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David L. Pierce loves "Bewitched." I mean he really loves "Bewitched."

He loves the 1964-72 sitcom about a witch-turned-housewife so much he wrote an entire book about it — a book with a crazy-long title to go with its crazy-long text. The Omni-Directional Three-Dimensional Vectoring Paper Printed Omnibus for Bewitched Analysis a.k.a. The Bewitched History Book runs 732 pages.

"I've watched the show since I was little," Pierce said. "I'd come home from kindergarten and my mom was watching it, so I'd watch with her. I loved the magic that was happening and I really loved Elizabeth Montgomery. I thought she was one of the most beautiful women who's ever been on TV."

(Pierce, by the way, isn't related to yours truly.)

Montgomery starred as Samantha Stephens, a real-life witch who married a mortal advertising executive, Darrin (Dick York and, later, Dick Sargent). Darrin insisted Sam live as a "normal" housewife, but with a meddling witch mother-in-law, Endora (Agnes Morehead), and all sorts of witch/warlock relatives, something crazy was always happening.

"A lot of people think it's weird that I would be so obsessed with a show like this, but 'Bewitched,' to me, is the reason television was created," Pierce said, citing its mix of "suburban life and a fantasy world."

Pierce's book began as a series of blogs on the "Bewitched" fan site harpiesĀ­bizarre.com. He decided to celebrate the show on its 40th anniversary when he learned that Sony, which owns rights to "Bewitched," wasn't planning anything. "So I was writing about what it would have felt like to watch the show for the first time."

His blog posts were highly entertaining — a mix of analysis, trivia, inside information — and included bits about what was going on in America when the episodes first aired. "Bewitched" fans loved them.

So Pierce — who knew nothing about writing or publishing a book — gathered a collection of the first-season blogs and sent them to BearManor Media — which has published a number of TV and film-related books — and they bought it.

While the book is written for fans, The Bewitched Fan Book doesn't completely fawn over the show. Pierce takes a tough line at times. (The book is available at BearManorMedia.com.)

"That's why I think my book is different because I don't think every episode is that great," he said. "There's a few that I never watch because they're just horrible. However, the worst ones are better than anything that's on TV nowadays, I think."

Scott D. Pierce covers television for The Salt Lake Tribune. Email him at spierce@sltrib.com; follow him on Twitter @ ScottDPierce.