An interesting collection of interviews (many of which I hadn't seen or read before) about King's life, writing, and perspective on horror. While some of the interviews are repetitive (in particular, all the interviewers ask the same question about Kubrick's The Shining) others get deep into King's history, motivations, and interests and offer greater insight into the author than I was expecting.

Fun to how SK’s musings, opinions, and personal goals hold up in the intervening years.
Nice addition to my collection.

This is a great collection of interviews. I find Stephen King to be a very fascinating person, and this book is a wealth of knowledge for fans, and even those who aren’t fans, to gain insight into the way his mind works, his writing style, and his options on various other topics. There was some repetition, but that was to be expected due to the format. I really enjoyed reading this!

Decent collection of interviews. Self-professed repetitive due to copyright issues aka they had to run entire pieces so you get some of the same anecdotes and a few too many slightly varied dismissive comments about Kubrick's The Shining. The biggest thing I got out of this book is a thread of discussion about an adaptation of The Stand that he and George Romero were going to do together, and this sent me down a path of all of George Romero's unfinished or cancelled works and there's a lot of ideas in that list.

When I picked up this book, I had hoped for some more essays from King, because I truly believe he is one of the best essayists alive. Instead this was a collection of interviews and television appearances, which brought out its own unique insight into the King of Horror.

I will say that there are interviews that just drag (probably would have been better to just see them), and there are many points that ended up repeating itself, but if you want to glimpse behind the curtain, Bare Bones is a good place to start.
informative reflective relaxing medium-paced

⭐️⭐️⭐️
Critical Score: B-
Personal Score: B+

King has hinted that a lot of his interview answers of yore are bullshit. So when reading this, you gotta wonder. Because he comes across as so honest and authentic, but there are times when you can tell he’s sideswiping, exaggerating, or putting on an act (mostly out of humility). I even noticed once that he contradicted himself when sharing the same anecdote in separate interviews. I don’t like the thought that this book has a lot of BS in it, but I can’t do anything to get to the bottom of it, so I’m just focusing on how much *fun* Bare Bones is, how consuming—the way his fiction is.

If you're not a casual fan, you won't get too much out of this. It's not that well edited. They could have done a lot more with this, like adding photos and improving the interior layout so it's not as cluttered and plain. The chapter titles don’t really pertain to their content much, which is largely because the groupings of interviews isn’t strategic. They should have just made each interview its own chapter. The collection is repetitive and feels a bit Frankenstein-ed together; some places lack transition and you’re left wondering if you missed something. It's dated at this point. It doesn't cover a wide span of time. If you want to hear King rambling about his life, his craft, and horror media, then this is gold. But I can’t see non-fans giving a hoot.

He provides some rude answers when he gets stupid or too frequently asked questions. That was amusing. He's a little braggy at times but mostly charismatic and likeable. I recognized some bits from Danse Macabre. A few of his ramblings are hard to keep up with; you can tell he was nervous. Some of the transcripts are hard to get a tone for because we're lacking the inflection to tell when he's being wry or slight.

Despite how much King trivia I’ve absorbed over the years, this book still hit me like a ton of bricks with sparkling revelations (like how the last name King was created as an alias by Stephen’s fugitive father, who eventually became a fugitive of his own family when he abandoned them without so much as a note), heavy hitting references he’s got stored in that marvelous noggin (“Happiness, too, is inevitable,” from Camus), and juicy publishing stories. This book is a wealth of info inside his life, far more potent than I expected. 

I would love a collection of interviews like this from the 90s to now. PLEASE, somebody...
dark informative reflective relaxing fast-paced

A bit of a lopsided read, given its format. I don’t think King had enough to say at this point in his career to warrant a collection of his interviews, as evident by a lot of questions, anecdotes, and opinions are repeated throughout. This book was effectively reading the transcript to a Stephen King podcast, which actually sounds pretty interesting… 

The first chapter and the last two have the most unique and engaging perspectives in them; unfortunately, the other half of the book became a bit of a slog. I was really hoping, based on the first chapter and the title, that I would’ve seen more writing craft or story structuring commentary, a la King’s On Writing. (On Writing is a MUST READ.) 

Instead, the interviewers kept asking him the same questions, to the point that King’s answers start with “I wish people would stop asking about The Shining movie.” I like hearing him talk, so I loved the repeated answers and quips. 

As an aside, it’s really funny that Storygraph’s algorithm recommended this book for me; on a categorical level, it ticks all of my boxes. Yet, this book has hardly any circulation or reviews attached, and its place in the zeitgeist is clearly minuscule. 

Loved this collection of interviews w King -- this was exactly what I was looking for when I accidentally read Danse Macabre. I'd love an updated version of this book that covers more of King's work -- Bare Bones was written years ago, so there's lots of repetition in questions. Still, great insight into his topics and what he finds interesting.

3.5/5

Overall, I enjoyed this. I was going to give it four stars, but it didn't feel right. There were some slow points, some interviews I didn't find interesting, or repetitive questions. I sympathize with the man and how many times he's been asked "Why do you write this stuff?" or "What scares people?" and "Why didn't you like the film version of The Shining?" To his credit, he tried to vary his answered, but it does get old.

King also rambled on a few times, going on about a point he'd already made. The first part of this was a transcript of a talk he gave at a Massachusetts public library in 1983. It goes on entirely too long and you can skip it without missing much.

But I did like this collection. Especially for his honesty about his life, his books, and the world as he sees it. Not a lot of people do the same, and it is definitely interesting to read about it. Recommended for King fans for sure.

(And be aware that this does contain spoilers for his books--particularly Cujo and Firestarter.)

This was an amazing book, but only for those who are a bit fascinated with Stephen King. These are a collection of interviews with King, which not only talk about his books, writing habits, but also the movies made from his works and his many influences. There were a lot of surprises, and I think that often I found myself very intrigued by his spiritual journey. Loved it.