A conceptual understanding of beauty Book

Ten years ago this would have been an invaluable reference - now, it's totally superceded by the internet. It's still an impressive collection of trivia, interviews, and ancillary fiction, though.

The short story is astonishingly unmemorable (which may have been the point - it's supposed to be a story of a totally average Herald, and I suppose it's a handy fill-your-name-in-here tool for dreaming about being Chosen) but the interviews, although not earthshaking, are neat, and the extensive concordance is the sort of thing I'd have happily memorized were I younger and had a shorter to-read list.

The funniest bit in the whole volume is the page or two on what websites to visit - good Lord, it wasn't published that long ago and it reads like utter ancient history. (This is a bit of a problem with the whole thing, really, since several more books have been written and it's hardly complete at this point.)