhood is an ex-SS who was the commander in the concentration camp of Patin. « Bergen-Belsen, January 1943 to June 1943. Auschwitz, June 1943 to June of 1944, Unterkommandant. Patin... You left Patin just ahead of the Russians. You got to Buenos Aires.... » (p. 112-113) The 13-year-old teenager blackmails the old man into telling him all the gritty details. But curiosity kills the cat. He is so taken over by the stories that his school work, that was previously perfect, declines from straight A's to flunking in the space of six months. He hides the fact from his parents by falsifying his report cards, then he uses the old man and brings him into the school picture to save his skin and avoid a direct contact between his guidance counselor and his family by short-circuiting it. The old man pretends he is the grandfather of the teenager and that the parents are going through a difficult phase. Then the old man forces the teenager to catch up on his work. The teenager accepts, though reluctantly, and he passes the year brilliantly. The parents will never know the truth. Yet, to force the teenager into studying, the old man blackmails him in his turn by telling him a full record of the « adventure » is in a safe-deposit box in a bank. The teenager is afraid the old man may die and then the truth should come out. Time passes and the teenager little by little finishes his high school and prepares for college. He distends his relation with the old man, though he always keeps some fear, because the old man is frail, he chain-smokes and he drinks heavily. During those years, though, the morbid curiosity of the teenager leads him to an even more morbid experimentation : killing vagrant people in empty places where they get shelter for the night, such as the old station that is no longer used. At the same time the recollections of the old man lead him to experimenting - to save his sleep and balance - the killing of animals and then alcoholics that he lures to his home with the ambiguous promise of a meal and a couple of dollars. Then he buries them in his cellar. One night, the old man has a heart attack while in the process of burying one of his victims. He calls the boy, who is supposed to read things to him because of his bad eyesight, and makes him clean up the mess before calling an ambulance and covering his urgent visit with a lie about a letter from Germany that he read, though in German. But everything goes even faster. In the hospital, in the next bed, another old man, an ex-prisoner in Patin, recognizes the old ex-SS commander and reports him to the Israeli secret services at the Israeli Embassy. The man is thus trapped and forced to find a way out to avoid trial : he commits suicide. In spite of the fact that no secret safe-deposit box in any bank appears, the teenager is ruined by another incident. The guidance counselor goes to a convention in the city were the real grandfather lives. Being bored by the conference, he gets in touch with the old man and visits him. But he finds the grandfather in a wheelchair, and this grandfather does not look in the least like the grandfather who visited him some three years before. The publicity around the death of the ex-SS reveals the true identity of the false grandfather, both to the guidance counselor and the parents. Then the teenager is trapped. And he has no real answer to the questions he may be asked and is asked. So he goes on a killing spree with a .30-.30. He kills Ed French, the guidance counselor, then gets to a hideout over the highway where he ambushes going-by cars and the police will need six hours to take him down. Here the Shoah is very crudely described in its perversion and it is treated like a catching disease that infest the curious teenager and leads him to crime, murders, delinquency and final death, just as much as it causes the old ex-SS to fall in a relapse and become a criminal again. In other words, crimes against humanity are never finished. They always find, in some individuals, a perfect ground to prosper. Humanity will always commit such crimes because the sheer knowledge of them will lead some individuals into committing new crimes of the same type. Crimes against humanity are an incurable disease. The Shoah is the example and starting point in the book. Those who will be infested will always find some « marginal » people to give way to and carry out their crime desire, their death instinct, their Thanatos, as well as they will also, as some kind of side effect, develop antisemitism and racism. Vagrant people, or alcoholics, or homeless people will be their natural victims in our society. The film follows the book closely but erases all the gritty details and reduces the criminal development of the teenager. The film is thus a lot less explicit and effective. Yet the meaning is the same as in the book. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, Universities of Paris IX and II.

I have not been sure what to write for this review. I have spent a great time thinking about it while listening to this book and still have no idea what to say. So here are the basics; I liked this book. It was pretty fast paced and the character development was great for a novella. It was tough to listen to at points. Some of the detail about the Holocaust subject matter was tough to get through. I know what we are taught in school and it is painful to think that this occurred. The main characters themselves, Todd, and Dussander, are mental vicious and deranged.

Stephen King is amazing at character development and he has a gift for the demented, violent, type that make you cringe because people like that really exist. I enjoyed this short story even though it was tough at parts to get through due to subject matter.

Sometimes collections like this can be hard to judge. Most of the time the author will have ups and downs, with one story that may appeal to one audience and another which appeals to a different one. Different Seasons, however, manages to provide a good body of work that should appeal to just about everybody.
To be clear on the content of the book, this is actually two novellas and two short stories--both Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption and The Breathing Method are both on par with such classics as "Bartleby the Scrivener." The format of the book is perhaps a little hokey--the stories follow the seasonal theme--but ultimately that artistic touch is irrelevant to the real appreciation of the book, at worst, and endearing, at best.
The stories themselves are excellent, a fact attested to by the production of three major films based on the first three of these pieces. The first presented is Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, and of them all, it's probably the best on the whole. The characters in the story are well written and, all things considered, it's really just a fine story with a positive message that you might not be used to seeing in Stephen King's writing. Second is Apt Pupil, which is more reminiscent of King's usual subject matter and tone, but still manages to provide an engrossing and interesting view into the nature of evil and the parasitic relationship that a man can develop with it. The Body is probably the most endearing of all the stories in the book, even if it is the roughest in terms of production. With a reflective, old-man-on-the-porch-in-the-sunshine voice, King is able to relate this tale of the loss of innocence and the passage into adulthood. The final tale is actually reminiscent of other, older authors than King. The Breathing Method uses several old tricks of such superluminaries as Melville and Hawthorne in its presentation, and manages to wrap an entertaining story around an allegorical examination of the writing process.
Taken as a whole, this collection is truly one of the most excellent efforts that King has ever put forth. While he still does tend to bloat a little (a complaint many have about his novels) in the middle two stories, all of them manage to create an atmosphere wholly their own and to take the mind of a reader away to another place, which, as King says in the afterword, is his first and highest goal. While little new ground is broken in the themes King analyzes, the themes themselves all still bear examination. His storytelling is at its height here, and this is a book that all readers should pick up at one point or another. It may not be horror, but that, in this case, cannot be said to be a failing, as King showcases his cross-genre talent. A truly fantastic book.

I read this book a long time ago, probably when Kindle has not been invented, e-books were a science fiction concept and when I had both hair and illusions. I can not remember those days because when you are young you do not realize that you shall not live forever and that if you do live more you shall become old and old age is a pain in some part of one's anatomy. But I do remember the book and how it figures among Stephen King's fine writing moments. It is the sort of book that takes you to become addicted to Stephen King's writing and to look forward for his next book, just regretting that it takes so long to come and that he has written merely 50 books

The common theme of each of the four stories that make up Stephen King's 1982 book "Different Seasons" is the call of the storyteller, an understandable preoccupation for someone who was by then the most popular storyteller on earth. Rather than merely taking a bow, "Different Seasons" stands as perhaps King's finest hour; certainly his most compelling case for being taken seriously.

Stephen King's growing legion of fans may have had cause for worry as the newly-christened "Master Of Horror" began the 1980s. "Firestarter" and "Cujo," published in 1980 and 1981 respectively, sold well but were well beneath King's standards. The former novel even served as the basis of a devastatingly funny National Lampoon spoof, "Eggbeater." Horror stories are nice, but can one make a living from them without parodying yourself?

King asks this himself in the afterword of "Different Seasons," and it may be the basis for the most problematic of "Seasons'" four stories, "The Breathing Method," a tale so over the top in Grand Guignol it may have been King's way of mocking the expectations of his audience (and, as he suggests in the afterword, his then-editor). The other three stories are not only classics as different from each other as can be imagined, but together as far away from supernatural horror as anything King tried to that time.

The first, "Rita Hayworth And The Shawshank Redemption," presents the story as a conduit for communicating the preciousness of hope. An unjustly-imprisoned man uses his imagination to find a way out of Shawshank State Prison. Made into a film today about as highly regarded as any film ever made, King's tale here is a thing of awe, no less for being the third best story in the book.

"The Body" was also made into a highly regarded movie, "Stand By Me," but as great as that film is, it really comes alive on the page. Here the storyteller is seen as a different kind of escape artist, a boy clearly modeled on King himself who makes up stories for himself and his friends as a way of escaping a humdrum life in the Maine backcountry at the dawn of the 1960s. Captivating by itself, it is serves to set up a story about a search for a dead body that brilliantly encompasses the lost innocence of youth.

Finally, there is "Apt Pupil," probably one of the most horror-filled stories in King's corpus, and a meditation on the dark side of storytelling as a seemingly-normal California boy blackmails an ex-Nazi death-camp commandant hiding in his neighborhood into telling stories that feed the boy's evil imagination. King's mastery of narrative has never been so complete, and his way of negotiating what one Nazi hunter here calls "the catacombs of the imagination" is painfully on target, as events in Colorado later proved.

Even "Breathing Method" brings up storytelling in the form of a framing device, old men gathered at a Manhattan brownstone to tell stories and read strange books like "Twenty Cases Of Dismemberment And Their Outcomes Under British Law." There's a menacing quality to the brownstone itself, and its strange keeper, perhaps King's way of discussing his own imagination as somehow alien to himself.

Whatever the subtext, you will have plenty to chew on with the text alone. It's hard to imagine the power of storytelling put on better view than in the pages of "Different Seasons," or a stronger case for the wide-ranging nature of King's singular talent. Read and marvel.

Seeing the title and reading other reviews I had to stop and leave my comment about this story. I listened to the audiobook version ten or so years ago. The story is with me still. It grabbed me, disturbed me, then froze me. It is without doubt a masterful story telling, the equivalent of a Dali painting. Scholars may someday point to this story and King's talent as we do Edgar Allan Poe. What begins as curious interest by the"pupil" is instead psychological venom. So subtle, unique, even remarkable that even the listener isn't aware they've been bitten until it is too late. Like a fly in a spiderweb the listener is trying to fathom how this happened as the spider is seen approaching!

You must think me a King fan. I was enthralled with the Night Flyer short story too, but for different reasons. But frankly, I stopped listening to King stories altogether soon after. What I want from a story I wasn't getting in these. Still I can appreciate supreme talent.

Different Seasons is a collection of four novellas, three of which are some of the most incredible examples of American fiction produced in the 1980's. First, the book starts with Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, which most people know better without the movie star name attached. Frank Darabont's adaptation of this amazing story almost won best picture, which is understandable given the high quality of the source material. King delivers horror without a hint of the supernatural, scaring you to death with the prospect of wrongful imprisonment, solitary confinement, prison rape...all even more terrifying knowing that these things have actually happened to many innocent people .

Then comes Apt Pupil, a disturbing examination of a young man fascinated by death who becomes obsessed with the Holocaust. Through the past experiences of a former Nazi commander, he lives out his sickest imaginings and plumbs the depths of his sadistic nature. Again, nothing supernatural, but horrific nonetheless.

Third is The Body, which many know as the movie Stand By Me. Strange that director Rob Reiner altered the setting of the story, transplanting Castle Rock from Maine to Oregon, but he did capture the spirit of King's novella admirably. Four young boys set out on a secret adventure (who wouldn't be hooked by that premise alone?), but since it needs a macabre twist to be a King story, their potential treasure is the corpse of a local boy supposedly hit by a train. Though less than 200 pages, The Body achieves the feel of an epic story and is one of the most memorable of King's career.

Finishing the collection is The Breathing Method, a story with somewhat supernatural implications, but more about the power of human determination. A woman manages to give birth under some highly extraordinary conditions, demonstrating the frightening potency of intense willpower. It's not quite as exceptional as the other three stories in my opinion, but it's still a powerful novella. When you put these four stories together, you end up with the best collection of King's career, some of his most literary work, and one of his top ten books overall.

I'll admit I'm a HUGE King fan, but I'm not so enamored that I don't recognize the varying quality of his works over the years. One book that I almost always forget about is "Different Seasons", and that's a shame, because it truly is one of his best. King is good at taking a simple fantastical concept and running with it, but his BEST work tends to only flirt with conventional fantasy horror, instead focusing on the REAL horrors of the world, barely hidden away. "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption" and "The Body" (aka Stand By Me) are two of the most touching, funny and sad stories I've ever read. Whether you're a fan of King or not, you really owe it to yourself to give this book a shot. If you like it, I suggest reading "The Green Mile", another excellent non-horror story from King.

Most people will probably recognize the majority of these King novellas from their later manifestations as blockbuster or even academy award winning movies, but as always, the books remain better than the films, in my opinion. I personally enjoy King 's writing style and content. While these are purported to be a slight departure from his typical horror, I find them rife with enough darkness of human nature to satisfy fans and any readers who appreciate a good, albeit darker story. Though there is certainly humor and poignancy in each as well. A definite must for any King fan or any reader who enjoys a good escapist yarn (that doesn't necessarily take you to a warm and fuzzy place).
Oh, and for those who enjoy reading movie source material, you will find within:
The Shawshank Redemption
Apt Pupil
Stand by me
. . .

