Her destination is Small Demons, www.smalldemons.com, an encyclopedia and "Storyverse" that catalogues names, places, songs, products and other categories for thousands of books.

Officially launched in August, Small Demons is the book world's latest mind game and guilty pleasure and a proving ground that everything really is connected. You can find out how many books mention the Beatles or the Pacific Ocean or Rice Krispies. You can find answers to questions you never meant to ask, like whether writers favor Marlboros or Camels (Camels have the edge, 85-65), or which brands of cold medicine are cited in EL James' "Fifty Shades of Gray" (NyQuil, Advil, Tylenol).

"I was sure they featured 'Infinite Jest,' which of course they have," Gilmore, whose novels include "Something Red" and "Golden Country," wrote in a recent email. "I can get deep(er) into the Wallace brain there and as I do so, learn about the context, the ether around the book. I can relent and buy Wittgenstein or 'Ethan Frome' or Irving Berlin."

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Two pieces released this fall were written late in life by the science fiction/fantasy master, who died in June at age 91. He contributed "The Book and the Butterfly," an introduction to this year's edition of "The Best American Nonrequired Reading." And he conceived a stark encounter between a young boy and a man he believes is Santa Claus in "Dear Santa," which appears in the holiday issue of Strand Magazine, based in Birmingham, Mich.

The publication of each work was made possible, in part, by deep admiration for the author. Strand managing editor Andrew Gulli, who befriended Bradbury in 2009, has featured several Bradbury works and had an informal agreement with him for "Dear Santa."

"I never heard anything back or received a contract for a couple of months," Gulli wrote in a recent email, adding that final word did not arrive until the day of Bradbury's death. "I was picking up my mail and opened up an envelope to find Ray's signature on the contract."

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