Recently, Stephen King was quoted as saying about bestselling mormon vampire romance author Stephenie Meyer:

“Stephenie Meyer can’t write worth a darn. She’s not very good.”

I thought that was a pretty bold statement from a very famous public figure, and decided to see what else he might have to say.

Most of Mr. King’s books aren’t really my thing (exceptions: Misery, The Shining, The Running Man, Thinner (the gypsy with the rotting nose haunted my dreams when I was about 12), The Stand, Carrie….huh, I like more than I thought), so I was pleasantly surprised to find that I really like his writing in his Entertainment Weekly (he does a column called ‘The Pop of King’).

I found it engaging, funny, thought-provoking, decisive and interesting. So it occurs to me that maybe it’s not Stephen King’s writing that leaves me a bit cold, but the genre itself. I love horror movies, but I think perhaps I’ve outgrown horror books.

Anyway, I really loved a lot of what he had to say. Here are some Stephen King quotes I particularly enjoyed.

On bestselling books:
“I believe that 70 percent of the fiction and nonfiction best-seller lists is dreck, and that ”The Da Vinci Code,” by Dan Brown, stands as a prime example.”

On movie snacks:
“My candy of choice is Junior Mints. And while I don’t bring bootleg food into the movies, I do bring bootleg toothpicks. Then, as I relax in my seat, I take a toothpick and poke five or six Junior Mints onto it. It ends the dreaded Chocolate Hand, and it’s also kind of fun to eat candy off a stick. I call them Mint-Kebabs.”

On chicklit vs. manfiction:
“Women like stories in which a gal meets a handsome (and possibly dangerous) hunk on a tropic isle; men like to imagine going to war against an army of bad guys with a Beretta, a blowtorch, and a submachine gun (grenades hung on the belt optional).”

On blogs:
“…a place where, as a rule, the self-appointed critics eat their young.”

On why no Harry Potter reviews ever did the books justice:
“In their hurry to churn out column inches, and thus remain members of good standing in the Church of What’s Happening Now, very few of the Potter reviewers have said anything worth remembering. They take a perfunctory wave at things like plot and language, but do little more…and really, how can they? When you have only four days to read a 750-page book, then write an 1,100-word review on it, how much time do you have to really enjoy the book? Rowling set out a sumptuous seven-course meal, carefully prepared, beautifully cooked, and lovingly served out. The kids and adults who fell in love with the series (I among them) savored every mouthful, from the appetizer (Sorcerer’s Stone) to the dessert (the gorgeous epilogue of Deathly Hallows). Most reviewers, on the other hand, bolted everything down, then obligingly puked it back up half-digested on the book pages of their respective newspapers.”

On movies he didn’t care for:
“Hated ”Antwone Fisher”; ditto ”The Life of David Gale.” Don’t tell me the former is better than the latter, and don’t throw a bunch of sentimental tripe at me and call it social commentary. ”Antwone Fisher” is especially annoying in this regard, a $9 Hallmark card that amounts to ”Roses are red, Violets are blue, Life is tough, But you’ll get through.” I knew that already, thanks, now go away.”

On great writers:
“I think Elmore Leonard is the great American writer…but that he was a lot better 10 years ago. I think that if you haven’t read Stewart O’Nan, Peter Robinson (the Alan Banks mysteries), Peter Abrahams, or the early novels of Dennis Lehane, you have some catching up to do.”

On politics (pre-election):
“Barack Obama looks like the grave and intelligent news anchor on a major-market station. John McCain, on the other hand, looks like the slightly dotty commentator who rants about the local sports teams and obscure bond issues on a small-market station.”

On The Road by Cormac McCarthy:
“Simple, stripped to the bare bones, this story of a man’s effort to keep his son alive and to find any place of refuge in the wake of a great disaster is the finest achievement of McCarthy’s career. I thought it was almost the perfect narrative — spare in its beauty and constantly driven forward by its own interior urgency. Impossible to put down, in other words. “

On his wishlist for 2009:
“I wish for a year during which no talented young [people] die before they can realize their full potential. No Heath Ledgers, please; what a sickening shock it was to hear that on the radio. No David Foster Wallaces, either. We need all the bright lights we can get, because the world is too dark already. “

He says, “Both Rowling and Meyer, they’re speaking directly to young people… The real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephenie Meyer can’t write worth a darn. She’s not very good.

“It’s very clear that she’s writing to a whole generation of girls and opening up kind of a safe joining of love and sex in those books. It’s exciting and it’s thrilling and it’s not particularly threatening because it’s not overtly sexual.

“A lot of the physical side of it is conveyed in things like the vampire will touch her forearm or run a hand over skin, and she just flushes all hot and cold. And for girls, that’s a shorthand for all the feelings that they’re not ready to deal with yet.”

It seems the French agree with Mr. King, at least in part, offering JK Rowling a place in the French Foreign Leigon

So you can understand my immediate dismissal of Stephenie Meyer‘s books, despite their steady climb (more like a rocket, really) to the top of Bestseller lists, despite the instant movie, despite the meyer-mania that consumed fans everywhere, desperate for more of their butterscotch-eyed vampire hero, Edward Cullen, and the ordinary highschooler to whom he has taken a serious shine: Bella Swan.

