When I was 14, I became totally obsessed with Marilyn Monroe. I devoured her movies, her music, and most importantly, every single book that's ever been written about the blonde bombshell. Every single book. That's a lot of books. There were lots of terrible books (Anthony Summers' Goddess is trash) and lots of great ones (Donald Spoto's biography)---but the most fun Marilyn-related book by far was The Marilyn Encyclopedia by Adam Victor. It was filled to the brim with every mundane fact any Marilyn fan could have desired. And now Victor has done it again with another ridiculously huge pop icon, Elvis Presley.
The Elvis Encyclopedia, published this year, is a weighty tome of 598 pages with entires running the gamut from "DIETS" to "JOHN WAYNE" to "FOOTBALL" and how all of these things pertain to Elvis in some way. Even if you don't much care for Elvis, it's still totally interesting and fun to read through. Victor has done his research so completely that he leaves no Elvis-related stone unturned. The book is probably not totable backpack material, as it weighs about as much as your giant O-Chem textbook. And it's $65, which is a bit spendy but a perfect Christmas gift coffeetable book for your mom or aunt or even grandma, who goes crazy for the King.