Book Bearings
Cover of 11/22/63 by Stephen King

11/22/63

  • 849 pages · about 14 hours
  • First published 2011
  • 50 editions

Bookshop.org links may earn us a commission. It supports independent bookstores and costs you nothing.

1 About this book

Jake Epping, a divorced high-school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, is shown a secret by his friend Al, who owns the local diner: at the back of the pantry is a way into the past, and it always opens on the same day in September 1958. Al, who is gravely ill, has a mission he can no longer carry out himself, and he passes it to Jake: live in the past until 1963 and prevent the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Jake goes through and begins a second life in the America of the late 1950s, keeping watch on Lee Harvey Oswald as the date comes nearer. Stephen King's novel was published in 2011.

  • Alternative history
  • Fantasy
  • Assassination
  • Time travel
  • Alternative histories

2 What to expect

A time-travel novel: a schoolteacher from 2011 steps into 1958 and settles in to wait for the chance to stop the Kennedy assassination. Much of the book is his life in the past, a small town, a teaching job and a love story, drawn with great period detail, alongside his watch on Oswald. It is very long and unhurried in the middle, suspenseful near the close, and more a romance and historical novel than horror.

Good for readers who want: time travel, 1960s America, and a love story with suspense.

3 About Stephen King

Born 1947

Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author. Dubbed the "King of Horror", he is widely known for his horror fiction and has also explored other genres, among them suspense, crime, science-fiction, fantasy, and mystery. In a career spanning six decades, he has written approximately 200 short stories, most of which have been published in collections.

Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

4 More by Stephen King

5 Similar books

Find a book that fits your moment