The Virgin Encyclopedia of Reggae by Colin Larkin (Virgin Books,  London, 352 pages, 1998)

It's not just for virgins anymore!  The corporation known as Virgin, which has its hands in seemingly everything from music to soft drinks to crack cocaine (OK, maybe not) contributes this much needed, highly useful book that is essentially what its title says: an encyclopedia of reggae.  It alphabetizes an extensive number of artists, giving fascinating and concise biographical details alongside select discographies and album ratings.  Unlike many encyclopedias, however, there are no photos, which would've been a nice, albeit unnecessary, touch.  While artists make up the majority of the entries, there are also producers, promoters, and other backstage people, overviews of sub-genres like dancehall and lovers rock, and topics as small as dub plates and as large as Rastafarianism.  The coverage of even the most obscure of artists is impressive, but since this is a British book, the coverage leans toward UK artists (even former Soul II Soul-er Caron Wheeler), leaving out some Jamaican and American artists.  The only other drawback of the book is the album ratings.  The book assigns 1 to 5 stars per album, but the rating is made based on the artist's body of works, so that a 4-star Bob Marley album would be better than a 4-star Snow album.  Thus, any schmoe off the street could cut an album and get 5 stars if the effort is really great for him.   But The Virgin Encyclopedia of Reggae goes a step further by being so picky as to hardly give anything either 1 or 5 stars.  Thus, it seems at times that everything gets 3 stars, and honestly, I'd estimate that 80 to 85% of the albums get 3 or 4 stars.  A blatant example is Gregory Isaacs, who is notorious for putting out such a glut of material that much of it is rather sub-par.  The book rates 52 of his albums, giving 48 of them 3 stars and the other four 4 stars (none of the four being his classic Night Nurse)!  Regardless of what the reviewers here have been smoking, this is the first book I reach for when I have any questions about any reggae artist.   It's truly an invaluable resource.