Red Scare: A Study in National Hysteria, 1919-1920 by Robert K. Murray - Another one from my wife's college history bookshelves, though she says she has never heard of this book. Spooky.
Also of note, this was written in 1955, so the constant theme is "Obviously communism is terrible but don't you think we might have overdone the reaction a bit when we were lads hmm?". The focus on the labor strikes of 1919 as a driving factor off the hysteria was an interesting angle.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman - A watercolor of a book my friend Jen recommended and then went ahead and mailed me. I've already loaned it out to another friend who likes a creepy but not too creepy story for October. It does a lovely job of capturing the feeling of the end of childhood, at least as well as can be remembered by one middle-aged man and experienced by another. The man can describe a cosy kitchen scary well, apparently the more so for populating one with his favorite tripartite. The bag of broken toys as spell components were a bit twee, I gotta say.
Hellboy: The Wild Hunt by Mignola/Fegredo - I picked this up at a comic store pretty much at random in Salem years ago as something to read during one of my wife's appointments. It might not be fair to critique much, since it's the middle volume of a trilogy in a long-running story I have not read much of at all, though I've seen the first two movies. So I'll just say it doesn't stand as its own story very well, there's a big "it was all a dream" section which, no don't, and there's a strong "guys I just learned about this in my mythology research and now you have to, too" undercurrent. The art's great and getting lost in the action sequences is fun, and the pig-elf-guy is a well-written pitiable character.
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