It’s not often I think ”I wish I had written that book” but it happens. One time was when I read the book What’s in a Name by Bev Vincent. A more recent time was today when I read the book Lost (or Found) in Translation, also by Bev Vincent. It’s a good thing that his books are so good or I would have been really annoyed with him.

This book is about all the different translations of Stephen King’s books and specifically their titles. As Bev says himself in the book “I created a massive spreadsheet (when printed, it was over four feet wide) with each book as a row and each language as a column. If completed, it would have contained nearly four thousand entries”. He then translated all the titles into English and analyzed them. And the result was interesting and the focus of this book.

A lot of the publishers used the original title or the meaning of the original title, but some came up with some very alternative titles. Some even spoiled the ending of the book with the title. I realize that this is an interest on a really nerdy level, but I love it. I collect books by King in foreign language and every time I tell people that the response is “why?”. And I totally understand that. It’s not that I speak over 50 languages and pick a different language for each book I read. I see the books more like pieces of arts. Sometimes it’s very clear that the cover artist hasn’t even read the book, sometimes the covers are, less than beautiful and sometimes they don’t even spell King’s name correctly but still, each cover it a masterpiece in it’s own way.

Then same goes for the titles. Sometimes you must wonder if the translator really read the book first or if he or she translated the title first, sent it of the cover artist and then translated the book. But even if that is the case it’s fascinating and I really enjoyed Bev’s journey through the titles.

This book (as with What’s in a Name) was published as a 60-page chapbook by Levidian Publications for Brian James Freeman’s Patreon Supporters and I don’t know if it’s possible to buy elsewhere or not but if you get a chance to grab one, don’t hesitate to do so.

Now I’m just waiting for Bev to release a chapbook about all the different covers for King’s books from all over the world. If anyone will I bet, it’ll be him. Why? Well, because I wish I could find a way to do a book like that off course.

François Vaillancourt contributed with ten full-color illustrations showing what some of the covers might have looked like if he had been hired to illustrate them. With all the problems to get the rights for the covers this was probably the best and maybe only way to illustrate the book.