Stephen King from A to Z: An Encyclopedia of His Life and Work

Did you know that the Bangor West All Stars was the Little League team on which King's son Owen played (King being an assistant coach), ultimately winning the Maine State Little League Championship (11-8) in 1989, and that the team's ascent to glory is recounted in great detail in Nightmares & Dreamscapes' "Head Down?" That Cavalier is a cheesecake magazine in which King first sold "Graveyard Shift"? That King believes Hell House by Richard Matheson might be the scariest haunted-house novel ever written? These and hundreds more Stephen King-related entries await the King enthusiast in George Beahm's literary and biographical encyclopedia. Drawing on years of Stephen King expertise (Beahm wrote the Stephen King Companion, The Stephen King Story, and Stephen King: America's Best-Loved Boogeyman), Beahm has larded his encyclopedia with detailed information on King's stories, books, and films, as well as quotes that give King's take on everything from fame to censorship to authors he admires and deplores. There are photographs (75), illuminated letters (26), a couple dozen essays on topics such as Maine, Philtrum Press (King's publisher), and King's movies, and trivia such as the amount of prize money King won in a college English department contest ($69.81) and the name of King's childhood dog (Queenie). The potential quality of life for Stephen King aficionados has just significantly improved. --Stephanie Gold