The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. Fifth Annual Collection

The Castle of Argol by Julien Gracq, translated by Louise Varese, is also from The Lapis Press. Written in 1938, the author considered his first novel a “demoniac version” of the Grail legend. It tells of a quest for the essential that ends with the embrace of fatality and dissolution. Illustrations in color and black-and-white. (Not seen.)

Visions from the Twilight Zone by Arlen Schumer (Chronicle) is an homage to Rod Serling and his surrealistic creation, The Twilight Zone. Using actual images and words from the show, which ran from 1959—1964, Schumer lovingly recreates (as much as possible in two dimensions) the feel of the series. In addition, there are essays on the show and its impact on a generation of television viewers by Carol Serling, film critic Jonathan Hoberman, TZ producer Buck Houghton and Serling himself. A must for admirers.

A Social History of the American Alligator by Vaughn L. Glasgow (St. Martin’s) is lavishly and amusingly illustrated. The natural history can be found in other books but the societal ramifications and accompanying illustrations are what make this book shine—for instance, a rundown of various Louisiana mascot gators’ life histories. However, there are some minor annoyances that are very distracting from the text such as the use of “sic” every time some historical reference uses the word crocodile instead of alligator. A footnote would have been quite sufficient and less distracting. There are some odd errors peppering the section on popular culture: Captain Hook lost his hand to the croc, not his whole arm; V, A. C.

Crispin’s novelization of the TV series is mentioned but the series itself is not. The mentions of movies with alligators in them are, mostly, a stretch and superficial— Glasgow doesn’t even summarize the plots so why bother mentioning the films at all? Despite these minor flaws, the book is fun reading and terrific to look at.

The Carroll & Graf Colin Wilson series: paperback editions of nonfiction crime detection books previously published only in hardcover and only in Great Britain, including A Criminal History of Mankind, The Mammoth Books of True Crime 1 & 2 and The Mammoth Book of the Supernatural.

Written in Blood: Detectives & Detection by Colin Wilson (Warner) is the first of three paperback volumes appearing for the first time in the U.S. This volume is an historic overview of the evolution of criminal detection, including the use of the microscope, the first informer, the use of forensic evidence and so forth. Fascinating book, which reads like a novel (I’ve been warned that Wilson is sometimes inaccurate, so beware).

Spring-Heeled Jack by Philip Pullman (Knopf) is described by Locus as “an extremely bizarre young adult combination of prose and cartoon, illustrated by David Mostyn, creating a superhero out of the 19th-century legend of the superhuman Spring-Heeled Jack—with Mack the Knife as the villain. Peculiar but fascinating.” Sounds good to me.

Meat: A Natural Symbol by Nick Fiddes (Routledge) is a fascinating albeit biased study of humankind’s relationship to “meat. ” The book started as a doctoral thesis presuming that the primary cultural importance of meat is founded on its vividly representing to us the domination we have sought over nature. It’s quite readable, but only because of out-of-context interviews with unknown parties on their thoughts about meat-or-vegetable eating. For all the reader knows, Fiddes might have interviewed his own family. Some interesting points: According to Fiddes’s sources, cannibalism has never been documented as a regular practice in any society but the accusation of it has always been used by one group in order to prove moral superiority over another. Excluded witnesses are missionaries and explorers (fairly or not) who have a vested interest in portraying the accused as in need of being “civilized.” Pets are a “gray” area—they are given semihuman status—and Fiddes makes the intriguing point that we don’t have canned mouse for cats to eat but rather, chicken, tuna, liver and so forth. An infuriating book if you’re a meat eater and proud of it (as I am), but interesting.

The Faber Book of Madness edited by Roy Porter (Faber and Faber) is a nice large (over 500 pages) oddity through which to browse. An anthology mixing fact and fiction, serious and amusing, including writings by the mentally disturbed themselves, exploring consciousness in all its extremes and society’s responses to the problems of psychic disorder. Includes quotations from the novels of Virginia Woolf, the plays of Shakespeare, treatises of Nietzsche and essays about asylum life.