Witch-Cult Abbey by Mark Samuels

In Witch-Cult Abbey (2020) by Mark Samuels, a former book cataloguer named Saul Prior is called during WWII to Thool Abbey in Hertfordshire to catalog a library of strange books. He is basically kept prisoner for years (his only sense of the passage of time being the arrival of Revd. Alfonsus Winters--a nod to Montague Summers in many ways--who tells him it is eight years since he arrived there), in this strangely funereal house of shifting sizes covered in endless darkness. And then the book gets stranger. I found it quite compelling and enjoyed it greatly. (I've similarly enjoyed a bunch of Samuels's previous books, and reviewed a couple of them at this blog.) The overly tall format is a bit cumbersome, but the design is otherwise nice. Too bad the limitation is so small (199 numbered and 24 lettered copies). A book like this one is infinitely better than most of the crap commercially published for a much larger readership, and that is a real shame.  

The Last Cat Book, by Robert E. Howard

This is a rather different offering from Robert E. Howard, known for his Conan stories. It is a brief essay on cats from the early 1930s originally titled "The Beast from the Abyss." Here it is amplified with over fifty linoleum prints by Peter Kuper. It's a delightful match of text with illustrator.  The text gives many keen observations of the feline nature:

His manner is at once arrogant and debased.

He arches his back and rubs himself against humanity's leg, dirging a doleful plea, while his eyes glare threats and his claws slide convulsively in and out of their padded sheaths. 

And the illustrations follow through wonderfully. I reread this with pleasure every decade or so since it came out in 1984.