Heaven, Hell, and the Realm Between

Lilith, by George MacDonald.

I have this copy because it is one of the old Ballantine Books in their “Unicorn Head” line of Adult Fantasy Classics, it has an Introduction by Lin Carter, and a cover by Gervasio Gallardo. What I have to say about the book itself is recorded above.

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Fantasy. Novel. Paperback.

Naked Lunch and The Soft Machine/Nova Express/ The Wild Boys, by William S. Burroughs.

Early Grove Press editions: the loose-covered “Naked Lunch” says it’s “The First Paperback Edition”. I went through a fairly intense period of reading Burroughs, inspired mostly by the biography “Literary Outlaw” and his tenuous connections to and idolization by the Subgeniuses. His outsider status, legendary exploits, and the fact that he was still alive made him more fascinating than anything he wrote. All I can say about him is that when you start reading his books, weird synchronicities start cranking up around you, and you may well see visions and dream dreams.

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: “Novels”. Paperbacks.

Around the World in Eighty Days, by Jules Verne.

“[This] Jules Verne book represents an odd trend that happened from the early 60's to about the middle 70's: there was a little spate of adventure movies made from Verne and Wells and Burroughs books, laced with mild science fiction, lost worlds, and what we might call "steam-punk" action today. It started, perhaps, with Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and ended with Disney's The Island at The Top of The World. It extended from movies to cartoons. I think the Edwardian and Victorian style had a kind of "groovy" appeal, while at the same time harking back to a time when there could be more hidden corners of the earth to seek out freedom and wonder. The Eighty Days book still has my wobbly fourth grade signature in it; I always thought the Phileas Fogg on the cover looked like Jed Clampett in one of his more slicked up moments.” In rough condition, it is a Magnum “Easy Eye” edition that reprinted classics. I got it probably more because of the cartoon show’s influence than the movie. “Speed! Speed! And more Speed!”

Ranking: Essential Nostalgia.

File Code: Classic. Adventure. Novel. Paperback.

The Acts of King Arthur and his Noble Knights, by John Steinbeck.

Published as a Del Rey Fantasy in 1980, with a cover by Darrell K. Sweet, it had originally come out in 1976, as a posthumous and unfinished work of the author. I suspect its publication as a mass paperback was to take advantage of the new wave of fantasy that was just then swelling up. I read about half of it, and while it was good, it wasn’t what I was looking for at the time. In Steinbeck’s hands, it was a study of character, and not ‘fantasy’ as I understood it. I set it by.

Ranking: Dispensable.

File Code: Legend. Retelling. Paperback.

A Voyage to Arcturus, by David Lindsay.

A Del Rey Fantasy classic, touted by C. S. Lewis (who described it as having ‘demonic energy’ and showed him what writing otherworldly travel to planets was good for – spiritual discovery) and Colin Wilson, but I have never been able to ‘get into it’. It is certainly an odd book, and one for the files. The spine and cover are not good; it is secondhand.

Ranking: Ambiguous.

File Code: Fantasy. Novel. Paperback.

Faeries: Real Encounters with Little People, by Janet Bord.

This 1998 paperback takes the same approach to fairies as strange phenomena as others have done with UFOs or ghosts or cryptids, studying the legends and reporting what purport to be modern-day photos and encounters. Illustrated with photos and old drawings. Scratches that old ‘Weird Science’ itch that had me reading Aylesworth and Daniel Cohen as a youngster.

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Paranormal. Paperback.

The Encyclopedia of the Strange, by Daniel Cohen.

This 1987 book is a sort of boiled-down version of all of Cohen’s previous “Strange Phenomenon and Crackpot Theory” books, except for monsters and ghosts (he did two other separate books for those). “Ancient Mysteries, Unknown Places, Strange People, Weird Talents, Natural Mysteries, Mysteries of Magic, Classic Mysteries” are the divisions within, giving a short summation of these odd nooks and crannies of puzzling belief. A good browser. Illustrations clumped in the middle.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Paranormal. Reference. Paperback.

Seaward, by Susan Cooper.

A full-length fantasy, longer than her “Boggart” books, and more like “The Dark is Rising” fantasies.  Read it and liked it well enough but was not particularly engaged. I now have a hardback version, so, except for the superior cover illustration … do I need it?

Ranking: Dispensable?

File Code: Fantasy. Novel. Paperback.

The Inferno, The Purgatorio, and The Paradiso, by Dante Alighieri. A New Translation by John Ciardi.

This was the version of The Inferno we studied in Mrs. Hardcastle’s class in my Junior year. I drew pictures for it that she hung on the class board, and then kept – the only drawings I ever really gave away. Where are they now, I wonder? Tossed, no doubt. I remember in her class I also wrote a rhymed-couplet version of Beowulf’s fight with Grendel; I’ve lost that poem, but that’s on me. Anyway, these are all Mentor books like we used, except that it’s quite a mismatched set got from various used bookstores over the years. Now that I have Sayers’ version, I suppose I don’t need them for anything but nostalgia.

Ranking: Keepers.

File Code: Poetry. Classic. Paperbacks. Nostalgia.