- Date Published:
2011 - Length:
849 pages—Listening Time: 30 hr 40 minutes - Genre:
Fiction, Historical Fiction, Science Fiction, Horror - Setting:
Late 1950s-60s and 2011; Lisbon Falls, Maine; Jodie, Texas; and Dallas, Texas - Awards:
Los Angeles Times Book Prize Winner Mystery/Thriller 2011; Locus Award Finalist Science Fiction Novel 2012; World Fantasy Award Nominee 2012; British Fantasy Award Nominee 2012; RUSA CODES Reading List Shortlist Science Fiction 2013; Bad Sex in Fiction Award Shortlist 2011; International Thriller Writers Award Winner 2012; Goodreads Choice Awards Winner Science Fiction 2011; Amazon.com Best Books Mystery & Thrillers 2011; Publishers Weekly Bestseller Fiction 2011; Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year Fiction: The Top 25 2011; The New York Times Best Books of the Year 2011; Locus Recommended Reading Novel Science Fiction 2011; New York Times bestseller Fiction 2011; The A.V. Club best books 2011; 1000 Books to Read Before You Die; Globe and Mail Top 100 Book International Fiction 2011; 100 Best Books of 2010-2015 by The Oyster Editors; Quintessential American Fiction, According to the Rest of the World; 100 best novels of the 21st century according to Afisha magazine - Languages:
Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian - Sensitive Aspects:
Domestic abuse, misogyny, racism, murder, sexual content, medical trauma, injury detail, sexism, racial slurs, strong violence, child abuse, gun violence, terminal illness, animal cruelty, alcoholism, suicide, antisemitism, religious bigotry, stalking, blood, cancer, and explicit language - Movie:
The television rights to Stephen King's 2011 novel 11/22/63 were acquired by J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot Productions, leading to the creation of the 2016 Hulu miniseries. - Recommended for Book Club:
Yes, but be aware of the length of this book
Tomorrow is 11/22/25. I've been waiting for a while to write this book review, which has more punch when you look forward at your calendar to tomorrow's date and reflect back to where you were on November 22, 1963.
It was a crisp November morning at the Carrollton, Texas, Elementary School, the kind where the air smells like fallen leaves and the playground echoes with the shrieks of third graders who haven’t yet learned the art of subtlety. We were outside for morning recess, chasing each other across the blacktop, building forts out of sticks, and the most significant drama was whether jump rope or kickball would rule the day. We were halfway through a rowdy game, just waiting for the bell to yank us back inside, noses red from the chilly air. Except—the bell never rang.
It got weird quick. We shuffled around, looked for teachers, and wondered if maybe this was some top-secret reward for good behavior (spoiler: it wasn’t). Eventually, one by one, we trailed inside, giggling at first, but there was a heaviness in the hallway air that muffled our assumed recess reward. We made our way to our desks and just sat there for quite a while, not exactly sure what was going on.
Eventually our teacher, Mrs. Martin, entered, her face pale, her eyes red and swollen. She looked as if she’d aged ten years in the last hour. When she finally spoke, her voice was shaky, almost a whisper: “President Kennedy has been shot. He’s dead.” The room went silent. Even the class clown was quiet. No one knew what to say.
Some kids started crying. Others just stared, confused. I remember thinking, how can a president die? Presidents are supposed to be invincible, like superheroes. My parents had planned to pull us out of school to travel 16 miles down Interstate 35 to downtown Dallas to see a real, live president, a hero, but they ultimately decided not to go. That day, history didn’t feel like something you read about in a textbook. It happened 16 miles down the road, during our recess time, but it felt like it was happening right there, in our classroom, in our lives.
That moment, that collective shock, is what Stephen King captures so brilliantly in 11/22/63. He doesn’t just retell the story of JFK’s assassination; he makes you feel it. He transports you back to that day, capturing the confusion, the grief, and the sense of a world in turmoil. And he does it with a level of research that’s nothing short of epic. King spent years digging into the details—the politics, the culture, and the everyday lives of people in the early 1960s. He doesn’t just write about the past; he immerses you in it. You can smell the cigarette smoke in the diner, hear the crackle of the radio, and feel the weight of the era pressing down on you.
But 11/22/63 isn’t just a history lesson. It’s a story about time, about choices, and about the ripple effects of our actions. King proves, once again, that he’s more than just a horror writer. He’s a storyteller who can make you laugh, cry, and think—all in the same book. If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to change the course of history, to step into the past and try to make things right, this is the book for you. It’s not just a novel; it’s an experience. And trust me, you’ll want to be part of it.
Imagine stepping into the grimy back room of a nothing-special Maine diner and finding, not bags of frozen fries, but a doorway that always spits you out on the same sunny day in 1958. That’s the problem dropped in the lap of Jake Epping, a tired, thirty‑something high school English teacher whose life has settled into that gray, post‑divorce shuffle of grading papers and heating up lonely TV dinners. His friend Al, the diner’s owner, has been quietly using that portal for years—and now, dying of cancer, he hands Jake a mission so outrageous it sounds like a drunken bar bet: go back, live in the past, and stop the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Here’s the twist: the rabbit hole doesn’t drop Jake neatly into 1963 Dallas. It dumps him five years earlier, which means he has to build an entirely new life in late‑’50s America while slowly stalking the orbit of a bitter ex‑Marine named Lee Harvey Oswald. Before Jake can even worry about Dealey Plaza, he runs a smaller experiment—trying to prevent a horrific Halloween night murder that shaped the life of his adult‑ed student, Harry Dunning—and learns, the hard way, that changing one thing in the past has a nasty habit of twisting something else in the present.
