Monday, 6 July 2009

The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases

The human body is strange; and when it goes wrong, it gets stranger. These encyclopedia entries tell sad stories of case studies, rivalries between scientists and doomed expeditions.

I particularly liked Printer's Evil, which has infected its own page; and Delusions of Universal Grandeur (apparently invented to snipe at people who hold a theory with which the contributor disagrees).

There are entries by some of my favourite writers: Neil Gaiman (Disease-maker's Croup), China Mieville (Buscard's Murrain) and Alan Moore (Fuseli's Disease). I'm also a fan of Jeff Vandermeer's anthologies.

I read this from cover-to-cover, but it's the sort of book that you can dip into again and find something wholly new.

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