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With the announcement of a Dark Tower movie, I hope a lot more people will want to get into the series! The Dark Tower can seem very daunting and it’s difficult to know where to start with it due to how much material on it there is. But never fear! This post lays it all out for you.

The Series Chronologically: 0: “Little Sisters of Eluria” story and the Dark Tower Marvel comics (You can read these whenever you want though, I would recommend against reading these first actually. This is just their chronological placement.) 1: The Gunslinger 2: The Drawing of the Three 3: The Waste Lands 4: Wizard and Glass 4.5: Wind Through the Keyhole (Again this is a companion mid-quel book you can read whenever you want but chronologically this is where it goes) 5: Wolves of the Calla 6: Song of Susannah 7: The Dark Tower

Other Required Reading Related to DT: Insomnia (The short story collections you will survive the last book if you haven’t read but this is seriously required. The last book makes very little sense without having read this.) Everything’s Eventual (Dinky Earnshaw is introduced in a short story, “Little Sisters of Eluria” is a short story about the DT protag that takes place before the first book) Hearts In Atlantis (Ted Brautigan is introduced in a short story, that story also introduces a concept that factors into the last three books) The Eyes of the Dragon (Takes place in Roland’s world, has RF/Marten Broadcloak in it I believe) The Talisman/Black House (Haven’t read these yet so don’t know the specifics but concept of twinners is introduced and probably more stuff.) The Stand (Not technically required but before you read the Dark Tower series you should read this because you’ll enjoy one of the villains much more.)

The Dark Tower is cool because it contains tons of little references to King’s other work and King’s other work has a lot of references to it, so even after you’ve finished the series the journey doesn’t really end! I would say definitely read King’s other major work (IT, The Stand, The Shining, etc…) before the Dark Tower series for the reason I mentioned before, there are tons if Easter eggs to King’s other works, some extremely important plot points.

Additionally, you may want to check out “Childe Roland To The Dark Tower Came,” the Robert Browning poem that inspired the series.

Further reading: The Road To The Dark Tower: Exploring Stephen King’s Magnum Opus by Bev Vincent The Dark Tower: The Complete Concordance by Robin Furth The Dark Tower Companion: A Guide To Stephen King’s Epic Fantasy by Bev Vincent The Complete Stephen King Universe by Stanley Wiater