So Jake becomes “George Amberson,” a man with a suspiciously vague backstory who drifts down to small‑town Texas, picks up a job teaching, and promptly falls in love with the life he’s supposed to treat like a temporary disguise. That life includes Sadie Dunhill, an awkward, funny, resilient school librarian running from an abusive marriage, who has no idea the nice new teacher she’s flirting with is secretly tracking one of history’s most infamous gunmen. Their romance isn’t just a subplot; it’s the emotional engine that keeps asking the question the mission doesn’t want Jake to ask: if you finally find your place in the world, do you really walk away from it for the sake of history.
Meanwhile, the past does not behave like a neutral backdrop. It pushes back—hard. Freak accidents, near‑misses, inexplicable resistance: it’s as if time itself is allergic to being rewritten, especially when those rewrites involve something as monumental as JFK’s motorcade in Dallas. As November 22, 1963, crawls closer, Jake is juggling surveillance of Oswald, a town that depends on him, and a woman who loves him, all while his own memory and sanity start to fray under the strain of living a double life.
By the time the clock runs down to that famous date, 11/22/63 isn’t just a “what if Kennedy lived?” thought experiment; it’s a deeply human story about consequences, sacrifice, and the terrible math of choosing between one beloved person and millions of strangers you’ll never meet. If you like your time travel messy, your history alive with cigarette smoke and jukeboxes, and your heart a little bruised by the last page, this is the kind of big, old‑fashioned, time‑bending love story that’s going to stay with you long after you close the book.
I am confident that most Readers With Wrinkles followers will love this book. Here's why:
It’s a time-travel story that actually makes sense
Forget the usual sci-fi mumbo-jumbo about wormholes and paradoxes. King grounds his time-travel in real emotion and rules you can follow. You’ll actually understand how it works—and care deeply about what happens when it does.
History feels alive, not like a textbook
The 1950s and early ’60s sparkle here: jukeboxes, cracked Formica counters, and the uneasy hum of a country on the edge of change. You don’t just read about the past—you visit it, right down to the scent of cigarette smoke in a diner booth.
It’s romantic, but not in a syrupy way
The love story between Jake and Sadie might be one of King’s finest surprises. It feels earned, tender, messy, and entirely human. When history tries to tear them apart, you’ll find yourself arguing with time itself.
It asks big “what if” questions without losing heart
What if you could stop JFK’s assassination? Should you? What happens when we try to “fix” the past? King wrestles with these questions in a way that sticks with you—and sparks the kind of late-night book club debates that spill over into breakfast.
It’s proof that Stephen King is more than horror
Sure, he's the master of nightmares, but this book trades ghosts for goosebumps of a different kind. The suspense comes from choices, not monsters, and you’ll walk away realizing the scariest thing might be fate itself.
It’s long—but worth every page
Don’t let the heft scare you off. This is a story to sink into, with King’s trademark pacing that quietly turns 800 pages into a weekend gone missing. Think of it as a slow dance with time rather than a sprint through terror.
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Each of these novels offers a blend of time travel, historical fiction, or alternate reality, capturing themes of fate, consequence, and immersive storytelling similar to 11/22/63.
- Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
A WWII nurse is mysteriously transported to 18th-century Scotland, where she becomes entangled in passionate romance and political intrigue, blending rich history with time travel adventure. - Time and Again by Jack Finney
A classic time travel novel in which a man is sent back to late 19th-century New York City, immersing readers in period detail and historical atmosphere while exploring the impact of the past on the present. - Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
This gripping science fiction classic follows Dana, a Black woman from the 1970s, as she’s repeatedly pulled back to antebellum Maryland, confronting slavery and the complexities of history with a unique time travel twist. - Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
Jason Dessen is hurled into alternate realities where he must navigate the consequences of choices across parallel universes in this mind-bending, emotional thriller about love, identity, and what it means to exist. - Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
A historian travels to 14th-century England during the Black Death, only to be trapped there; the novel masterfully contrasts modern and medieval worlds while exploring themes of survival and the importance of history. - The Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove
An alternate history in which the Confederacy is gifted AK-47s during the Civil War, challenging the course of American history—similar to King’s interest in “what if?” scenarios and historical consequences. - The River of No Return by Bee Ridgway
Modern and historical timelines collide in this fast-paced tale where a woman joins a secret society of time travelers tasked with protecting the timeline, blending romance, espionage, and historical drama. - The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes
A dark and twisty thriller about a time-traveling serial killer who targets talented women across Chicago’s history, combining noir with supernatural elements and a meditation on fate. - All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai
Set in a utopian future radically changed by a single moment in 1965, this novel explores the ripple effects of time travel after the protagonist alters history and finds himself in the less-perfect reality of today. - Fatherland by Robert Harris
An alternative history thriller set in a world where Nazi Germany won WWII, a detective stumbles upon a conspiracy that could change the course of history, echoing the suspense and grand stakes of 11/22/63.
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