BookWorld is full of spooktastic and Halloweeny reviews this week.
Michael Dirda looks at a new translation of Borges’ The Book of Imaginary Beings (from which that illo comes):
Anyone who falls under the spell of The Book of Imaginary Beings should look out for several comparable (or complementary) works. Above all, don’t miss T.H. White’s The Book of Beasts , a translation, with delightful commentary, of a 12th-century bestiary; Willy Ley’s various excursions into "romantic zoology" (starting with The Lungfish, the Dodo, and the Unicorn ); Avram Davidson’s highly idiosyncratic and hard-to-find Adventures in Unhistory ; Peter Lum’s Fabulous Beasts ; Richard Carrington’s Mermaids and Mastodons ; and, not least, the grand-daddy of them all, Pliny’s Natural History (especially books 8 through 11). Here be wonders.
These are all excellent recommendations and I particularly love the Willy Ley books; hunt them down.
I’ll second the Book World review. “Fledgling” is very much a sneakily entertaining novel of ideas. Not quite up there with “Kindred,” but definitely standing up with the “Parable” books.