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  • Needful Things

  • Written by: Stephen King
  • Narrated by: Stephen King
  • Length: 25 hrs and 11 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (449 ratings)

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Needful Things cover art

Needful Things

Written by: Stephen King
Narrated by: Stephen King
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Publisher's Summary

Stephen King's number-one national best seller about a store where Leland Gaunt can sell you whatever your heart desires - sexual pleasure, wealth, power, or even more precious things - but not without exacting some price in return.

Leland Gaunt opens a new shop in Castle Rock called Needful Things. Anyone who enters his store finds the object of his or her lifelong dreams and desires: a prized baseball card, a healing amulet. In addition to a token payment, Gaunt requests that each person perform a little "deed", usually a seemingly innocent prank played on someone else from town. These practical jokes cascade out of control, and soon the entire town is doing battle with itself. Only Sheriff Alan Pangborn suspects that Gaunt is behind the population's increasingly violent behavior.

Praised as "tremendous...wonderful...one of King's best" (Kirkus Reviews).

©1991 Stephen King (P)1991 Penguin Highbridge Audio

What the critics say

"A read in the tradition of The Stand." ( Booklist)

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What listeners say about Needful Things

Average Customer Ratings
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Fantastic Narration from Stephen King

Great book, better than i remember from when i read it over a decade ago. Stephen King does an amazing job reading his work, so i will definitely check out more of his performances.

A+

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5 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Previous reviews left me skeptic but was pleasantly surprised.

This is one of my favourite King books and I’m glad I gave it a listen. I was kind of skeptical based on previous reviews about the music and synth but I enjoyed it for the most part! There’s something inherently late 80s/early 90s about it and it was cool to see some characters like Ace get their own theme song so to say. I enjoyed the bell tinkling and the rock music playing at the Elvis parts made me laugh. Sometimes the music came at weird parts that made me understand why some people would feel it was unnecessary but overall not as bad as people were talking about.

There was a few mic quality issues near the end but nothing I couldn’t handle. Hearing Mr. King read it aloud was great, he’s the author so he knows the tone he wants to set for his book so it was really enjoyable overall.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

terrible background music

i love the book but this was a terrible recording- i couldn't figure out what the background voices were until i realized it was an overlap of audio and as others have said the music is terrible

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Stephen King gives us every thing we need.

Fun, scary, creepy. King doesnt disappoint. Always cool to have the author read as well. Everything gets delivered as he wanted it to.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

An Entertaining Listen

I read this story when it was first published, but it was just as good the second time around. It was suspenseful and hard to put down. I especially enjoyed Stephen King's narration. He really brought the characters to life.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Definitely not a favorite.

There are musical cues used in the audio that definately detract from the story overall.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

A slow-burn

King builds the tension in Castle Rock beautifully. When it eventually erupts, the violence feels earned as well as entertaining. The final moments of the story feel a little anti-climatic, but overall it's a very entertaining listen!

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Very entertaining

Was great that it read by the author, loved the story, definitely kept my interest the whole way through ,

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Not this one

I usually love Stephen King books and stories, but i found this absolutely terrible. Sorry to say, but just not good.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent !

Nice to hear it read by the author himself. This way you get to hear it the way he intended .

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