"Different Seasons" contains four short stories by Stephen King. I have not read any of his horror books (The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is my only previous foray besides "On Writing"), but these stories feature horrible happenings instead of pure horror.
The first, "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption," is superb. A story of hope and will, it features excellent characterization and a description of the brutality and banality of prison life that will fascinate. The two lead characters are each survivors in their own right, and form a bond stronger than friendship that aids each in surviving -- and thriving.
The next story, "Apt Pupil," is a fascinating tale of a teen who discovers an old Nazi, and unlocks a future he could never imagine. This book has some of the most grisly scenes of any of the four -- with descriptions of WWII atrocities and real horrors. The young teen undergoes a remarkable transformation when he embraces knowledge and curiosities that end up being more than he ever could have bargained for.
The third, "The Body," is a journey (literal and figurative) by a group of twelve year old best friends to view the body of a kid their age -- a kid who has been missing while picking blueberries and was struck by a train in the back woods of Maine.
The fourth, the shortest of the bunch, is a suspense story spun at Christmastime by a (member is the wrong word) associate of a most unusual men's club.
The writing is very good. King features wonderful descriptions and quickly succeeds in identifying each character for the reader -- and in drawing the reader into the story. These are all page-turners.

In the early 1980s, Stephen King wanted to create a collection of novelettes that were not horror stories - although the last story was clearly a supernatural one. Three of these four novelettes were made into movies! I've heard of most of them but have yet to review all the films.

These stories are broken down into seasons, in the order of spring, summer, fall and winter.

The first tale is Rita Hayworth & The Shawshank Redemption, also a film named simply "Shawshank Redemption", narrated by an inmate named Red and his involvement with the rough life of a prison inmate and its corruption among the guards and wardens, but also a story of a man falsely accused of a double murder, Andy Dufresne. The book has some hard-to-read graphic parts but overall is entertaining. I did enjoy the first person narrative through most of it.

The second story is The Apt Pupil, also made into a film with Ian McKellan, about a high school student who becomes fascinated with the Nazis. In his search he finds at a former war criminal is living in his neighborhood. Ironic that this man has avoided capture by Nazi hunters for decades, only to be found out by a teenager. The teenager is told of the real atrocities of the war to a degree where he begins to change, loses his innocence (if he had any at all) and both the war criminal and the teenager embark on a path of horror.

The third story, made into the film "Stand By Me" is called "The Body", an apparent coming of age story of four boys who discover the whereabouts of a dead boy hit by a train. The adventure begins with them getting there, what happens when they are discovered, and where are they now, told in first person by one of the boys who is now a famous novelist. The story is realistic, but peppered with a lot of vulgar language (just an observation, not a criticism).

The last tale is mysterious - a man makes his way to a "men's club" that is way more than it seems. It's broken down into four parts where we meet the narrator, find out a bit about him and his lonely life, discover a large room where stories are told and the results of that tale. It's a story within a story and the ending is a bit anti-climatic to me at least. As far as I know, this last story was not adapted to film.

Ever since Stephen King's "Green Mile" I've been interested in reading more of his stories. These are relatively quick reads with a dictionary handy and make for interesting reads while riding the streetcar to work. Recommended.

Made to Films:

The Shawshank Redemption (Two-Disc Special Edition)
Stand by Me (25th Anniversary Edition) [Blu-ray]
Apt Pupil

Different Seasons was the first Stephen King book I have ever read. I chose to read it after watching the movie "The Shawshank Redemption", which I thoroughly enjoyed. I was interested in reading the story on which the movie is based, so I soon found that "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption" was one of King's novellas in Different Seasons.
One of the ways I determine whether or not I like a book is if I become involved in the story; not as a reader, but as a character. If I can envision the actual events and feel that I am watching the story unfold, then the story is worthwhile and a pleasure to read. I felt this way while I was reading Different Seasons.
The first of the four novellas, "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption", was interesting to read. It was somewhat unfortunate that I had seen the movie beforehand because I found myself making many comparisons and contrasts. Nevertheless, I came to enjoy the story of Andy, Red, and prison life in Shawshank.
The story "Apt Pupil" was the basis for a recent movie of the same title in 1998. I have not seen the movie -- yet. I found this story to be the most captivating of the four; it left my eyes riveted to the page and I almost finished it in one sitting. The story of a young boy who becomes obsessed with a Nazi was well-written and intriguing how King built up to the final climax. By far, "Apt Pupil" was the best story in the book.
Next comes the story "The Body", which served as the basis for the eighties movie "Stand By Me" (I have not seen this movie either). The story of boys on a quest to find the dead body of another teenage boy was quite interesting, but seemed to drag on and became boring at some places in the middle of the story. I expected, based upon the other stories in the book, to be met with a climax in the end, but was disappointed. If you enjoy reading stories about life and the pros and cons of growing up, then "The Body" is a good read. If you expect a climax or unending suspense like myself, then this story does not make the cut.
Lastly, there is "The Breathing Method", the story of a young pregnant woman who learns the Lamaze breathing method from her doctor. This is a story within a story, however, since the story is told to members of an obscure club to which the narrator belongs. This story did not disappoint me, however, since "The Breathing Method" ended with an awe-inspiring climax that was well-written by King. Although it was the shortest story of the four, it is still a good novella. By the way, "The Breathing Method" is the only story of the four that has not been made into a movie -- yet.
To conclude, I enjoyed Different Seasons and recommend it to anyone who is willing to let his/her imagination wander into the realm of fiction. If you dislike King's horror stories, I recommend this book as an alternative to his more gruesome books, since there is only a little bit of horror to spur the mind. Overall, these four novellas are worthwhile reading for all seasons of the year. Enjoy.

Different Seasons is an astoundingly good book because in it Stephen King allows himself free reign to do what he is best at: just telling a story where he doesn't need to worry about the whys.

In each of his four novelettes, "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption," "Apt Pupil," "The Body," and "The Breathing Method," King eschews explanations and just focuses his and the reader's attention on the simple human drama of the story as it unfolds.

And dramatic they are...

In "Shawshank Redemption" a wrongful imprisonment is the backdrop to the power of human survival. Andy Dufresne is not noteworthy because he does spectacular things but because he has the patience to let his ordinary actions become spectacular over time.

In "Apt Pupil" a Dennis the menace relationship unfolds between a young boy and his neighbor and in the end we discover that the boy's neighbor is a fugitive Nazi. By taking a familiar story and turning it on its head King allows both the natural humourous and natural tragedy of the situation to unfold at their own, unforced pace.

Likewise, both "The Body" and "The Breathing Method" are human driven slices of life that really could happen and therefore, like the other stories are all the more frightening.

In other words, this book is so good because King stumbles on that truth that the scariest stories are based on reality.

This is a fine collection of four novellas from Stephen King. The best, "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption" and "The Body," have both been adapted as films that can justifiably be regarded as modern classics ("The Shawshank Redemption" and "Stand by Me," respectively). These two stories are also early examples of King stepping outside the genre boundaries within which he had become such a literary megastar. Of the remaining stories, "Apt Pupil" is also a good tale and much more in line with King's usual frightening fare. "The Breathing Method" is an odd duck, an interesting misfire. The meat of the story makes for a suitably creepy episode, and the framing story, which features a group of old men who tell each other scary stories in an otherworldly mansion, whetted my appetite for more information about this setting. However, the two parts of the story bear little relation to each other and make for an unsatisfying experience.

#1 Rita Hayworth And Shawshank Redemption: Well I finally found time to finish one of the seasons in the book Different Seasons by Steven King. It was Spring and the story was called Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. I enjoyed the story but I must say the movie was better in this case. I have seen the movie so many times I've lost count. #2 Apt Pupil: Last night I finished Apt Pupil by Steven King. Another short story in the book Different Seasons. Turns out this story was also turned into a movie. I have not seen this movie yet. Mr. King is one twisted sun of a gun. This story is about a kid who finds a Nazi war criminal and instead of turning him in he kind of be friends him. And first I felt sorry then by the end they all got what they should have. #3 The Body: I just finished The Body by Steven King the 3rd short story in the books Different Seasons. The movie was called Stand By Me. So far this is the 3rd story that was turned into a movie and has always been a fave of mine. I love how he throws a bit of each story into the next. In Apt Pupil the banker was Andy from Shawshank and in The Body they mention Shawshank and Nazis. Amazing story. #4 The Breathing Method: I was not sure what this story was about until the guy started to tell his story. Wow. It starts off with just a bunch of old guys hanging out then one of them starts to tell his story about one of his patients. What a sad but inspiring story. In a total Steven King fashion.

This 1982 collection of three superb novellas and one also-ran is a valuable addition to your book collection. Insert Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" into the CD, settle in your favorite chair, and get ready to enjoy.
"Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption" I am one of the few people I know that has not seen everyone's favorite movie, "The Shawshank Redemption." Yes, I do live on this planet, but I stubbornly avoid prison movies. After reading this life and hope-affirming story, I will have to break my rule and give Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman a chance to wend their magic. Wily old Red, a lifer who has seen it all, tells the story of Andy Dufresne, an innocent man who is sentenced to life in prison for the murder of his wife and her lover. Andy gradually wins the respect and finally awestruck admiration from the cynical Red by his patience, determination and understated kindness and true sense of self. As I approached the end of this story, I could think of at least six awful ways clever and manipulative King could end the story. I caught myself saying "not this time--please!" knowing that I was firmly caught in any web King cared to devise.
"The Apt Pupil" I will state at the outset, was my favorite. Mysteries and thrillers are my preferred form of escapism; "The Apt Pupil" is a psychological thriller at its finest. Todd is frighteningly enough, every parent's dream child. Modest, polite, handsome, gifted student and athlete with a winning grin that melts teachers and friends alike. At 13, he has the world in front of him. He also has a peculiar interest in what went on in concentration camps in WWII. By sheer chance he discovers a neighboring old man, Mr. Henker aka Dussander is in fact one of the most brutal Nazi war criminals and who has been living under an alias for all these years. Rather than being shocked, Todd wants to hear all about it. Dussander does all he can to drive the boy away, but finally gives in from the very justified fear that Todd will turn him in. Thus begins a descent to the depths with Dussander's depravity reawakening and Todd's symbiotic parasitism of Dussander's soul. The novel is so well done, it gives you a series of small shocks until you are so weakened, the huge momentum of last big horror about does you in. What is interesting is you can't decide who is the more depraved, Dussander or the boy. Brilliantly conceived and executed.
"The Body" made into that sleeper hit, "Stand By Me," is a coming of age story of one Labor Day weekend in the lives of four 12-year old boys. I suspect King is so excellent at this type of story is because there is still a great deal of the 12-year old boy remaining in him. That is my one criticism of this tale; King, the grown up narrator, interferes too much. A corpse of a 12-year old boy has been discovered and abandoned by the "big" boys of Castle Rock who fear they will get in trouble. The four youngsters decide they will "discover" the corpse themselves and become famous heroes in the local TV and newspaper. The boys are not morbid, and it is clear they see this as an adventure, camping out in the woods, hiking, and then their just rewards. The body is just incidental or a means to an end. A breathtaking example of King's lyric abilities is when he describes a wild scream heard by the boys in woods at night:
"The scream climbed with a crazy ease through octave after octave, finally reaching a glassy, freezing edge. It hung there for a moment and then whirled back down again, disappearing into an impossible bass register that buzzed like a monstrous honeybee. This was followed by a burst of what sounded like mad laughter ...and then there was silence again."
"The Breathing Method" I noticed was dedicated to Peter Straub and his wife Susan. Alas, I am afraid that is what "The Breathing Method" is. Bad Peter Straub. Old men gathering in a strange club telling chilling tales to one another. The title tale was almost comic in its horror, the type that makes me want to go, "Oh puh-leez."
This is a 5-star book with one not so good story (and many people liked it). By all means, get the book, read it and then rewatch the DVDs.

For all those who doubt the fact that Stephen King is one of the all-time great masters at the craft of writing, there is Different Seasons. If nothing else, the doubters should at least acknowledge King's important contribution to reviving the lost art of the novella. King has always said he would write, whether he ever sold a single book - and I think that is completely true. He didn't write these four novellas with publication in mind; each one was written immediately after the completion of a best-selling novel - and each one just sort of sat there after it was finished. What, after all, can a modern author really do with manuscripts too long to be short stories and too short to be novels? Eventually, the idea came to King to just publish them together, with a title that speaks to the fact that these are not the author's usual blood-dripping, creepy-crawling horror stories. In doing so, he not only gave us four of his most captivating works of fiction, he showed a whole new generation of readers the vast, inherent power of the novella.

Three of these four novellas are even better-known than many of King's best-selling novels - due in no small part to the movie adaptations that followed in their wake. It all started with the film Stand By Me - which was not marketed as an adaptation of a Stephen King work of fiction. This was a smart move, considering some of the weak adaptations of earlier King novels. I can only guess how many impressed moviegoers were shocked to learn that Stand By Me was adapted from King's novella The Body. It's a story of four boys who set off to see a dead body, that of another kid hit by a train; their adventure makes for an extraordinary coming-of-age story. It is, in fact, a story about childhood, founded upon a mysterious event in King's own early days (he supposedly saw a friend hit by a train when he was four years old - but there has always been some question as to whether or not this is true); The Body feels autobiographical, and it truly does recapture the essence of childhood and the maturing process into adolescence. I like to think of The Body as a fantastic warm-up to King's later novel It, which captures the essence of childhood almost perfectly.

Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption gave birth to Shawshank Redemption, the most critically acclaimed and popular of all King movie adaptations. I think the movie is even better than the novella (largely due to Morgan Freeman), but everything that shines in the movie is here in the novella. An innocent man, convicted of killing his wife and her lover, gives new meaning to the term patient resolve - and has a profound effect on some of his fellow prisoners. I think it's the ultimate prison story, as it shows us the good and the bad of prison life and imbues its characters with a humanity rarely seen in prison-based stories. It's just a stellar piece of writing.

