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Greetings Popversians, and welcome to Lore Corner! Each week, video producer Ashley V. Robinson and Popverse's writing staff are going to take you deep into the pre-existing lore behind some of pop culture's most exciting adaptations, such as HBO's frightful IT: Welcome to Derry. Enjoy!

The flood is rising toward when IT: Welcome to Derry at last comes to HBO, and here at Popverse, we're making sure we do everything we can so that we float, too. Very soon, we'll be getting into the weeds with the history of Pennywise and his accursed town, but first, we're starting off with a question any newbie to the IT saga might be asking themselves: Which Stephen King book do I read first?

To answer that, Popverse has put together this list of Stephen King must-reads, which we invite you to take a look at now. Just be aware - these inclusions were based on the opinions of your beloved Popverse staff, and not all those trivial things, such as which book sold the most, which were the basis of actual Oscar-winners, or even the ones that King himself liked the most.

Because we all know that would be Tomyknockers, right? Right.

Stephen King must-reads: 'Salem's Lot

With the admission that there are objectively better Stephen King books that could go on this list, it's important to get a kind of well-rounded sense of the author's full body of work and, maybe just as important, what influenced it. In King's 'Salem's Lot, a book that, for all intents and purposes, tells the story of Bram Stoker's Dracula, transposed into mid-century Americana, readers get an idea of who King was at the beginning of his career (it's his second novel), and of the gothic horror that helped make him that writer.

Stephen King must-reads: Nightmares & Dreamscapes

Another work from earlier in his career, Nightmares & Dreamscapes is a collection of stories that start to let you know how quirky of a horror writer King can be. In particular, the story 'You Know They Got a Hell of a Band,' is both chilling and undeniably silly, like looking at a carnival after hours. There's quite a bit of Ray Bradbury influence in some of these, too, which readers who appreciate classic American genre fiction will go for.

Stephen King must-reads: The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger

I have a confession to make - The Gunslinger, part 1 of King's much-lauded Dark Tower series, is the only dark Tower book I've ever read. At the same time, that's exactly why I'm including it here. The Gunslinger is about a much larger world, yes, but in the same way that you don't have to understand every fact of WWII to enjoy reading Catch-22, there's a tight story in this novel that transcends simple world-building. 

Also, it opens with one of the hardest lines in all of English fiction, so there's that. 

Stephen King must-reads: Fairy Tale

Fairy Tale, on the other hand, is proof that you also don't need to feel like the world in which your book is set is fully fleshed out to have a great time. It's not so much that the world of Fairy Tale is underdeveloped, just that it takes a distant backseat to the story of Charlie Reade, a young man who loves his dog so much as to cross into a different reality for her. Stephen King has made me cry more times than I'd care to admit, but as a dog owner myself, this one especially gets me.

Stephen King must-reads: 11/22/63

Finally, with all of the incredible contributions he's made to the genre of horror, it's easy to forget that Stephen King has produced maybe the finest time-travel novel of this century so far. King writes about his beloved 60s in a way that feels so different from the rest of his work here, and makes one of his most sinsiter, threatening villains out of the flow of history itself. Oh, and for everybody pumped about Pennywise's return to the big screen, there's an IT easter egg in this book that's particularly rewarding if you've read the novel, and particularly haunting if you haven't.

IT: Welcome to Derry premieres on HBO Max October 26. 

Just like yourself, the Popverse staff spends a whole lot of time with our respective noses in respective books. It's why we've come up with stuff like:

• The hottest upcoming fiction
• Queer romance to add to your reading list
• A genre fiction literary column called If It Bleeds, We Read

...and a whole lot more. Join our metaphorical library, won't you? There are no late fees and you can be as loud as you want, so long as the people you live with are OK with it.