<b> Books Of The Year</b><br />
<i> We asked our regular reviewers, as well as some of our best-known writers, to nominate their favourite books of 2005...</i> <a href="http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/books/features/article333609.ece" target="new"> Independent on Sunday</a>
18 December 2005

Gary Lachman picks:

Strange Attractor Journal, Vol 2 ed Mark Pilkington. Another unique and necessary collection of eccentric scholarship, weird journalism and obsessive research. Nothing else like it.

plus...

H P Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life by Michel Houellebecq (McSweeney's Books). The latest French pop-nihilism literary export assesses the work of a hyper-neurotic master of modern horror.

Aliens: Why They Are Here by Bryan Appleyard (Scribners £15.99). More about why we want them to arrive than about where they may come from, but at least it tries to get past the X-Files barrier.

Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth of the Comic Book by Gerard Jones (Heinemann £10.99). Gripping and moving tales about the heroes - mostly Jewish - behind the superheroes. How Joe Shuster, Jerry Siegel, Jack Kirby, Bob Kane and others brought Superman, Batman and Captain America into the world.