Apt Pupil is my favorite, though, and it finally, after years of fits and starts and rumors, was made into a film in 1998. The movie did make some changes to the original storyline, but it was a vastly underrated film that truly embodied the spirit of King's original novella. The most horrible things can oftentimes be the most fascinating. I know I've always been fascinated by everything that took place in the Third Reich. The teenager in the story, though, is obsessed with those atrocities, and that obsession turns into something increasingly disquieting and dangerous when he discovers a former Nazi living under another name in his neighborhood and blackmails him into telling him all the "gooshy" details of his part in the Holocaust. Apt Pupil is one of the most impressive psychological studies of evil I've ever read.

The Breathing Method sort of gets lost in the shuffle. It's shorter than the other novellas and has never been adapted for film. I really like this story, though. It has a classic fireside story feel to it, hearkening back to the likes of Poe, with its mysterious gentlemen's "club" and emphasis on story-telling. The particular story we are privileged to hear about is in some ways rather ridiculous and certainly quite melodramatic - yet it works extremely well. The novella was dedicated to Peter and Susan Straub, and I think it shows the obvious influence of horror maestro Straub from top to bottom (which, to my mind, is a good thing).

The Breathing Method supplies the theme that serves as a sort of mantra for the entire collection: It is the tale, not he who tells it. The story is everything, and the author is sort of a literary midwife who helps the birthing process along. I heartily believe that many a King critic would fawn over Different Seasons if they read it without knowing who wrote it. This book is a perfect introduction for those yet to experience King for themselves - these are, for the most part, mainstream works of fiction that reveal a master storyteller at work.

This is the first of three books Stephen King has released that contain four novella-length stories. The other two collections are Four Past Midnight and Full Dark, No Stars. Each of the stories is matched loosely to a season of the year.

"Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption" is the story of Andy Dufresne, sent to prison for murdering his wife and her lover. Andy quickly stops protesting his innocence after learning that "we're all innocent in here." Andy finds ways to make his sentence more bearable and help some of his fellow inmates. This story was made into the film The Shawshank Redemption.

In "Apt Pupil" we learn that the unassuming and reclusive Arthur Denker is really a Nazi war criminal. A neighborhood boy named Todd knows this and blackmails Denker into teaching him how to torture and kill. The authorities bumble around trying to catch both of them. This story was made into the film Apt Pupil.

"The Body" is about four boys who go on an overnight trek to confirm the rumor of a dead body near some train tracks. As they walk, we learn about each of the boys, their town, and the jokes, stories and games of early 1960's childhood. The story was the basis for the film Stand By Me.

"The Breathing Method" is the only story in this collection that has not--as yet--been made into a film. An aging doctor entertains the other guests at an exclusive club with a story about the breathing method he invented that eased the pains of childbirth. His story focuses on a young mother who used the method under difficult circumstances.

All four of these stories are excellent and well worth reading, even by those who have seen one of the associated films. This is Stephen King at the top of his game.

Another four short stories from the master story teller. These are fairly long (perhaps better descried as "novellas") and for the most part are fairly well known. Even if you haven't read King before, you will almost certainly have seen one of the films made from the first three (The Shawshank Redemption,Apt Pupil and Stand by Me). For my money, the Shawshank >film< is actualy better than the story (and it's not often you can say that) being more rounded.

All that needs to be said about this anthology has pretty much been said already in the other reviews. However, I just wanted to mention the last of the four stories - "The Breathing Method" which, has so far (and inexplicably in my opinion), missed being turned into a film. Ths is the best of the bunch here. Briefly, it tells of a secretive and highly exclusive gentleman's club which exists largely as a place for the members to tell one another stories. Needless to say, all is not what it seems and there's a decent dash of the Lovecraftian macabre to spice things up a little. To say much more would spoil the story but "The Breathing Method" seems to me to owe as much to Borges' Library of Babel (in more ways than one) as it does to anything by Lovecraft and I think it's wonderful. So much is left untold and >that< is it's attraction - the reader is left to consider the endless possibilities posed by the Tardis-like club in his/her own imagination. It would not be too churlish to suggest that another attraction is it's length - being the shortest of the four, it's an easier read while still being meaty enough to satisfy the most insatiable word-hunger. I loved it and it's easily worth the price of the anthology alone.

Shame to say, I didn't know who Stephen King is until two years ago. All I knew about him was he is very famous in writting horror novels. So I expected the stories in this book would be scary. But it turned out all four stories were not scary at all. It's kinda all of the blue. This is the first Stephen King's fiction I borrowed from libraries. After I have finished reading it, I think I must buy it in bookstore to be one of my collections at home. There are four stories altogether. But I didn't read them in order as they do not have any relationship between one another.
Rita Hayworth And Shawshank: It's the second best story in this book and it's also the least scary one. It's a good story telling about people in prison. But don't expect any scary moment. You would be disappointed if you do so.
Apt Pupil: It's the last story I read in this book. I wanted to give up reading this one at the very beginning as I got bored really quick after reading its first few chapters. But I have to thank God I didn't. 'Cos it came out to be the best one among the four after all. It has a very well-written ending. I was deeply attracted by it. It's a can't-leave-it-till-I've-done kind of stories. Maybe you would easily get bored at the beginning, but it worths to read to the end then you would find that it's superb. But Weiskopf, the goverment agent in the story, is too apt to predict correctly all Todd Bowden has done. It's too surreal.
The Body: It's the third best story in this book. It's about a four boys' adventure. They got into the woods to look for a dead boy. Quite interesting, but not as bright as the first two.
The Breathing Method: It's the least interesting one. I bet that's why it was put as the last one of this book and it's the only one which wasn't made as a film. But I would have to say it's the most scary one while comparing with the other four stories.
The last thing I want to point out here. It's very odd that these four stories are separated into four seasons. 'Cos I found no relationship between these three stories and its corresponding season, except the winter one. The first three are not seasonally-related.

Stephen King does nothing but horror right? He's all about the monsters and things that go bump in the night. Right? Nope. And if you really think horror is what Stephen King is all about then you obviously haven't read "Different Seasons".

"Different Seasons" is, I think, some of King's best written work ever! Four tales, and they're not horror! As King said in the first page of the book "It is the tale, not he who tells it." This is very much true in this book. Four novellas, each of them accompanied by a "season" theme.

The four Novellas are breathtaking stories (three of them were movies... VERY GOOD MOVIES) that are not about monsters or anything like that, but portraying the human spirit, and the human heart.

"Hope Springs Eternal: Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption" is the perfect example. Andy Dufrense is a man sentenceed to serve a life sentence in prison for a murder he didn't commit. You'd think the prison known as Shawshank would get to him, but it doesn't. It's Andy's hope that allows him to get through Shawshank and survive a sadistic warden. "Rita Haywroth and Shawshank Redemption" also made the best movie of the lot (I'm sure most of you have seen it).

"Fall From Innocence: The Body" is another perfect example of the common human emotion. Fear. When four boys stumble across a body, they're faced with ultimately the fact that they're not invincible, and that mortality is a reality. "The Body" was perhaps the best story in the entire collection.

Perhaps the only story I didn't like was "A Winter's Tale: The Breathing Method". The only reason I didn't like it was because the other three stories (Including "Summer of Corruption: Apt Pupil" which I didn't talk about) were all about common human emotions. But "The Breathing Method" seemed like a short horror story that King threw in because he can't seem to leave it (he even mentions so in the afterward).

Overall, if you want to see a different side of Stephen King, then "Different Seasons" is the book you want. Other great reads to see King outside of horror are "The Green Mile" and "Delores Claiborne". Have fun, and happy reading. These tales are amazing.

Different Seasons is made up of four different short stories by King. Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, Apt Pupil, The Body, and The Breathing Method. I have to confess, I mainly picked up this book for the Shawshank Redemption and am a little biased because it was filmed at the Reformatory in my hometown. I loved the movie and couldn't wait to read the book, although I was a little disappointed that it wasn't a full novel. The rest of the stories I had heard little about and wasn't sure what to expect going into them.

The Shawshank Redemption centers around Andy, a man who claims to be wrongfully accused of his wife and her lovers murder and is sent to prison. While here, because of his astuteness of a banker he becomes an asset to the higher ups in the prison and this gets him special privileges and affords him some protections that other prisoners don't get. Despite this, Andy dreams of ways to escape from the nightmare that is life at Shawshank. His story is told through the eyes of Red, a man who's the person to go to to get what you need at the prison and a friend of Andy's.

The next story, Apt Pupil, is about a boy who has discovered the location of a Nazi war criminal. Blackmailing the old man, he makes him tell him stories of what the camps were really like, every gory detail. However, during this telling the tables are turned and the boy is slowly lured into a trap in which he cannot escape. Together they both rely on each other to keep secrets and keep them both from harm.

The Body is a story of young boys who, hearing a rumour about a body in the woods, set out to find it. It is filled with adolescent angst and the trials of trying to fit in with each other and their differently abusive families. The boys fears, hopes, dreams, and other emotions come out as they look for the poor boy who has nothing to hope for anymore.

The Breathing Method was the shortest of the books but somewhat intriguing. It is the tale of a man who has been asked to join a "club" (everything is quite secretive and there is an unspoken rule not to talk about certain things) where the main function is telling stories. Especially exciting are the stories told around Christmas time and the narrator uses this book to especially tell the story of the "breathing method" which is told by one of the doctor members and is about a young unmarried woman pregnant with her first child.

The characters in all of these books were well written. My favorite of course was Andy and Red in the Shawshank Redemption. I felt particular loathing for all of the characters in the Apt Pupil, but I suppose that is what King was trying to get out of the reader as no one was a very likeable character in it. The boys in The Body were ok; most of their lives were pitiable but I never really felt any connection to any of them. The characters in The Breathing Method were nice, but nothing special and there wasn't enough about them to make you interested in their lives.

Kings writing was fabulous in all the books. His books are very mature in theme though and this particular one includes gore, sex, rape fantasies, racial slurs and other potentially offensive material. Most specifically, Apt Pupil was very sickening and had loads of crass material in it. The most mild would probably be The Breathing Method. I would have liked King to expand more on this story as he had an interesting side story, but it wasn't fully fleshed out and what could have been a marvelous idea, was cut short.

Overall I thought this book was fantastic because of Shawshank. The other stories were good but they just didn't capture my interest as much.

Different Seasons
Copyright 1982
507 pages

Review by M. Reynard 2010

All four of these stories were spectacular and made for a very exciting, and sometimes shocking, read. The best was of course "The Breathing Method." I must say that I have never read anything quite like that before but it totally blew me away. It was disgusting, but at the same time mesmerizing as that amazing story unfolded. I don't know why people are so down on "Apt Pupil." I think it's because it was a good story but maybe it was the way the story was told. You gotta love "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption" because it was made into a such a wonderful movie and it and the story were practically twins. You couldn't help but enjoy it. "The Body" was a very cute story of four boys off on an adventure with some frightening mishaps on the way. I love how King makes such wonderful transitions in whose point of the view the story will be told from.
All great stories, exciting read.

This book of short stories is amazing. Two of the stories were turned into movies "The Body" and "Shawshank Redemption". King is able to make even a short tale turn into a deep story rich in detail and intrigue. If you've never read Stephen King, I would suggest starting here. It will give you a glimpse into what one of his books would be like.

Let's face it, as a horror novelist, Stephen King is far from original. He wrote a novel about a haunted car, for Pete's sake. Clive Barker and Ramsey Campbell write truly original dark fantasy. But what makes King so special is that he can write people better than any of them. The characters in Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption and The Body are so real that they could step out of the book into reality. And Apt Pupil explores the dark side of the human face so well that most writers wouldn't even have the guts to read about, much less write about. King examines the Holocaust in a way that makes the reader very uncomfortable, but too compelling to stop. I agree with most of the reviews here, that The Breathing Method is a weak entry, probably better served in Night Shift or Skeleton Crew, two of Mr. Kings short story compilations, but that doesn't take away anything from the complete work. This is highly recommended to beginner readers of King, and a great work in it's own right.

I listened to this novella on CDs checked out of the library. It's from the same collection that The Body and Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption come from. Both of those novellas were made into fantastic movies, Stand by Me and The Shawshank Redemption, and both are fairly uplifting tales, despite some disturbing scenes along the way. Apt Pupil (which was also made into a movie I haven't seen directed by Bryan Singer) does not at all fit into the mold of those other two stories, but it's definitely worth a read (or listen).

The protagonist of Apt Pupil is Todd Bowden, a 13 year old boy who discovers the identity of an older, German man living in his neighborhood. The man, who goes by the name of Arthur Denker, is actually Kurt Dussander, a WWII war criminal in hiding, who was the commander of a particularly brutal concentration camp. Rather than turn in Dussander, Todd expresses fascination with the man's practices and just wants to hear all about them. Dussander obliges, and the rest of the story is about both the effects of such morbid storytelling on Todd (and Dussander) and the entanglement that their relationship becomes.

Overall, Apt Pupil is a mostly compelling story. It's easy to identify with Todd at first - not with wanting to hear the creepy stories but with wanting to see Dussander squirm under Todd's control. Hey, he's a Nazi war criminal, so why not? It's also easy (at least for me) to understand where 13 year old Todd is coming from. Having initially been exposed to some tabloid-style magazines sensationalizing Nazi atrocities, Todd gets hungry for more. Dussander's stories are both morbidly fascinating to him and relatively safe. They happened in a different world and largely by-gone era, so what does it matter if Todd indulges his curiosity? Unfortunately, the stories work like a drug for Todd, and the results are not pleasant.

The main drawback to Apt Pupil is the transition of time. It's essentially a two act structure with about a five year gap in between, and King doesn't really handle the transition well. The pacing is off, and I came to wonder what he was doing with those middle years. All I can recommend is to have patience with the structure, because the payoff is worth it.

