The Illustrated Stephen King Trivia Book

BevVincent

Mad About Books review

Here is a book for the Stephen King fanatic who also enjoyed books like the Nitpicker books back in the early ’90s. I will confess to not reading every question, hint, and answer (there are a lot of them), but I did page through the entire book. Some things I knew, more often I did not. I can see this book being turned into an edition of Trivial Pursuit. All it will take is one persistent nerd with a bit of time on his hands. Maybe Cemetery Dance should get ahead of this and come out with their own game.

The real value of this book, for me, is the superb introduction by Bev Vincent and the equally superb afterward by Kevin Quigley. It is always interesting to read what others think of Stephen King and his works. I am never swayed from my own opinion, but I am sometimes pleasantly surprised that I can expand on what I think. In my world, nobody can talk smack about King.

I would be remiss if I didn’t include the illustrations of Glenn Chadbourne as part of the really great things in this book. I have been a fan of Glenn’s work for a long time, and I own a set of pen and ink illustrations depicting the essence of somewhere around a dozen of King’s books. When you look at the illustrations in this trivia book, you know instantly the book and the scene that is depicted.

It is hard to know just how many stars to give this book. It’s all about Stephen King and his works, so it must rate five stars. It is a pretty dry list of questions that will probably only excite the fan who obsessively reads King over and over looking for the most obscure in each book and story. I’m not that kind of fan of anything. I read books and go to the movies to be entertained and informed. If the work in question provides these to me, it’s a 5-star experience.

I have been reading Stephen King since 1976 when I picked up a paperback copy of ‘SALEM’S LOT because of the black cover with a single drop of blood. I have to tell you, that was one scary vampire novel, but I couldn’t put it down. I was living in Brooklyn, New York, at the time, all the way out in Gravesend (yes, that is what the area is called). While riding home on the subway, after working all day, and attending a class at The New School at night, I looked up as the doors closed at my stop, so I ended up at Coney Island. I could have walked home from there, but I figured it was probably not a good thing to do at midnight. The way the Coney Island station is constructed, I had to climb up several long flights of stairs to get to the side where I could go back to my stop. Also, as a result of this same book, and the same elevated that I rode to work every day, my station was over a canal that really smelled awful. There was also a small hole in the concrete that never bothered me until I decided that the smell wasn’t just stagnant water but vampire. I would go out of my way to avoid that really small hole in the sidewalk.

Yes, I can remember all that a Stephen King book evoked for me, but I can’t for the life of me remember all the characters wives or husbands or other obscure references.

I have also read quite a bit about the man himself, along with having seen him interviewed several times on television. One of my favorite interviews was done by none other than Whoopi Goldberg. She had a talk show for a while that was on at something like 2 AM. I also saw him in Vermont during the INSOMNIA tour, and at Yale University’s law library, in May 2003 (I even have pictures somewhere to prove it!).

This is the second edition of this book, and considering how prolific a writer Stephen King is, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a third and even fourth edition. As the old saying goes, no King collection would be complete without this book!