Happy Goat Horror

From impoverished university student to struggling schoolteacher to one of the best-selling—and most recognizable—authors of all time, this engrossing book reveals the evolution and influences of Stephen King’s body of work over his nearly 50-year career, and how the themes of his writing reflect the changing times and events within his life.

An expansion of Stephen King expert Bev Vincent’s The Stephen King Illustrated Companion, this fully revised, redesigned, and updated book includes:

• A review of King’s complete body of work, including Fairy Tale, published in September 2022.
• A wealth of rare memorabilia from King’s own collection, including personal and professional correspondences, handwritten manuscript pages, book covers, movie stills, and a never-before-seen excerpts from one of his poems.
• Interludes on specific topics such as real-life settings that inspired King’s writing, the editor who discovered him, his life as a Boston Red Sox fan, and the many awards and honors he has received.
• Insightful quotes from King from interviews over the decades.

Celebrate the beloved King of Horror with this informational and entertaining look inside King’s most iconic titles and the culture they have created.

Dark bleatings, my fellow Constant Reader tribe! If you’re as obsessed with King and his work as I am, you might enjoy non-fiction books about the dude and his career. I’ve read so much King related non-fiction and I have to tell you, Bev Vincent is the King of…er…King. And this book (we’re going to talk a bit about another one too) is my favourite.

It charts King’s work and career right from the beginning, all the way up to 2022. It covers every book in detail and it includes pictures, original book covers, and photos, as well as quotes from the man himself. There’s a section on the terrible time that King was hit by a large vehicle as he enjoyed one of his morning walks, and some candid information on the recovery process, which I found particularly meaningful.

As reviews go, there’s not much I can say about a non-fiction book outside of what I’ve already stated. I would like to add though, that given my obsession, I really thought I knew all there was to know about King (in terms of the information that’s publicly available). However, I was pleasantly surprised with new information several times in this book, and with a lot of King quotes that I’ve not read before and I suspect at least a few of them are exclusive to this particular piece of work.

In this other book, a version of the same for younger readers, Vincent covers all of the essential and most interesting information, and simply condenses the book where it’s necessary, in consideration for the age of the intended readers. For example, in the first version, there’s a quote from King about the difficulties of drug withdrawal. It’s been cut here, I imagine to save the tone and to keep things age-appropriate. It’s a perfect book for the younger King fan.

Overall, I found both books absolutely delightful, written with the kind of wholesome admiration that us King fans share, and very informative. I’d highly recommend them both! If you’d like to check out the books or the author, I’ve popped some links below for you:

BEV VINCENT

STEPHEN KING: A COMPLETE EXPLORATION OF HIS WORK, LIFE, AND INFLUENCES

STEPHEN KING: YOUNG READER’S EDITION

Bleeeeat!