Be forewarned that this is not your typical horrors from King. In this compilation of 4 novellas, King proved that he is not just the King of Horrors. he is an accomplished author of short stories providing each of the stories with a memorable and unpredictable twist.
The first novella Shawshank Redemption is a wonderful soaring tale of indomitable spirit and the ability of man to overcome adverse situations.
The second novella The Apt Pupil is a dark and brooding story of how a boy strikes up a dark and uneasy friendship with a former Nazi Death Camp Commander not realizing that the friendship starts a chain of events with unpredictable consequences.
The third novella The Body is a delightful story of 4 teenage buddies undertaking a journey full of adventure in search of the body of a dead boy. In the journey they discover the magic of friendship.
The final novella Breathing Method is breathtaking and beautiful in its detail of the story of mother who will do everything to make sure that her baby is delivered in good health.
Read them and discover the magic of King in his mastery of drama and adding unpredictable twists in his tales. King's skill is incredible and delightful in his use of mundane everyday events and objects turning them into memorable stories.
Pick up this novel and be mesmerised by King.

I'm not a big reader of horror stories, so my reaction to this book will be different than rabid King fans. I was told what a great writer King could be and how he could develop characters and tell a story. For the most part, those reports were true. This book is four "short" stories:
"The Body" is a great coming of age story, about 4 boys on their last fling before adolesence. It was made into the movie "Stand By Me".
"The Apt Pupil" is an excellent, but disturbing exploration of two evil minds. One is the student, whose mind is developing with the help of the master. The other is the master, who has repressed the evil for years but has it brought out again by the student. I haven't seen the movie, but I bet Hollywood softened the ending.
I honestly can't remember much about the "Rita Hayworth". It was the trials and tribulations of an innocent man going to prison, but it didn't have enough impact to leave a lasting impression.
The last story is just a quick horror story with cardboard characters. Members of a mens club try to impress each other with stories. A doctor tells in vivid, gory detail of a single woman who wants to have a baby so bad, she delivers after head is cut off in an accident. The whole thing has a silly ending where the club folds up and flies away.
"The Apt Pupil" and "The Body" would make me want to read more King novels. It wouldn't matter that are horror stories, as long as they have the rich, entertaining storylines and well developed characters. If King's horror stories are more along the lines of the one horror story in this book, than I wouldn't be interested in another King novel.

Different Seasons is a collection of four novellas, all very different from the others. For that reason, I am "rating" and reviewing each one separately below.

"Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption" is about an innocent man in prison, how he maintains his sanity and dignity during his incarceration, and schemes for years how to break out of a nearly impossible-to-break-out-of prison. Upon comparing notes with others who have seen the movie (which I haven't, but definitely will at first opportunity), the movie sounds better for two reasons: some of the underlying plot has been made more complicated, and thus more interesting; and secondly, the novella goes into gory detail (I am definitely not a fan of gory details) about a lot of the seediness that goes on in prisons (I did NOT need to know some of that!). Based on this, I would give this novella a 4 (and likely the movie based on it a 5).

"Apt Pupil" was a fascinating read about a war criminal in hiding whose identity is discovered by a 14-year old boy. The boy blackmails him into telling him all the nitty gritty details of the concentration camps (ugh) and humiliating him in many other ways. The old man (he is 80+ years old when the story begins) steps in to "save" the boy when he becomes so obsessed with spending time with the old man that the boy almost flunks out of school. At that point, the old man blackmails the boy. And so the dance begins. The plot is fascinating; the descriptive language of the horrors of war along with more current acts of torture almost ruined the story for me. If there were a "cleaned up" version of this novella, I would give it a 5, but the language forces me to give it a 4 (and only because I used "speed reading skills" to get past the worst parts).

"The Body" is the story of four boys who, upon learning there is a mutilated body of a teenager hit by a train in a nearby field, make the trek to see it; this is the story of their adventures. In my opinion, this novella was a total waste of good reading time. Hence a rating of 1.

"Breathing Lessons" was like one of those stories kids tell around the campfire to try to scare each other. The majority of the story takes place in a "men's club" that isn't really a club at all (that facet of the story was actually quite interesting). The crux of the plot, though, is a story told by one of the "members" about a patient of his. All in all, this particular novella was fairly good. I would give it a 3.5.

Overall, I am giving this collection a 3 (even though it averages out to something closer to 4). If you are into horror, you would definitely like the stories, and would maybe think it's worthy of a 5. If not, watch "The Shawshank Redemption" next time it's on TV, and you've experienced the best of the collection.

Considering that three of the four of the novellas were made into major motion pictures, the pictures do capture the essence of the original text. I saw the film, "The Shawshank Redemption" before having read the novel, and I couldn't believe that such a story line could fit into so few pages!

King touches upon many tastes in this novel. I think that "Apt Pupil" tends to be the most "horrific", and suprisingly, is my least favorite. As an animal lover, I object to some of the actions in this story, but it didn't stop me from reading or loving the story.

If you're not a typical King fan, this book my change your mind, at least for the length of the novel. His "narrator" theme is always someone involved in the story, and not your omniscent or first person, either.

Give it a try, it is highly recommended.

I can't really rate this book as a whole, so I'm going to disect each individual novella.
Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption: This was the best piece in the book; if you loved to movie, you will also love the book. It is the tale of a banker who encounters a whole lot of bad luck and is convicted of murdering his wife. The tale recounts his time in prison up to an ingenious escape. It is recounted through the eyes of his prison friend, Red. Well written and moving. (5 stars)
Apt Pupil: I was expecting to love this one, but alas I did not. It was dull and uncompelling. The premise itself was excellent--a boy who discovers a Nazi war criminal in his neighborhood and threatens to turn him in if he does not satisfy the boy's morbid curiosity. Unfrotunately, the story as King wrote it fell flat. (1.5 stars)
The Body: I couldn't even finish this one. I gave up halfway through with one question on my mind: Who cares? There was nothing to pull me into the story at all.
The Breathing Method: This was an enjoyable little piece that is actually two stories in one. The wrap-around story is about a "club that's not a club" where old men gather and tell stories. Inside the meeting place of the club are many brand names not to be found in the outside world, and books by authors and publishers no one on the outside world has heard of. The story within this story is that of the Breathing Method. This is told by a doctor among the group who reaccounts a story about a woman he once attended to that went to great lengths to deliver her baby. I won't spoil the surprise. (4 stars)

I've been a Stephen King fan for some time, so was excited to try this collection of four stories. He didn't disappoint. Likely not a surprise that Shawshank Redemption was my favorite of the four. But I would add that Apt Pupil and The Breathing Method were close for second place. Well-worth reading.

First, I would like to tell you this is not a horror book, so if you want horror, don't buy this collection of novellas.
This book had 3 Great stories, and 1 boring, OK one. Rite Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption is my favorite Stephen King Novella. I love Prison Stories, because anything can happen. And that is just what happens in this one. It is a story of hope, and patience, and getting what is yours.
Apt Pupil is a great, dark, chilling story of a teenager that becomes obsessed with a war criminal nazi. He starts to become crazy, after the Nazi traps him in a disturbing mind game. It is great if you are interested WW2 and Hitler.
The Body Happens to be that one boring one. This is also one of the only books that I can think of where the movie is better than the book. The movie is called Stand By Me. In the book, it just drags on and on, although the characters are so believeble, 12 year old boys, I am 12, so i would know. It was a total waste, and if it wasn't so boring, it would have been a classic.
The Breathing Method is the shortest one in the collection, but the most original. It took you where you didn't expect, and left you wondering.
They are all pretty good, if you average them out, but not too good.

These four stories are indeed "Different Seasons" for King; there is virtually nothing supernatural happening here (except for a slight touch in "The Breathing Method"). These four excellent novellas are proof positive that King is a terrific writer whatever genre he's working in; horror may be his forte, but it is by no means the extent of his range. Having said that, while these are not horror stories, there is nevertheless that unmistakable King atmosphere to each of them: a trifle creepy, unsettling, and even frightening. Yet these are not "horror stories" in the traditional sense. They are stories about life (and death); each of them (though this is a bit of a stretch in the case of "The Breathing Method") has a feeling that the events told here could actually have happened.

For the most part, except for the final tale, the book is non-horror theme based and proves that king is not only a great horror writer but a great writer in general. 3 of the storys in this book spawned a film as you probably know. I grew up watching stand by me as a kid so years ago i picked up different seasons and started reading "the body" which turns out was an excellent adaptation. Almost word for word action for action. Apt pupil, about a teenage kid who grows wise to an old ww2 nazi living in his neighborhood some 30 years after the war is also brillant, as is rita hayworth and the shawshank redemption. The breathing method is the only drag and is the last story in the book. I have a feeling this novella was in kings "junk trunk" and he just threw it in there to take up space.

If you are browsing the reviews you are probably asking yourself if you should buy this book.

Yes. Immediately. Just click on that "Add To Shopping Cart" button before you even continue with this review.

I have heard many people mention this as their favorite of King book, and having read all of his work I would have to add my vote. No small thing, considering all of the great books he has penned.

The chilling second tale, APT PUPIL is well-worth the price of admission, but you also get the sentimental favorite, RITA HAYWORTH AND THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, and the book's centerpiece, THE BODY.

THE BODY is a beautiful evocation of that moment in late childhood when you finally realize the stakes of life. In the intro to the story, King laments that important secret moments lose their sentimental power when shared. I couldn't disagree more. He relates them so perfectly.

In the book, Different Seasons, I read the 3rd story, "The Body". Even, though I put my age as 12, i am 13. As a 13 year old girl, I learned so much from the story of the 4 boys that go on an adventure of a lifetime. What they learned about friendship on the journey is unforgettable. Also, That the book teaches you about friendship sticks with you for the rest of your life. I truely enjoyed the book. I recomend it to anyone who can read!
summary:
The book is about 4 boys, 2 in particular that are really good friends, that set out to find a dead body of a boy that is there age that got hit by a train. As they take the day long walk, they encounter adventures and amazing expirences that, if they happened to you, would touch and change your life forever.
I truely recomend this book! Go get it!

The only movie that I can say is as good as the book. Love this book. Shawshank is one of the stories in this book, Different Seasons, I was surprised that it is really a novella, very short. I am not a horror book reader, but this novella by King and his book,The Green Mile, outstanding! Entertaining, keeps you in suspense, on the edge, wanting more. There is no wonder why King is so popular. Highly recommend. You will not be disappointed. Not sure how anyone could not give this a five star rating. It doesn't get better than this.

I was 15, when I first read different seasons. I picked it up to read "The Body." which had been adapted to become "Stand By Me". (Rob Reiner film)****. I later read "The Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption", and "Apt Pupil". Them both being amazing. I had a dream that the latter would be the first film I direct. I found out while reading a newspaper that Bryan Singer had done it and it was playing at the Toronto Film Festival. This is a treat, in a manner of respect I think of being waiting seven years for. (--Going to see it tonight. Looking forward to it. ) It is a disturbing look at the psychological decay of a pubescent boy, as well the sickening bond (mutual-addiction) between himself and a Nazi (Denker/Dussander). Awsome read.

What an ending. Throughout the course of the book I never once asked myself, “What is the purpose of this book?” I often mentally screamed at the author, “Why are you doing this to me?!”, but never what the purpose was. It was too brisk. I think Steven King had a lot of fun writing this book. I think he had a lot of fun creating an All American kid with good grades and athleticism, and guiding him gently, almost lovingly towards the homicidal breaking point. King takes everything that made Todd Bowden the perfect American teenager in the early summer of his life and twists it. Everything that would make any teen proud and put him on the path to successful adulthood is rendered impotent by a curiosity gone horribly wrong.

If you like medium to fast paced psycho-drama with a hint of thriller and mystery thrown in then you will like this book. I give Apt Pupil a four out of five star rating.

Not your typical collection of King horror stories, "Different Seasons" shows King's versatility at delivering high entertainment without resorting to more standard scare tactics. "Apt Pupil" is by far the most disturbing of the four stories, in which King provides a look at the demons inside a former Nazi, and a young kid determined to bring this out of the old man. "The Body" shows King's talent at writing coming of age stories, and developing the mystique of childhood adventures. A very entertaining story. "The Shawshank Redemption" is memorable and uplifting, minus any obvious horror, and thus showing a seldom seen facet of King. The fourth story wasn't as interesting to me. Overall though, a very good book. Avery Z. Conner, author of "Fevers of the Mind".

I thought that Apt Pupil was a decent novel by King,even thoughi do not consider it to be his best.Every one of the short storieswere well-written but i thought that the endings of 'Apt Pupil','The Body',and 'The Breathing Method' were too sinister and chilling. There is one criticism i would give to the short story of 'Apt Pupil',it is because we do not actually get much of a detailed description of what had taken place in the Nazi concentration camps and this,in my opinion,let the story down slightly.The Breathing Method was tedious and just dragged on with no real point to the story whatsoever. If u are a King fan,i would recommend reading this book because it is original and well-written but if your not a King fan,i am not so sure that you would find it enjoyable.

I can't say at all that I have read enough books by Stephen King to make a comparison as to whether this is one of his better books or not. I have only read this book and Eyes of the Dragon, neither of which can really be considered a horror. The two books I have read by King, I have enjoyed though. This particular book contains four novellas, all of which King wrote directly after he had finished one of his novels. Two of these novellas have been written into great movies: The Shawshank Redemption and The Body which in theaters is called Stand by Me. Three of the four novellas I would read again leaving out only The Breathing Method. Once was enough for me. I wouldn't recommend it, but it is a short story and easy to get through. I would definitely take the chance to get this book from stores.

