I saw this book at Waterstones last year, at about 20 pounds. I had never bought one of HP Lovecraft's books before but had read a few of his tales in anthologies and online, and having enjoyed them greatly, picked this up. The name says it all: The Necronomicon - the book of the dead. And it certainly looks the part. I have to say, at first I was really impressed by the book. Not only by the sheer size of the thing, but by the gorgeous black and gold cover, done up in faux leather style to give it the impression of an old tome found in the backs of a dusty bookshop. On the front, in a font suspiciously like Papyrus, written in gold, is the title The ...  Read the complete review

Howard Philips (HP) Lovecraft, who died in 1937, was one of the most influential writers of the 20th century, and yet unless you are a horror or weird fiction aficionado, you probably will not have heard of him. His main story cycle concerned a group of supernatural beings that are so bizarre and lethal that to encounter them at all will drive you mad, and most likely kill you. This set of stories is generally called the Cthulhu Mythos (although Lovecraft himself never put them together in this way) and arguably paved the way for modern horror, placing monsters instead of ghosts at the centre of gothic narratives. The structure of a Lovecraft story might be ...  Read the complete review