Duma Key
by Stephen King
★ Top 25 book of 2008 · #17 on Best Books of 2008
Published by Scribner on January 22, 2008, Stephen King's Duma Key reached number one on the New York Times Best Seller List. It is also his first novel set in Florida and/or Minnesota.
Best for: Stephen King readers who enjoy his bestselling novels and new settings
Duma Key is #17 on BookWard's Best Books of 2008, out of 46 2008 books that cleared our data bar.
What Duma Key is about
Edgar Freemantle was a successful building contractor in Minnesota until a terrible accident at a worksite crushed his truck and took his right arm. The injuries to his head scrambled his speech, his sight and his memory, and his anger and despair drove his wife to file for divorce. Following the advice of his psychologist, he rents a beach house on Duma Key, off the Florida coast, and picks up a pencil again.
The drawing comes back to him strangely strong. He gets to know an elderly heiress whose mind is slipping and the man who looks after her, and he starts producing paintings that seem to see more than he does. One series shows a ship with a figure in a red cloak, a little closer to land each time. Slow, eerie and full of loss, it is a story about rebuilding a life and about what an old place remembers. It was Stephen King's first novel set in Florida, and it reached the top of the New York Times list.
Duma Key on the Best Books of 2008
Duma Key came out in 2008. Of the 46 books first published in 2008 that met BookWard's data bar, it ranks #17 on our Best Books of 2008 list.
Why it made the list: 349 readers have shelved it on Open Library; readers rate it 4 out of 5 (53 ratings). The list ranks each year’s books on how many readers have picked them up, how highly readers rate them, and how many are reading them right now.
Nearby on the 2008 list
- The Knife of Never Letting Go Patrick Ness, #15
- The Tales of Beedle the Bard J. K. Rowling, #16
- Anathem Neal Stephenson, #18
- I Love My New Toy! (Elephant and Piggie) Mo Willems, #19
See all Best Books of 2008 Best books by year
More years: Best Books of 2007 Best Books of 2009.
The numbers behind it
- Readers: 247 want to read it, 14 are reading it now and 88 have read it, according to Open Library.
- Ratings: 4 out of 5 from 53 Open Library ratings.
| Signal | This book (0 to 100) | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Reach | 67 | 55% |
| Reader love | 39 | 25% |
| Being read right now | 59 | 20% |
Questions about Duma Key
When was Duma Key published?
Duma Key by Stephen King was first published in 2008.
Was Duma Key one of the best books of 2008?
Duma Key is #17 on BookWard's Best Books of 2008, out of 46 2008 books that cleared our data bar. 349 readers have shelved it on Open Library; readers rate it 4 out of 5 (53 ratings).
Why is Duma Key on the Best Books of 2008 list?
349 readers have shelved it on Open Library; readers rate it 4 out of 5 (53 ratings).
More of the best books of 2008
- The Hunger Games Suzanne Collins, #1
- End of Days Sylvia Browne, #2
- The Last Straw Jeff Kinney, #3
- Amulet Kazu Kibuishi, #4
- Outliers Malcolm Gladwell, #5
- Michelle Obama in Her Own Words Michelle Obama, #6
See the full Best Books of 2008, the Top 100, or new books on Rising.
How we know
This page uses public data: Open Library reader counts and ratings, and Wikipedia page views for recent years. The description is paraphrased from real source text. Rankings reflect reading interest, not quality or sales, and can be affected by data gaps. Lists update monthly.
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