Hey folks. Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption is the best story in here, and possibly the best novella I've ever read. It's not too long, just long enough to tell the story and still remain powerful and entertaining. The characters are great. The Body is a different kind of story for King, but it's pretty good. I felt a little let down at the end, but it was still worth reading. It's worth liking, but not worth loving. Apt Pupil is great at times, but is ultimately too long and weird. It's an interesting idea though. I didn't like how it ended either. A little editing would have been good here. The Breathing Method is intriguing at times. It could have been much better. I liked the idea of the creepy gentlemans' club, but the actual story of the woman and her breathing method is dumb, and confusing too. Anyway, this is some of King's best stuff, especially Shawshank. Trust me.

I am a huge fan of Shawshank Redemption and I knew I had to read the book sometime in life. I picked up Different Seasons. I did not enjoy Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption as much as I enjoyed the movie. But then when I started Apt Pupil something kept telling this was just going to kick major ass. And you bet it did.

Todd Bowden discovers his neighbour (Arthur Denker) is not a sweet old man whose wife passed away but a wanted Nazi war criminal who killed more than 700,000 people in Germany at the Patin concentration camp. Todd becomes a puppet master and starts manipulating the old man for stories about his role in Hitler's final solution.

I would not say this story is disturbing. I wasnt disturbed because it was a lot of fun to read. I think the over excitement of reading such a masterpiece and the disturbing sections cancelled each other out.

I hate horror writing or movies, so I have never read Stephen King. BUT. These 4 novellas/short stories are not quite horror.... they are disturbing and thought-provoking, and 'Apt Pupil' pushes you right into that part of the human brain that become horrific, but I would not call these stories horror at all. King's writing is rich and descriptive and careful. I have never seen any of the movies that were made from some of these; I just liked the stories on their own merit. 'Shawshank Redemption' has a really satisfying conclusion, but holds your attention all the way to the end. 'The Body' catches both the sweet and painful timelessness of childhood summers (back in the days when kids spent summer outside on their own, and not in a camp or in front of a screen in an air-conditioned room...) and the sense that rises in us when we are young adults of, 'where did it go??'. A great collection of NON-horror stories ( but challenginfg and disturbing in a good way) that take 2-3 nights to finish each.

"Different Seasons" is not your typical King horror novel. It is a compilation of 4 novellas (short stories). Three of the stories were eventually made into movies. To my surprise the stories were somewhat different than the movies.
These novellas can best be described as dark philosophical journeys rather than the all-out horror one would expect from King. All of them portray downtrodden, basically good people caught in lousy and depressing lives. With the exception of "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption" none of them have a happy ending.
Despite the depressing tone of the stories, they kept me entertained and interested in the outcomes. This book is a good read, even though I prefer King's usual horror style over the one he uses here.

I found "Different Seasons" in a used bookstore for $2 and it had the short stories on which my favorite movie ("The Shawshank Redemption") and another good movie ("Stand by Me") were based so I figured I couldn't possibly refuse. I haven't seen the movie for "Apt Pupil", but most people tell me it isn't that good. I enjoyed "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption" and "The Body" immensely, but I'd already seen the movies and have to say that I enjoy them better. "The Breathing Method" was intriguing, but disappointingly short and left me wanting to know more about such an unusual "club". So for me the stand out of the four novellas was "Apt Pupil" where King shines with his usual amazing characterization. Todd Bowden is the epitome of the typical American boy and his descent into darkness is so well-paced and real that I got sucked right into it. It's made me want to look into some of Kings other short stories where I hope I'll be equally entertained.

It's nice to know that Stephen King can write more than just straight horror, and this book proves it. Stephen King has a way of drawing you into his stories, in much the same way Todd gets drawn in by Mr. Dussander in Apt Pupil. I consider the four novellas in Different Seasons to be among King's premiere work, and each one would get 5 stars, in my opinion.
Perhaps as a testament to the quality of this book, three of the four novellas have been made into movies (Shawshank Redemption, Apt Pupil and The Body, renamed Stand By Me), and I wouldn't be surprised if a movie for The Breathing Method is currently in the works. For those of you who'd like to start reading Stephen King, but aren't into the gruesome-type horror, then I recommend this book.

When I heard Apt Pupil was coming out as a movie I said so what? But then the announcer said "based on the novel by the author of 'Carrie' and 'The Shining'" I thought to myself...."Gee didn't Stephen King write those?" I went to the bookstore. I knew it wasn't a novel by itself, it had to be with a collection of stories, because I had never heard of it. Sure enough I found it with Different Seasons. I read it and even though it was slow at first, by the end King had me wincing when the Nazi war criminal burned a innocent cat alive in his oven. I just returned from the movie and it was very well adapted from the book. Read the book first then go see the movie. Both you will enjoy!

Reading King's short stories (even his older ones) allows me to appreciate his longer novels even more. King is able to cram so much detail and character development in his short stories that when I read his larger novels I really feel and embrace those characters so much more.
Clearly this book contains 2 stories that became movie hits but the book is always a better story and clearly that is the case here as well.

I absolutely love this collection of novellas by Stephen King. This set is perhaps most famous for the fact that three of the novellas were later made into successful movie. I'd been meaning to watch The Shawshank Redemption for years now, but as a Stephen King fan, I felt wrong doing it without reading the book first. While browsing on the store, I was happy to find that I could buy four stories for the price of one in this satisfying collection.

Each novella is its own independent story with King's usual casts of strong and deftly drawn characters. I think this is a must-have for any Stephen King fan, especially those who enjoy page-to-screen adaptations.

This isn`t King`s most violent book, but the story Apt Pupil sends shivers down my spine, and I am not easily scared. I`ve seen a ridiculous amount a horror movies and only been scared by Se7en. I`ve read a truck load of horror books, and have almost never been scared, but Apt Pupil... shudder. Shawshank Redemption and the Body are also amazing stories, both made into great movies. I don`t like the final story, The Breathing Method. It is very boring, and the reason this book only gets 4 stars. Other than that though, an amazing read that scares and interests the reader. Read Different Seasons... you won`t regret it!!!

This is by far the greatest book in the King collection. Most King fans back him for the horror, but here's the gold. Two of these nuggets are stories that I have lined up to read to my kids someday, lessons on life. First we have "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption", a story of the lenghts of hope. The other important one is "The Body", which through my attempts to be tough and steeled still brings me to tears with how close it slices to memories of a not-too-far gone childhood. I implore anyone who has yet to thumb their way through these to do so as soon as possible. I only read Salinger more often than these.

I just love Stephen King, and I love his novellas, the greatest of which is in the collection - the superb "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption" (which of course has been made into an equally great movie). "The Body" is also another great story, also made into an excellent film.
For those of you who think that King is simply a writer of tales to make your flesh crawl, this is a good place to start. In these stories there are great characters, great plots and great endings with a twist.
The beauty of these stories are that they are short enough to read in one sitting, but just long enough to leave you wanting more.

This is a decent book, containing four of Stephen King's early novella's, three of which have since been made into movies. Already knowing the plots of three out of the four stories may have taken some of the fun out of them, but even so it was a good read. Shawshank is one of the greatest movies of all time, and even though the film is better than the short story, I still give King all the credit in the world for an idea like that. Apt Pupil was a little better as a short story, just because of the greater detail available into the minds of the two main characters. I won't say anymore, so I won't ruin the other two stories, which were not as well known as the first two. Basically if you want to read something by King that isn't quite horror, but is still a bit disturbing, this book is for you.

I've just started reading Stephen King again and I'm glad I started with _Different Seasons_. Wow, is this book something! Hail to the King indeed! "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption" is beautiful and so well-written. "The Body" is a terrific coming-of-age tale. But "Apt Pupil" was truly breathtaking. The ideas and imagery from that story will stay with me for a long, long time. I think it is King's best novella by far. This story alone is worth the price of admission. "Breathing Lessons" was all right to finish, although it didn't make as great an impact as the others. _Different Seasons_ is definitely a keeper.

"Different Seasons" is a compilation of four King novels. Three ("Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption", "Apt Pupil", and "The Body") have been made into films, and it easy to see why. All three are outstanding stories, especially "Rita Hayworth" which tells of a wrongly convicted man trying to survive and keep his sanity in a brutal prison. The weakest of the four stories the last one, "Breathing Method". Everyone would be well-advised to skip it and only concentrate on the first three tales.
For anyone who loves a good story, this collection is a must read.

I remember reading this book back in the eighties when I was in college. Then, as now, I was a big, big Stephen King Fan. I had all of his albums and had been to all of his concerts, so to speak. I kept telling my friends that Stephen King was more than a horror writer, and this is the book I used to convince them finally of how correct I was. I am not aware of how this book's sales compare to that of his other works, but the four stories in this collection, including the Breathing Method, are among the best "stories" of any genre in the past 25 or so years. I am not surprised that three of the four stories have been made into movies (two of them successfully).

If you are in any doubt about the quality of these stories, consider the fact that 3 out of the 4 have been made into films.
Stephen King is known as a horror writer, but these three show that the man is one of the worlds best story tellers. They are not horror stories.
Shawshank as most people will know is a prison story. Some of this is harrowing and upsetting (such that they couldn't show it in the film), but it is essential for the development of the main character and I never thought it was gratutious.
The Body is a story about growing up and Apt Pupil is about a man with black past and his relationship with a young lad. Both are excellent and compelling reading.
The 4th story, which is as good as the other 3, is gripping and original, and a real page turner. This is more of a traditional King horror story, so if you buy Different Seasons you don't miss out completely on the horror front.
Of course what this book amply demonstrates is Kings marvellous story telling abilities, whether he is writing horror or not.

I have no patience anymore for people who say, "Stephen King is not much of a writer." How can they say that? Because he is succesful? Because his books sell? Because he has chosen horror (primarily) as his genre? Please read this collection of short works (4 novellas? 4 longish short stories?) and tell me that he is not the master. Yes, he has written some loopy stories at times; yes, he has written books that seem self-undulgent or just plain weird. But if you read these classic scribblings (Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, The Breathing Method, Apt Pupil, The Body), you will begin to see why Stehpen King is the most successful writer who has ever lived: (success = every book he has ever written is still in print, still on the shelves, and this goes way back to Carrie in 1973-74; he has earned over a billion dollars in sales, not counting film royalties). Read these stories and you will begin to see the first of the two particular talents he has in abundance: humanity. He writes HUMAN characters. He knows PEOPLE. He can put a mirror up to the human condition like the best literary writers. His second talent is that he can and does tell a story. This is how he gets under the literary writers' collective skins and surpasses them and everybody else in the marketplace. In short, he is successful because he has the talent of the literary writers and he has the plot ambition of the popular writers. He's the writer who has it all. All hail, the master! I am proud to be numbered among his fans.

At first, I was surprised by the genre of this book.
I then decided that it was just like I should expect
any of his work to be : reaching deep into the
human soul and exposing all of its complexity. He
has the knack to extract the little things from
day-to-day life and making them big... He makes
all the monsters come out from under the bed!

My personal favorite was "The Body", and I believe
that the intro to that story alone is a poem. However,
I also enjoyed very much "The Shawshank Redemption".
In any case, this book is a MUST READ!

Although I enjoyed reading Different Seasons, I felt like I was ripped off. Ok, so it was my own fault, but still... The first time I read Different Seasons, the front of the book said The Shawshank Redemption. A couple weeks ago, I see Different Seasons in the bookstore, featuring Apt Pupil. Since it had been YEARS since I first read the book, I thought it was a different Different Seasons and bought the book. I thought it was a little misleading, changing the cover like that. I still give the book a five star review because it is a good book, but I will pay more attention next time I buy a book!

It's no wonder Stephen King's stories are made into blockbuster films and no surprise that his books sell by the ka-billions. Shawshank, in my opinion, is the greatest film ever made, mostly because of how closely it stuck to the book. The book is brilliant - it's message of hope is timeless and the friendship between Andy and Red is unforgettable. As a reader, I got the feeling that Mr. King loved these characters, and loved writing them. I never get tired of the film, nor re-reading this story. He is a master story teller. Wish he'd write more (non-horror) books. I personally shy away from the weird or disturbing. But the guy can spin a tale like no one else.

The first thing I need to make clear is that the novella "Apt Pupil" is much better than the 1998 movie adaptation. Despite a superb performance by Ian McKellen, the filmmakers made a number of choices which hurt the integrity of the story. The novella is a meditation on the nature of evil, whereas the movie is more of a thriller.

Reading the novella at this late stage brought into focus all the things I've always admired about Stephen King: his vivid imagination, his sharp attention to detail, his perverse sense of humor, and his mastery at crafting a battle of wills between two characters. But I was also impressed that he tackled material this challenging. He not only had to present a believable Nazi, he also had to confront the question of what makes people evil, all the while telling a compelling story about two unsympathetic characters who are surrounded by idiots.

The story is set in the 1970s. A pampered suburban youth named Todd Bowden discovers that an elderly neighbor of his is an escaped Nazi commandant named Kurt Dussander. Instead of turning him in, Todd blackmails him into recounting his hideous crimes. Todd once did a research paper on the camps and greatly impressed his teachers, who don't realize he is fascinated by the subject for all the wrong reasons.

King invites us inside these two people's heads, and what we see are two individuals lacking in guilt but filled with fear, haunted by the threat of exposure. Both characters turn to violence as a release, but this in turn increases their fear, in a self-perpetuating cycle not unlike drug addiction.

The story tempts us to ask which character is more evil. Though Dussander has done worse things than almost any human being alive, Todd has ghastly potential. Unlike Todd, Dussander rationalizes his actions, giving the standard line about having been just following orders. Todd is simply a sneaky bully who puts on a public face of being a nice, well-adjusted kid.

