The Shining

Jack Torrance needs a fresh start. A failed teacher and recovering alcoholic with a temper he cannot always hold, he takes a job as winter caretaker of the Overlook Hotel, high in the Colorado Rockies, and brings his wife Wendy and five-year-old son Danny with him. Once the snows close the roads, the three of them will be alone for months in a grand, empty building with a long and ugly history.

Danny has a gift he calls the shining, a way of seeing things others cannot, and the Overlook has a great deal to show him. King builds the dread slowly, through cabin fever, a marriage under strain and a father's love curdling into something else. For anyone who likes their horror rooted in real people and real fears, this is a classic that still leaves the hallways feeling a little too long.