Reading Journal 🎈 Stephen King's IT (Part 1)

TW: Brief mention of suicide

We were at Goodwill, perusing among the shelves, when Jack leaned down and plucked a volume free. “Here,” he said, handing the book over: It by Stephen King. The black dust jacket was worn, but the illustrations were still bright. A newspaper boat sailed eternally toward a sewer grate. I immediately dropped it into our cart.

It squatted toad-like on my shelf for the next year. I eyed its bulky spine as I passed it on my way to and from the kitchen half a dozen times each day, wondering how and when I’d find the time. Once a volume surpasses a certain page count, it begins to feel less like a fun and flirty literary tryst and more like the heavy promise of commitment.

I’m a little ashamed to admit that It also threatened to fuck up my numbers. My towering TBR and addiction to hunting for used books like a truffle pig has put a little more tension into my annual readings goals, which started as a modest attempt to claw back some of my attention from Twitter. Each time I finish a book, I reward myself with the dopamine hit of logging it in a special notebook. I’ve been keeping track of my reading every year since 2019.

But because I’m me—ambitious and competitive with myself—it didn’t take long for my annual goal number began to creep up and up and up.

In a recent vlog, video essayist Mina Le reflected on the way productivity can corrupt our sense of curiosity and our ability to truly sit with the books we read. “I feel like I’ve had this habit of trying to make my leisure time more productive,” she mused. “I’ll be like, I want to watch this many movies or read this many books this year, and have these numbers alone be the standing achievement for my year. It doesn’t really make sense, because there are some books are 800 pages, and there are other books that are 100 pages long. But they’re weighed equally when we’re like, I just want to read 50 books this year.”

BookTok also contributes to my desire to gamify my reading. I constantly see videos like: “24-hour readathon with me!!” accompanied by a stack of four or five or ten novels. “How I read 20-30 books in a month—without slumping!” It seems like the people who post on BookTok are able to achieve a pace that simply isn’t possible for me. I’m reminded of Jia Tolentino’s classic essay, “Always Be Optimizing.”

This velocity is also not the norm. According to the US Census Bureau, American adults are reading less for pleasure each year. The percentage of adults who read at least one book in the past year fell from nearly 55% in 2012 to just under 49% in 2022. But even this metric is imperfect; what counts as one book, anyway? The publishing industry generally seems to gravitate toward novels that are in the neighborhood of 250-350 pages, making It something like 3.6 “standard” novels.

(Also, is it possible that the people posting these videos about reading 200+ books per year are lying? Am I naive to feel scandalized by that? It’s 100% true that some people are super fast readers, and I think that’s great, but surely there can’t be so many people who manage to do this.)

Eddie Bauer Rain Slicker | Balloon Stock Image | Audobon Guide

Anyway. In late 2024, I decided enough was enough. I would not finish the year without tackling It. Somehow, I’d avoided most spoilers and knew very little about the story. I wasn’t particularly afraid of clowns, but I was open to the idea of a new phobia. The crushing grief I felt after losing my mother had lifted somewhat, but as we approached the first anniversary of her suicide, it felt like the right time to take on a project that would bridge the gap between that particular before and after.

I hadn’t really looked at my thrifted copy of It until I flipped it open one Sunday night in October. I love to study the copyright pages in used books, primarily to check the edition. In this case: 1986. I scanned the fine print for more information, trying to find the printing. A bookplate sticker on the inside cover told me it had belonged to Diane, who also dated it 1986. There was no other date listed.

I grabbed my phone and opened Google. “when was it by stephen king published,” I tapped. “1986,” came the answer. “first edition it,” I typed. There was my copy, in miniature, on the screen. 

I was floored. “how many copies of it first printing,” I inelegantly inquired. The answer: 800,000, with a list price of $22.95. (About $66 in 2024! According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. The price actually went up by $2.60 while I was working on this draft.) The publisher, Viking, severely underestimated demand and produced five printings before the book’s release date. Diane had purchased one of these, it had ended up in a donation bin, and now it was mine. 

She had clearly read it well. The spine is worn and loose from repeated handling, the dust jacket scuffed and battered. A patina of grime formed on the edges of the pages, and once in a while a coffee-colored thumbprint is stamped on a corner. I’m a reader, not a reseller, and I like to collect horror items here and there. (I’ll happily do a collection tour if anyone feels nosy! I love seeing those.) It feels very special to have a first edition, printed back when it was still unclear whether King had a hit or a flop on his hands.

And so, a little anxious for reasons related and unrelated to the horrors of Derry and its sewer-dwelling clown, I began to read It.

Read With Me!

As I read It for about six weeks last fall, I wrote my thoughts and reflections in real time. I divided the book into four sections, each roughly 250 to 350 pages long. In the coming weeks, I’ll share those thoughts with you—less stream of consciousness, and more plucking out scenes, themes, or ideas that resonated with me.

I’ll send out the first one in about two weeks, covering the first 250 pages, and continue a few weeks later. That way, you’ll have time to read the next bunch of pages. If you’ve been meaning to read It, now is a great time!

I’d also love to hear from anyone who wants to bask in the It nostalgia with me, and since I’m not reading in real time, you won’t have to worry about spoiling anything.

If It isn’t your thing, that’s okay too! I’ll interrupt this series with other newsletters on non-It topics.

Scare Me! logo by Sam Pugh