Even I, a grandson of Holocaust survivors, found myself almost rooting for Dussander. He's smarter and more charming than the boy, and since he begins the story as victim, I had to marvel at the way he maneuvers the situation and turns it to his advantage. It is easy to forget that his cold rationality is in many ways more frightening than Todd's sick perversion. King exploits this deceptive quality of fiction by not letting us get to know any of Dussander's victims until late in the story.

Another question left unanswered is how much Todd's descent into violence is influenced by Dussander. He might have become that way on his own, but we can't be sure. His most obvious internal change surfaces when he privately rationalizes his lack of attraction to his girlfriend by thinking she must be secretly Jewish. (The real reason is that he has violent homoerotic fantasies which take the place of ordinary sexual feelings.) Did he get his anti-Semitism from Dussander, or was it there to begin with? His liberal parents show no signs of prejudice but are trapped in a world of empty platitudes that keep them from seeing what's in front of them.

There are political overtones to the story, set at the end of the Vietnam War. Dussander defends himself by accusing America of hypocrisy: "The GI soldiers who kill the innocent are decorated by Presidents, welcomed home from the bayoneting of children and the burning of hospitals with parades and bunting.... Only those who lose are tried as war criminals for following orders and directives" (p. 130). Here and elsewhere, King hints at the idea that Americans tend to have a sense of incomprehension at evils committed by other countries yet fail to see the parallels when the evil is homegrown.

The introspective nature of the story may help explain why the movie (set in the 1980s) didn't work. The problems are various. The process of abridging the plot for screen time makes certain elements seem arbitrary. The racial aspects of Nazism are largely ignored. Most significantly, the film softens the character of Todd, depicting him more as a confused kid who gets in over his head than as an unrelenting psychopath. This change leads the movie to have a very different ending than in the novella.

I suppose the producers felt that audiences needed to be able to relate to the young protagonist, but it creates an imbalance that obscures the story's message about the nature of evil. The film can't even decide what exactly Todd and Dussander are guilty of doing. There are several confusing scenes that leave us unsure whether the two have been murdering animals or simply imagining doing so.

I had the feeling the filmmakers were interpreting the novella as a typical horror story because it was written by Stephen King. They underestimated the source material, a thoughtful fable with something valuable to say about the world.

A great Stephen King book that delivers on quality short stories. Working class literature king. The Shawshank Redemption was my favorite. I did not see the movie before reading the book. The little story was believable and a real gem to read.
The Body was alright, I definately prefered the movie. Both movies were very true to the stories which I loved. Apt Pupil started out the most interesting but I feel after awhile fell flat. The Breathing Method was pretty good, I thought it was the most 'spooky' of the stories. I recommend this book very much!

I will not spoil the story for those of you who have not read it. Only Stephen King can write a story like this. I read it several years ago and just listened to it again in my car. Once the story starts to unfold one can't put it down (or turn it off). It is evil at its worst as this story could be true or could actually happen! I saw the movie as well but it somehow missed the mark even though the actors were good.

LOTS OF CRITICS HAVE DESCRIBED "DIFFERENT SEASONS" AS PURE GENIUS.IT IS THAT AND MUCH MORE!!! KING HAS MANAGED TO INFUSE A PERFECT UNDERSTANDING OF THE HUMAN PSYCHE INTO THE THE LIVES OF ALMOST REAL CHARACTERS IN UNREAL SITUATIONS. IF ONE CAN HAVE FAVORITES IN THIS COLLECTER'S ITEM,MINE WOULD BE "THE BODY";A TALE PRIMARILY OF CHILDHOOD FRIENDS AND FRIENDSHIP,STRONGLY REMINICENT OF OUR OWN.THIS IS A FANTASTIC COLLECTION AND YOU GUYS OUT THERE ARE LUCKY IF YOU ARE DISCOVERING THIS BOOK FOR THE FIRST TIME!!!!! DON'T MISS THIS BOOK!!!!!!!!!!

I liked all four stories in this book; each one kept me engrossed and interested. I had seen the movies for two of the stories and loved being able to see the similarities and differences between the movie and the written stories.

I am not a fan of King's and find many of his books bloated, ill-conceived, and lacking focus. He is at his best when he writes "short novels" and the stories in this book are without a doubt his finest (but "Four Past Midnight" is also quite good). With the possible exception of the last story here, each of them is a real treat.
What makes these novellas so good is that each presents a profile of a character at a defining moment in his life. These characters are well developed and believable so you care about the outcome and get involved in the story. He then takes you through a series of events that is fascinating, and in the case of "Apt Pupil", disturbing and shocking.
"Apt Pupil" is the best thing King has written and actually deserves something closer to a 9. Whether you're a fan or not, check this out.

"Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption" was a real wonderful story and it really hit me differently than his other novels (novellas sorry....) Apt Pupil was great except for one major flaw; he did it all because of Mr. Dussander, right? WRONG! Todd is painted out to be way too perfect for my taste. He was only susceptable to the evil because he was truly evil inside! Anyway... The Body was probably my favorite of all of the stories. Just recently I rented "Stand by Me", and thought tha it did the story justice. And finally "The Breathing Method" was THE most original stories I have read in a very long time. Maybe not the actual story, but I never would have guessed where it was going from where it started! Anyway thanks for listening to my rambles!
BTW- Those who have read 'Salem's Lot, remember the scene at the beginning where Ben meets Susan in the park? When her mother talks about his new book and the strange prison scenes? Seem familiar?

Each of the four stories is entertaining and gets you in during the first few pages.The beauty of this book is that all of the characters are you and me and other than the last few pages of The Breathing Method there is nothing supernatural happening that King has to convince us to believe. The first three are all good stories but I found The Breathing Method interesting and disappointing as all the way through I was much more interested in the club than the story being told.How I would delight to come across another novella exploring further into the mysterious club.

After reading several of King's books I decided to see if he was equally adept at the short story format. Now I know that he is a better short story writer than a novelist.
All but one of the stories in this collection are breathtaking: great characters, interesting dialogue, fascinating plots and stunning endings. The only one I was dissapointed with is the longest tale Apt Pupil. To me, it was too easy to see the outcome and it was not properly resolved to my liking.
However, the other 3 are definitly good enough for me to recommend this title. Happy reading.

First of all, I read this book because of all the other reviews at this site that said how good it was. So I guess I can thank you for inspiring me to read "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption" probably one of the best things I've read. A very gentle and uplifting story that is exciting and not too long (only about 100 pages), that breaks the image of Stephan King being a stereotypical horror writer. The final pages of the story sum up all of its feeling. I also read "Apt Pupil," an incredibly different story that I also liked though not as much as RH&SR. I didn't read the other stories. But I did read the opening paragraphs of "The Body" and immediately burst into tears! Wow! His words rang clear and true. A good book; read it.

We read 3 of the 4 stories in our Aphasia Book Club. There was the expected love/hate relationship with the stories and characters, but it did generate spirited discussion, which is our purpose in a book club of this nature. Even the readers who hated some of the stories, read them all.

I first saw a Movie based on another of Stephen King's books when I was seven years old. I'm 12 now and I decided that reading one of his books was the best way to go. I found this book scary like many of the horror books that I read. Interesting is not the most meaningful way of desribing a book but the plot was very shallow. There was no depth in the story line. I may sound like I'm critisizing this Author but since reading this book I've found that Stephen King can do a lot better. Many of his other books have more meaning.

There are so many good things about this book, but what made the difference for me between giving this book 3 stars and 4 stars, was the novella "The Body." The only story I really didn't like in this book was "Apt Pupil," just because I found it really disturbing. "Shawshank" and "Breathing" were both entertaining reads, but "The Body" really stood out for me. Maybe it's just because I'm kind of undergoing a transitional stage of my life right now, and I'm particularly emotional these days that I liked this story so much. Even though the four main characters were about 5 years younger than me and were boys, I could really relate. Hey, we've all been there. So, of course, after I read the story, I had to go out and see the movie "Stand by Me." The movie was so close to the book, it was astounding. (okay, so there were a few differences, especially at the end, but it was way truer to the book than most King novels that made the leap to the screen) Some of the things King speaks about in this story just really got to me, especially the whole part about the deer and the line about the most important things being the hardest to say because words diminish them. Reading this really took me back to when I was 12 (not very long ago, I know, but still...), and it reminded me how simple things were back then. Back then, when all we had to worry about was how were going to spend our summer vacation, and with whom. I definitely recommend this book, if not for the other 3 stories, then at least for "The Body."

Im no fan of Steven King. Most of his novels tend to be overly spooky, or just too tedious to read. These four stories prove to me that King really is a talented writer. Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank redemption was an excellent work of both character and hope. Apt Pupil was chilling and VERY spellbinding. I couldnt stop until I was done. The Body was a great coming of age story an stirred some emotions. The weakest story was The Breathing Method but it was still a good, interesting read.

I really didn't care for this book overall. I will say that "...Shawshank Redemption" is a very tight and well-written story, but it's really the only one which kept my attention. The first half of "Apt Pupil" is both engaging and disturbing (in a good way), but it soon drifts into an out-of-control rambling mess and loses its novelty. The final two didn't make much of an impression, and overall, the 4 stories really don't work very well under the same cover. Check it out from the library, read the first story, and turn it back in.

I've read almost all his books and I do say this is NOT his best that he's done.In my humble opinion the best would be insomnia,at least this far. Apt pupil is disturbing and makes you think,not very much though. I can't wait to see what they do to it in the movie. But rarley, very rarely do they make a movie better then a book. do read this one if you're to see the movie, you never know. Even us die hard fans like some of his not so suspenseful work.but it is scary to say the least.

Different Seasons is a collection of four novellas written at several points in Stephen King's career, which he felt he had no medium for. Finally, he decided to compile them all in one volume. And man, am I glad he did. These stories prove to anyone who still needed proof that Stephen King is capable of creating emotional stories without monsters from the deep. They show a gift for storytelling like no other that I've seen  (with the possible exception of Ray Bradbury) , a talent with narrative and style that draws you in and doesn't let you go.
By far the most famous of the stories, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, is a moving, magnificently written account of the life of Andy Dufresne, a man falsly accused of the murder of his wife and her lover. Narrated by his friend, Red, a fellow inmate in Shawshank prison, the novella details the way in which Andy maintains his dignity and soul, with the kind of strengh I could only wish for. Red, an honest and caring soul, describes our wonder and love for this remarkable man who shows us the best of humanity under its worst conditions.
Of a very different note is Apt Pupil, the story of a distrubed young boy and a demented old man whose games of control over each other send them into the abiss, or perhaps only deeper into it. Todd, seemingly an all-American good boy, discovers that a nearby neighbour is in fact a Nazi war criminal, but rather than call the police, he forces himself into the old man's life, forcing him to tell him stories of the attrocities of the death camps. Over the next few years, a mind game is played, with two mens' sanity at stake. It is only in this story, I believe, that King has earned the distinction of Horror Writer. This novella is a truly disturbing view into the mind of two warped men, and although I truly wanted to put it down, I couldn't stop myself from reading it to the end.
The Body, which was the basis for the movie Stand By Me (although the novella far surpasses the movie in my opinion), is the story of four friends who set out to find the body of a young boy who has disappeared, and thus become heroes. What ensues is really a coming of age tale, as the four boys face up to their fears and desires, and enjoy the last summer of their friendship.
The Breathing Method is the story which least impressed me of the four. It is a story about a woman in the beginning of the century who insists on carrying her illegitimate child to term, and the doctor who attempts to help her. While the writing is just as good as ever, there is no feeling in the story, it is a simple horror story, and as such falls flat in the company of such giants as the three others.
Despite this, these stories all show human beings in extreme situations, both good and bad, and make us indentify with them. If you want to see Kind in a very different, and very flattering light, pick up a copy of Different Seasons.

This book stands tall among the masses of King's tales. Here a quartet of truly excellent stories leads a reader from the heights of the human experience, to its lowest depths. From the prison saga of "The Shawshank Redemption" to the poisonous symbiosis of the aged Nazi and the twisted teenage boy in "Apt Pupil" to sentimental coming-of-age magic in "The Body" and finally to the concluding story of an independent-minded young woman from many decades ago, determined to give birth no matter what, this anthology will remain a classic long after this age has worn itself to sand.

A typical Stephen King book. Not one of those books whose plot is hard to keep up with. I liked how each of the 'seasons' (sections/stories) tied into each other. The characters are vivid and the plot is enticing.

Two of the four stories in "Different Seasons" ended up as the movies "Stand By Me" and "The Shawshank Redemption," perhaps the two best movies ever made from King's written work. That should serve as notice just how good this collection is. These are not horror stories, but instead highly effective charachter studies and well told in their own right. "Different Seasons" shows what kind of writer King might have been had not horror been his first love. This is one of his best books.

Stephen King introduces us to a boy named Tod Boden. After learning of the Holocaust in school he becomes obsessed with it. Finding a Nazi war criminal hiding in the US. Todd black mails him for the truth of what really happened the stuff not printed in the books. As the story unveils we see how Boden's mind begins to warp from the stroies of terror. As Boden's nights grow more restless people become suspicious of Todd and his old friend.
This book also includes the Shawshank Redemption an excellent novella.

I made the all time mistake on this one. I went and saw the movie first. I can tell you that the movie did not do the book justice, and could not even compare to it. Mr. King's primitive tale of a young boy that becomes hooked on the terror and the pain of post war circumstances left me cold and shaken. I had expected something comfoting and happy with a meaning that would leave me safe at the end of this story. Mr. King revealed early on that this was not the way that this story would end. I can tell you that I would read this book twice over and still feel the power of his words. He has brought the truth to light in this tale of darkness that reaches into your soul and asks a very fatal quesiton. Many will not be able to answer, and this book makes it impossible to push the thoughts from your mind. Is it possible that there is truth behind this mans madness? I think that there may be and that is the scariest thought of all.

