cover image Celebrities in Hell

Celebrities in Hell

Warren Allen Smith. Barricade Books, $14.95 (287pp) ISBN 978-1-56980-214-4

B la Bartok and Sally Jessy Raphael are among the damned in Warren Allen Smith's Celebrities in Hell, the follow-up to his Who's Who in Hell. Like the earlier volume, this book catalogues and celebrates atheists, humanists and other kinds of heretics, this time focusing on an idiosyncratic group from the last two centuries, from Douglas Adams, Richard Avedon and Debbie Harry to Mira Sorvino, Sir P.G. Wodehouse and Frank Zappa. In brief encyclopedia-style entries, Smith describes the worldview of each unbelieving artist or writer or showbiz type, and provides a thumbnail bio. (Mar.)