In my work here at AbeBooks I spend a lot of time paying attention to books. What’s selling, who’s reading what, what’s making a splash, what’s going to be the next big thing, and the Twilight series’ success and associated near-hysteria was eerily reminiscent of the Harry Potter phenomenon.

And just like with Harry Potter, I refused to read “children’s” books, or a book I thought would be beneath my reading level, not enjoyable to me, not challenging – a waste of time. And just like with Harry Potter, more and more of my friends and colleagues guiltily came out of the closet as fans. I remember a friend – I had thought a good, and trusted friend – with her eyes downcast and her lower lip trembling, whispering “I just wish Quidditch was real,” to me. What the hell was Quidditch?!? I grudgingly set out to decide for myself whether any of the fuss was worth it.

It was. O, Hogsmeade, Hedwig, Honeydukes, Hippogriffs, Hagrid, Hermione, Hogwarts! HARRY! I was immediately impressed, and hooked.

So when three separate, adult (one even older than I!) friends admitted their love of the Twilight series (I had one friend drive hours out of her way and have her car end up in a ditch, just to visit Forks, WA for her very own self), and I kept seeing those names at the top of every list, I gave in, and figured maybe it would be just like Harry Potter, and despite my snobbery and misgivings, I would love the books.

Not so. (WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! If you’ve not read Twilight, and care about it, stop reading).

I don’t loathe them as much as I expected, to be fair. I don’t even dislike them. But I will say, the writing is very young, both in tone, and in the characterization. It is more breathy romance than I personally can stomach – a lot of “he emitted a throaty chuckle” and “my head swam as his ice-cold lips pressed against mine” and “the beating of his heart made me feel more safe yet in more danger” and the like. I’m amazed I was able to read clearly with all the eye-rolling I was doing.

That said, I can see the appeal. As a love interest, Edward Cullen has a lot of attractive qualities. He’s breathtakingly gorgeous, for one thing (natch), he’s fast and strong and good at everything he tries. He’s moody and broody and eyebrow-knitty and downturned-sexy-lips-y. His eyes range in colour from the palest gold to almost black (see above note re: moody and broody). He loves Bella, who is clumsy, and fairly ordinary, and insecure and a regular highschooler. And he loves her with the kind of passion, romance and relentless devotion that women (okay, fine, I) crave, deep down in our most embarrassing places.

One thing that bugs me is that one of the universally (to my knowledge) accepted traits of a vampire is the inability to go out during daylight, lest they become incinerated. Stephenie Meyer, who I suppose found that inconvenient to Bella and Edward’s romantic development, waved it away with her omniscient writer-wand, and explains it by having Edward say “oh, right, yeah, that’s a myth,” and then emit a throaty chuckle. Far too convenient. In her book, vampires aren’t incinerated by the sun, but they DO have to be careful, because bright sun makes them glitter and sparkle (yes, seriously), and a vampire can’t be too careful to not look pretty. Otherwise people might go around trying to braid their hair and dress them up, instead of, you know, fleeing in terror and being drained of all their blood.

Another irritation is that when we are first introduced to Bella, she is painted as bright, stubborn, determined, capable, and above all, fiercely independent, but by the end of the first book, she’s begging Edward to suck her blood so she can be immortal with him forever and ever, then sulks when he refuses. Not becoming to the heroine, really.

All in all, there’s some good sexual and romantic tension, some decent narration and description of the gorgeous Pacific Northwest towns of Forks and Port Angeles, and enough interesting plot twists and turns to keep reading. It is for me, what I call an airplane read: If I read it on a long flight, I would enjoy it and be interested to turn the page, but wouldn’t mind leaving it on the plane for the next person.

My friend did lend me all four, though… I may as well read them just to find out what happens.

BookNet Canada has released their list of bestselling books in Canada for 2008. As with most bestseller lists for the past year, you’ll see that Stephenie Meyer dominates:

Top 5 Overall

1. A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose, Eckhart Tolle
2. Twilight, Stephenie Meyer
3. Breaking Dawn, Stephenie Meyer
4. Eclipse, Stephenie Meyer
5. New Moon, Stephenie Meyer

Top 5 Canadian Authored

1. A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose, Eckhart Tolle
2. The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment, Eckhart Tolle
3. The Shack: Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity, William Paul Young
4. The Book of Negroes, Lawrence Hill
5. Late Nights on Air, Elizabeth Hay

See more of the BookNet Canada lists on the National Post website.

Visit the AbeBooks Canada site.

Amidst the promotion hubbub for her movie someone snapped up a set of the Twilight series first editions (four in total) for $4000; no small feat considering the latter two books (Eclipse and Breaking Dawn) were printed in such vast numbers that their contribution to that sum is somewhat of a pittance.

Anyone with a signed Stephenie Meyer should consider themselves lucky as I don’t expect her to do many more book signings, and there are only a few copies of Meyer’s signature available on the market.