I think people are rediscovering this book because 3 of the 4 stories in it have been made into movies. The first one, 'Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption' is probably one of the finest adaptations of a book I have ever seen, however since this is a book review and not a movie review, let me get back on track.
'Shawshank' is about a man accused of murdering his wife and her lover and his subsequent jail sentence in the 1930s. Thru his jail sentence we get to know Andy thru the eyes of Red, the narrator. We learn all about the horrors of prison, the sisters, the unjustice, the unfairness of things. This one is probably my favorite of the four.
'The Body' is better know as the movie 'Stand by Me', a tale of 4 boys, some from the wrong side of the tracks, some not, but all the closest of friends. This is their tale, the adventure of a lifetime as they trek out into the woods to see a dead body.
'Apt Pupil' is the most horrifying of the four. The story of Todd Bowman who just happens to discover a Nazi war criminal living in his neighborhood. Their twisted relationship gets more terrifying by each page.
And finally, 'The Breathing Method'...this one starts out in that funny little club in NYC run by Stevens. The Christmas tale told that year is about a pregnant mother that comes to a most gruesome end.
These short little synopsis do nothing to the scope of the stories. Do yourself a favor and read them all. They are like little gems waiting to be discovered!
**Pandora

My question during the first half of this novella was "who is this scary for"? Not all of King's stuff need be scary. But still, I wasn't sure who the sympathetic character was and who was the guy I was supposed to boo.

It's about a kid who finds out his neighbor is a former prison camp Nazi. You'd think you're supposed to boo the Nazi, but then the kid makes him dress up like an SS soldier and parade around, then blackmails him, and starts murdering winos.

I guess the neat thing is that the balance of power shifts throughout. It seems the kid's got something. Then Old Man Nazi uses his age and the kid's potential to his advantage. Then it seems like the kid has the upper hand when the Nazi has a heart attack. Then the kid needs something from the Nazi, and so on.

The problem is that the kid seems too smart for his age, too devious. And then the ending feels like King ran out of things to say, so he just added in some coincidences (the other person in the Nazi's hospital room just HAPPENS to be someone in the concentration camp Mr. Nazi used to run) and then had everybody kill each other.

And by now I've probably said Nazi so much I'm going to get some unpleasant search terms in the trackback.

Stephen King makes a different crack at the horror genre in Different Seasons, a collection of 4 novellas, in which a general theme of journey and growth seems to be present...but the journey and the growth can take us to some scary places.
Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption is wonderful story of a wrongly convicted man being forced to serve a life term in a maximum security prison, slowly working his escape into the plot.
Secondly, Apt Pupil has to take the cake for the best story in the book. I have heard many people compare the movie and the book to each other, but I personally feel it is apples and oranges. A young boy discovers a Nazi war criminal and blackmails him in to telling him the secrets of the death camps he oversaw during the war. The impact on the boy's soul and mental being is so powerful, you hold the book after you have read the last words and go...Oh My God.
The Body is a coming of age story in which three boys embark on a journey to find the corpse of a fourth boy. This story became a rather popular movie, Stand by Me.
Lastly, the book about a mother's will to let her child survive is a little weak. The book stends to be rather wordy for the first half, and they from out of nowhere goes to the extreme weird. Not quite the effect I as hoping for.
Overall however, this book is another one of King's classics, and I would highly recommend it to the die hard Stephen King fan, to the beginning King newbie. Well worth your read.

I love this book. I have read this more than I've read anything else. I loved shawshank, I was amazed with apt pupil , even though I've read it like 5, or 6 times the was nostalgic. The breathing method was classic king. I recommend for for all fans of modern horror.

I read "Different Seasons" in the early 80's, after I became totally taken, not by the nature, but by the style of "The Shining" (the way the story was told and the way I got engulfed on the thoughts and on the basic nature of its characters.) Unlike "The Shinning", the stories of "Different Seasons" became a total reading experience -same writer, different themes-. In "The Body", Stephen King masterfully explores the romanticism and nostalgia of childhood discoveries among the most unlikely friends. "Apt Pupil", on the other hand, focuses on the unexpected sources of potencial evil, an exchange that goes beyond age and culture. Hope is ,at the end, the predominant theme in both "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption" and "The Breathing Method". Without missing the expected gory and violent scenes(especially in "Apt Pupil") this compilation of novellas was then -in the early 80's-, and still is my favorite Stephen King publication!

Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption was a marvel, I must have read it like 8 times and seen the movie 50 this year...Apt Pupil was a great story...very strong and I can't wait for the movie...The Body was another good one just because it was pretty much a story from the heart...the movie lacked some of the great ideas that it had...and I didn't really care for The Breathing method at all...but it's one of the best books I've ever read...

I am not a great fan of Stephen King. I tend to find his later books a little vulgur and depressing for my liking. However, I completely love Different Seasons! The Body and Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption are incredible. They are interesting and they keep your interest without being shocking or out there. I found them to be two of the best stories I have ever read. I also liked Apt Pupil. However, do not read The Breathing Method! It is heinous! Not only is it boring for half the story, it them turns completely ridicules. Besides that story, this is a tremendous book, I would recommend it to anyone.

The first story in this four "novella" collection is "The Shawshank Redemption", a story about a wrongfully accuse man trying to survive in a maximum security prison, which is one of King's best works, although it is only 100 pages long. The next up is "Apt Pupil", a sick and twisted tale about a teenager that becomes obsesed with the holocaust, only to find that there is one of the head SS officials living nearby. He blackmails the Nazi into giving the boy information about the holocaust, causing him great mental stress. Although it is a very intriguing plot, the disturbing ending and the sometimes awkward writing cause for a mediocre story. The next novella is "The Body", which has been made into the movie "Stand By Me". In this, the main character, Gordie, which is 12 yrs. old, goes on a trip with his friends in search of a dead body and learnes a bit more about life and death than he wished he knew. Unfortuately, too much of the book is spent with Gordie rambling about different nonimportant events, therefore making it seem like more of a task then a pleasure to have to read through the story, even though the movie is highly recomended by me. The last story is "The Breathing Method", which tells you of a club of sorts, in which men get together for a few drinks and tell some stroies, on of which is included. The first part of the novella, in which the narrator explains how he was invited to the club and what it was, is intruiging and a joy to read, however, the part in which the tale is told and the wrapping up of the story is full of awkward sentences with a mundane choice of words and actions, causing this story to be the worst in the book.

How (and why?) can a Steven King short story become the foundation for the highest rated movie on IMDB?

Think of all the movies that have been made with millions (billions?) of dollars in special effects and perfect looking actors and actresses and none of them even come close to the ratings this movie puts out.

How can this humble movie, set in a depressing setting with not much more than dialog entrance so many people? Are they all crazy? There is no sex (besides inferred creepy sex), some violence but not like most prison movies, no women at all besides the cheating wife and posters. One could even say that the 'community' in the prison was 'conservative' by many of today's standards.

But, somehow, it is one movie that I (and seemingly many others) can find myself watching over and over again and not be bored with it. I seem to see some new nugget of meaning every time I watch it.

What just goes to show you that 'content is king', in this case Stephen King.

This little anthology, in my opinion is the closest King has come to literature. I have read enough of his other books to know that he can delve deep into his imagination to explore the horrors that can be created there (Pet Sematary freaked me out) but in these stories he explores in his effortless style the existentialism of humanity.

In 'The Body' he explores the existential crises that arises when children fully realize that death is a part of life. Echoes of 'Nature's first green is gold' and the dying of the innocence of ignorance in childhood can be seen. I will never forget the moment my own kids started to understand that there are evil things and death.

In 'Apt Pupil' he explores the wickedness that is in every one of us, as an inescapable property of humanities existence, and how we all have to take responsibility as humans for what humans can and have done. 'Every single one of us has the devil inside' or 'When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you'.

But back to 'Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption' what makes it so appealing? When I learned that he had based the story on a Tolstoy short story 'God Sees the Truth, But Waits' it started to make more sense why this work carried such psychological and philosophical appeal.

The Tolstoy short story has many of the same plot points, a man wrongly imprisoned, grows old and suffers but in the Tolstoy story the man dies in the end after the person who actually committed the crime confesses to it. Kind of depressing, I know. It seems the Steven King twist is more uplifting and that is one of the main reasons people love this story so much - the feeling of hope in it.

But why, what is the hope; that you can escape prison and go and hide out in Mexico? There is something resonating in this 'hope' that is not merely just hope of a better life outside of prison it seems to have a touch of magic to it.

I think the key to this appeal is looking at the story as a metaphor of not just a bunch of guys in prison but rather of all human existence. If you think about it, life on earth is like life in a prison a certain way. The reality of our existence is that we are prisoners to its rules of physics and time (no one escapes the prison of death) and King, like Dostoevsky, lets the characters in this story live out their philosophies as we watch how their beliefs lead to their logical conclusions.

What is life in prison or existence in general if there is no hope that the suffering and injustice down here (or in there) has any meaning. Why put up with the suffering? What is the use?

You see the characters try to solve this existential dilemma in various ways:

The warden and guards are representative of the authorities on earth, the governments, the religious institutions that keep humanity from descending into chaos, sometimes by brutality and injustice.

You see the character of Brooks unable to find any existential hope and rather falls into the abyss of nihilism causing him to find no meaning in life any more, so he 'gets busy dying' and commits suicide.

You see the dark underbelly of humanity that gives its existence over completely to its own selfish and lustful inclinations in 'the Sisters' and especially 'Bogs' who could have been Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov's brother.

And then you have Andy, the Christ figure, the suffering hero. He is in prison but is innocent (like Christ). He is more of a Nietzschen version of Christ, though. You see him filled with existential hope as he gives his famous line “Get busy living or get busy dying.” which is essentially quoting Camus', 'There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide'

To finish it off you have Red, who is the narrator and essentially is you. Are you going to choose to follow Andy with your freedom and find paradise?

So, whether you picked up on it or not, like the short story it was derived from, Shawshank is a metaphor of the Passion of Christ. Or at the very least, the suffering hero metaphor or archetype, who through their suffering allows others to find their own repentance (as seen in Red's last speech to the parole board) and then ultimate paradise.

Now King tries to make it very clear that the real answer to humanities existential dilemma is not Christ and the Bible and he essentially guts the Bible metaphorically and literally, removing the words inside of it to make way for his hammer signifying the perseverant will of man. The humanistic idea that no matter how bad it can get if you chip chip chip away at life you ultimately will break through and find meaning (and paradise) in life. 'That which does not kill us makes us stronger.'

But really, what does that hole in the wall signify? Seems a little tomb-like to me.

And to complete the 'suffering hero who dies and comes back to life' metaphor we see Andy entering the 'tomb' during a storm (chaos), making his way through the waste of humanity (hell), essentially dying only to come out on the other side to be reborn, baptised by the rain, transformed, a new man, truly free. The old man is gone, a new man has been reborn. This new man is very powerful and rich now. 'Unless a seed of wheat fall in the ground and die it remains alone but if it dies it brings forth much fruit'. Dostoevsky could not have put it better.

If you think I am reaching, look at the title, specifically the word 'redemption' in the title. At first, I thought 'Redemption' was a peculiar word for King to use in the title. Why didn't he use something like the 'Great Escape' or anything along those lines? Why redemption? Which really is a Christian word. This idea that humanity is somehow stuck with a debt to pay (a sentence) that has to be paid is the meaning of the word redemption. In case you didn't know, the Christian version of the story goes that Christ died to pay for the worlds sins and in so doing 'redeemed' humanity if people, like Red followed Andy to paradise, follow Christ. He went first to 'make a way' but like Red had to go to a specific field and find a very specific tree and yada yada every person has to obey and follow Christ (the narrow way) only if you want that same hope. And like the Biblical version, in the end, the wicked are punished and the righteous meek find paradise with Christ.

So, really most people don't know it but the reason they are attracted to the story is because it has been 'wrapped' very expertly in language and concepts that are agreeable and that they accept to hide it but it is a very subtle trick. King has 'hijacked' the metaphor. The only reason it works is because King does not deviate too far from the metaphor and he keeps the protagonist as the hero (Christ figure).

To prove the point, if you take away the humanistic and anti-religion elements in Shawshank; if you make the warden just mean and not religious and the book the hammer is hid in 'War and Peace' instead of the Bible the story still has the same power. Those added elements do not make or break the story. The only reason you might think you need them is because now they are there. This novella and movie would still be as popular without them.

It is a brilliant story derived from another brilliant story derived from another brilliant story.

The real question people who love the book and the movie have to ask themselves is 'why does this particular story resonate with me and give so much hope?'

King has written some really great short stories as well as epic novels (The Stand being the best of that lot). This however stands out as Kings best work.

King has gotten his touch back with the last 2 novels but the novellas are his best work. Here's to hoping he has a few more of these hiding under the typewriter for us!

Stephen King best short story collection. "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption" is an excellent story with a suprise ending. "Apt Pupil" is a scary novella aboutan old nazi war crimina; and a boy who uncovers his true identity. "The Body" is an exciting novella about four kids who go to try and find the body of a kid who was hit by a train, these three novellas were all made into movies.The last one "the Breathing Method" is bad enough for different seasons to lose points.

King deliberately published these four novellas in one volume as an exercise in mainstream dramatic fiction. "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption" is the lightest and most uplifting of the stories. "Apt Pupil" is deeply and grotesquely disturbing, and "The Body" is a wistful tragedy of a long-gone summer. "The Breathing Method" is a macabre story within a story, a strange tale told in a private men's club well worthy of Lovecraft. King's talents for characterization and mesmerizing plot are on full display here.

