There's nothing like a good ghost story, and Scott Hampton (Life Eaters) has made a career specialty of illustrating some of the best. This collection, the first of two volumes, contains a mixture of some of Hampton's most famous ghost stories, including his original Eisner Award-nominated story The Upturned Stone, and brand new work, all fully painted in his rich, lush style. Chilling and beautiful at the same time, this is illustrated fiction guaranteed to haunt for years to come.

Like an ordinary geographical dictionary, The Dictionary of Imaginary Places contains alphabetically organized entries for more than a thousand locales. In this case, however, the locales in question are far from ordinary—they range from the orc-ridden wastes of Tolkien's Middle-earth to the languorous shores of Homer's Island of the Lotus-Eaters. Though for the most part these fantastical lands are mapped and chronicled with straight-faced seriousness, the encyclopedia is not without a certain deadpan wit. For example, the entry for Oz describes "a large rectangular country divided into four small countries.... As a famous visitor once remarked, Oz is not Kansas." This handsome and whimsically charming book, adorned with fanciful line drawings and maps, is rich with enough fictive detail to please the most inveterate reader.

This definitive work about the Templars and their presumed hidden knowledge addresses many fascinating questions, with rare photos from the Rosslyn Chapel Museum (Scotland) included.

A convenient, up-to-date, time-saving reference for the diagnosis, psychopharmacologic treatment, and psychotherapeutic management of the full range of psychiatric disorders. Includes a highly useful separate section devoted to psychiatric disorders occurring in infancy, childhood, and adolescence. Extensive Index and detailed Table of Contents afford easy access to material.

Featuring the popular characters from the award-winning Sandman series, THE SANDMAN: ENDLESS NIGHTS reveals the legend of the Endless, a family of magical and mythical beings who exist and interact in the real world. Born at the beginning of time, Destiny, Death, Dream, Desire, Despair, Delirium and Destruction are seven brothers and sisters who each lord over atheir respective realms. In this highly imaginative book that boasts diverse styles of breathtaking art, these seven peculiar and powerful siblings each reveal more about their true-being as they star int heir own tales of curiosity and wonder.

Ancient Rome had its famed Five Good Emperors—Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius, for those keeping track. And while science fiction might not have Edward Gibbons around to dole out similar, agreed-upon honors, everyone pretty much accepts the canonization of a few founding fathers: Asimov, Heinlein, Wells, and Bradbury all make the short list, as does—always—the venerable and venerated Sir Arthur C. Clarke, a Science Fiction Writers of America Grand Master and the winner of just about every SF award you care to mention.

 So whether you're already familiar with his works or not (most notably Childhood's End and the Rama series), you certainly can't go wrong picking up this veritable brick of a collection—912 pages in all—as either primer or essential reference. Within you'll find virtually every short piece of fiction that Clarke has ever published, from 1937's endearingly twee (in retrospect) "Travel by Wire" to 1999's "Improving the Neighbourhood," the first sci-fi Nature ever published.

 The Collected Stories is all short works (as short as 31 words in one case) and includes some of Clarke's best stories, including the lighthearted "Tales of the White Hart" and the momentous "The Star" and "The Nine Billion Names of God."—Paul Hughes

He raised the bar for epic science-fiction storytelling on television with his syndicated series Babylon 5, then followed it by elevating the way in which superhero tales are told with his critically acclaimed scripts for Marvel's The Amazing Spider-Man. Now, award-winning writer and producer J. Michael Straczynski presents a special collection of his own short fiction-some of which is previously unpublished and exclusive to this volume!

"The best kind of reference book—one that amuses as it instructs. I fell for it hook, line, and sinker."

 CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALERR

 IN A NUTSHELL, here's a terrific A TO Z listing of the meanings and origins of over 2,000 common or particularly interesting cliches for everyone who delights in the pleasure of words.