I give this book 5 stars only because Stephen King does not deserve anything less. He has never written anything less than 5 stars. However, this book is short stories. I personally prefer longer books. But, just know that it is short stories and not one.

The Novellas found in Different Seasons are a unique blend of wonderful creepy terror we expect from Stephen King. I loved all four and as always can expect something wonderful that will hang with me for many days and more especially nights to come.

Apt Pupil was definitely good, but it was just so disturbing to me that I found myself saying, "Why don't I just forget this story and read the next one?" After that terrible, disgusting cat incident, I almost gave it up. I was really horrified by that and I don't get scared/disgusted/horrified easily.
When Dussander then goes to the Humane Society to "pick out a dog", I actually quickly scanned each page after that to see if anything beyond that sentence ever happens (because there was no way I was reading that...that cat was bad enough but a dog....absolutely no way) but luckily there was no more mention of it.
The other three stories were good, especially The Body. It is what the movie Stand By Me was based on and it's as good as the movie. Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption was a surprisingly good story, especially since the title really turned me off. I enjoyed that one.
So, if it weren't for the animal abuse in Apt Pupil, I would have liked it better but that just really bothered me.

I can say this without a trace of guilt: three out of Different Seasons' four novellas are the best work Stephen King has ever produced. I should know, I've read almost every word he has ever written.

Rita Hayworth And The Shawshank Redemption: Obviously the blueprint for the film, this novella is a story of prison life and one man's journey through the years enduring the fact that he was wrongly accused of his wife's murder. Endearing and clever.

Apt Pupil: What happens when a suburban kid with a fascination for Nazi attrocities finds a war-criminal hiding in his own neighborhood? Apt Pupil will tell you. The darkest of the four Different Seasons' novellas, Apt Pupil takes a grim look at the reality of Halocaust and the terrible curiosities that might lurk in all of us.

The Body: The blueprint for Stand By Me, this is the story of childhood adventures and tragedies. Four friends head off on a trip to find the body of a kid hit by a train so that they can bring him back to town as heroes. Has a kind of Ray Bradbury feel to it. Definitely one of my favorites.

The Breathing Method: Every perfect chain has to have the weakest link, and here it is. Written in the same fashion (about the same gentelmen's club) from The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands (see Night Shift) we have the strange story of a woman and her determination to give birth to her child, even in death. Not a real barn-burner here, just sort of puzzling and odd and very reminiscent of Peter Straub's Ghost Story in its tired flamboyance.

Overall, Different Seasons is awesome! If you haven't read King, this would be a great place to start. Four different kinds of stories in the same book, all showing some new facet of brilliance on King's behalf. If you have read King, you already know about it! Right? One of the best.

Dig it!

Basically, I can just offer you some advice. The best time to read this book is before you have seen any of the movies from which were based upon these stories. My favorite movie of all time is "The Shawshank Redemption" so I expected the story to be a million times better. I spent the entire time I read, comparing the two. The story and the movie are nothing alike with the exception of a handful of names. I found that to be true with the other stories as well for the most part. The most enjoyable story in the book (and possibly the most grusome) was "The Breathing Method." It starts out slow but ends very strongly. But overall, only read this book with the intention to watch the movies afterwards or not at all. That way it should be more enjoyable.

I read this book not knowing that the book included the story, "The Body", which growing up was one of my favorite movies, "Stand By Me". I had bought it to read "The Shawshank Redemption", and was completely taken in by all four of the stories. One of the greatest books i've read in my life. A truly great find.

This book was the second of my start on Stephen King novels . At first I thought they cleaned up the story line when Hollywood turned it into a movie , but contrdictory to Stephen Kings history of gore , this book was by FAR the best book I have EVER read .Thanks Stephen King for writting this outstanding novel . Keep cranking 'em out !!!!

All 4 stories are great, but I especially liked Apt Pupil. The way it was written kept me hooked till the end, which gave me a hell of a surprise! Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption and The Body are so different from King's usual stories that they just sank in. I knew it was gonna be good when i bought it, but not this good!

3 of these 4 stories were turned into Movies; Stand by Me, Shawshank Redemption and Apt Pupil. The last one, "The Breathing Method" is perhaps the best of all his stories.

Each novella is no more than 100 pages, you don't have to sit and read the entire book. Read a novella, put it away, read something else and come back to it later.

Classic King.....simple, evil, spine tingling. Really makes you think

Check it out

3 out of 4 of these novellas were the best that they come.
Shawshank redemption - 5 out of 5
Apt pupil 5out of 5 - i just loved this one, wished it was a novel
the body 5 out of 5- i grew up on the movie( stand by me)

It all started when Todd and his friend were looking for comics in his friend's garage. Todd found his friend's dad's old war magazines. Looking through them, he read in several of them about Kirt Dussander, an old war criminal. He became enthralled. Following up on him, Todd found Dussander right under his nose. He showed up on Dussander's doorstep one day and forced him into telling him what happened in the Concentration Camps during the Hollecost. This is how Todd's deadly obsesion with an old man named Dussander began...
I liked it because it showed what really happened during that time and it went into detail on some of the horrible things they did. It also showed that people were, and still are, really cruel. And it showed that even people with a good home and family can be so cruel.

It was a good book to say the least. I enjoyed The Shawshank redemption, and The Body the most. Both of these stories touched me deep inside. Great stories! The Breathing Method was okay; Apt Pupil was just strange, a little to graphic for me. But I guess, to say the least, it was a pretty good book.

Reading "The Body" makes you feel thoughtful and some incidents are realy ugly . Four boys who live in a problematic situation are between childhood and adulthood and on their journey to find a dead boy they find themselves . If you want to read a novel which connects horror with big feelings like frindship you are right to read this story .

Stephen King can scare people with the best of them and few other authors have proven to be as prolific, but this collection of novellas shows that when he chooses to largely dispense with the supernatural and simply tell stories of humanity, he is truly a gifted writer.

This great Novella from different seasons is very evil, dark, and disturbing. It is about a teenager boy you becomes obsessed with a wanted war criminal nazi. He becomes to turn bad himself, and goes crazy, slowly but surely.
It is a great book especially if you are interested in Hitler and WW2.

More than just a compelling and terrifying read, this book delves into the innate human fascination with the dark side of humanity.
It's interesting how the all-american kid draws himself into a web of darkness, then can't escape from it. I consider this one of King's premiere works.

Different seasons has four different great Novellas in it, Three of which have become movies. Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption and The body are my favorites, and the movie "The Shawshank Redemption is my favorite movie of all time. This is Stephen King's best work!

When I heard Apt Pupil was coming out as a movie I said so what? But then the announcer said "based on the novel by the author of 'Carrie' and 'The Shining'" I thought to myself...."Gee didn't Stephen King write those?" I went to the bookstore. I knew it wasn't a novel by itself, it had to be with a collection of stories, because I had never heard of it. Sure enough I found it with Different Seasons. I read it and even though it was slow at first, by the end King had me wincing when the Nazi war criminal burned a innocent cat alive in his oven. I just returned from the movie and it was very well adapted from the book. Read the book first then go see the movie. Both you will enjoy!

"The Body" is a novel written by Stephen King which shows the growing up of 4 boys from childhood to adulthood. The 4 boys go on a trip after they heard from a dead body lying in the forest. They think that they become heroes when they find the dead body, but in the end they did not become heroes , they become men.
On the trip the characters are confronted with many problems and Stephen King shows us that the 4 boys stay more and more together when they solve a problem. This story is written in a real way and the reader can think themself into the novel because everyone of us grew or will grow up from childhood to adulthood.

I thought "Apt Pupil" wasn't that bad of a read. Its typical Stephen King.Though the story line is good, the end is kind of sketchy.I gave it four stars because of the other stories in the book. "Hope Springs Eternal" is just as good of a read.

Mr. King never disappoints, and although I was slightly bored with The body I loved the other three including Rita Haworth and Shawshank Redemption despite having seen the film version. Great writing by one of the best.

I injoyed every story in this book. I read it when I was younger and the book seemed Very scary then. I especially liked "The Body". I even loved the movie. The other stories were entertaining but "The Body" will always be my favorite.

Rita Hayworth And The Shawshank Redemption and The Body were the best stories in this book. Apt Pupil and The Breathing Method were all right, but could have been much better. Young children would like to read this book to start off with the works of King.

This book contains four (4) short stories: two of them I know for sure were made into Movies: ie: Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redepemtion...I read this book many years ago, but if you like Stephen King, you'll love this book too!

This book really opens the eyes. It makes you realize just how hard it is on both sides of the line and just how ironic life really is. I couldn't put the book down when he shared a hospital room with a former jewish prisoner, that knew the sound of his voice.

Different seasins is one book that will go more graphic by the page. The story of the boy who gets involved with a Neo-Nazi is very disturbing and excellently written. If you liked graphic novels of the disturbing kind, read Different Seasons.

Horror is found everywhere so don't over look it because evil wouldn't over look you. I have to say that this is the best book ever wroten by the master of horror Stephen King.and have a nice day. by Diamonded Reiko Email me at ReikoJarek/Yahoo

The first two stories where the best!!!! The next two will keep your interest. All these stories are nothing you would expect from King. I was quite suprised after finishing the book. This book is for all those people who think that King only writes scarey, horror novels! Those people would be really suprised, just like I was.

I really enjoyed this collection, my favorites being Apt Pupil and The Body, because they had the biggest impact on me. Shawshank and the Breathing Method were still good, though, they just didnt reach me like the other two did. It's very worth the read, so read it!

I was expecting to love this one, but alas I did not. It was dull and uncompelling. The premise itself was excellent--a boy who discovers a Nazi war criminal in his neighborhood and threatens to turn him in if he does not satisfy the boy's morbid curiosity. Unfrotunately, the story as King wrote it fell flat.

I read Apt Pupil twice and both times I was at the edge of my seat. I enjoyed the many twists and turns the story took. All of my frieds who read the book had the same reaction that I had. Mr. King out- did himself with this book

The only thing King has published that I actively dislike. I found it impossible to care about any character and thought the story could have (and should have) been told in about 100 pages. Hollywood might actually fix this one. Flames are directed to my hotmail addy.

This is my favorite Stephen King book. It has his best collection of novellas. His best novella in Different Seasons is called "the Body." It is about 4 boys who decide to go on a quest for a dead body. Read This Book!

This is a very good Stephen King book. I liked reading it. Here are my places of the stories. The Body is the best of them, Rita Hayworth And The Shawshank Redemption is second best, Apt Pupil was the third best, and The Breathing Method was the weakest. Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone. It is well written and very original. I have seen the movies of the first three novellas (The Shawshank Redemption, Apt Pupil, & Stand By Me) I have mentioned and they are excellent movies that do the novellas perfect justice. I recommend that you see the three films right after you have read the novellas.

I was not an avid reader until i had found this book. I had always heard the expression "i couldn't put this book down!" but i had never experienced it until i found Different Seasons. This compilation of novellas is, in my opinion, the greatest experience you will ever get for $7. The proof is in the movies, 3 of the four have been made into movies, with "The Shawshank Redemption" and "Stand By Me" becoming two of the most succesful and endearing movies of our time. I HIGHLY reccomend this book to everyone.Enjoy! ~kari

"Redemption" is the best and "Pupil" is dark, and good too. The Body is OK. I liked the characters and club who told the last story, "Breathing Method" but the story itself was just an average short story.

The novella Apt Pupil touches bases with many people who take the time to read the story. It fouces mainly on the relationship between Todd and Dunker, the way each of them try to out due each other and the fight for control is always on the front. The novella is much better than the movie and it helps you understand better the way the boy and the old man manage to get along even though they hate each other emensly. It opens a whole new world to people who are living in a glass bubble and think that stuff like this is impossible...Stephen King brings it right into your living room. It's wonderful and everyone should read it!

A collection of stories that prove King is not just a horror writer. Each one is a treat. I especially love Shawshank Redemption and Apt Pupil. For any King lover and anyone who loves literature for that matter.

I felt that this is one of the lesser King efforts. Everyone likes the Shawshank Redemption but it infuriates me due to the writing flaw of too much coincidence and luck. Frequently King wraps things up too neatly, his characters SUDDENLY know exactly what to do as if a lightbulb goes off or something. These stories are really long, which is not a flaw in itself, but they just aren't interesting or exciting in any way. Its a weak effort at best, and one should read Night Shift or Skeleton Crew instead.

I guess the challenge of writing a good story is to keep intact the thread of surprize throughout the narrative. In that sense I found the first story "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption" the best. The other thing is it is written in a convincing style - that of a convict - smooth flowing and direct. What amazed me was the contrast in writing style when he writes the "Breathing Method", which is narrated by a person in many ways the opposite of the convict character. Mr. King is truely a gifter writer.

The person who said that ''Rita Hayworth And The Shawshank Redemption'' was bad, you're right. ''Rita Hayworth''... was extremely horrible. If it had more dialogue in it, it probably would've been better.

Above all Stephen King is my hero, i love every book of his that I've ever read, two short stories that put chills on my spine are "the boogie man" and "the man in the black suit" i absolutely LOVE them. i bought this because i sadly regret saying that i had never read these out of the fifty or more others that i have read, I'm really looking forward to being blown away!

~ROBYN~

There are 4 short stories in Different Seasons and all 4 of them are great. Three of them were turned into really good movies; Apt Pupil, Stand By Me, and Shawshank Redemption. But, here, you get to actually read the words the words that Stephen King wrote and you get to feel the tempo and timing. It is a must read. It is probably one of his overall best books.