What better way to spend a chilly Halloween night than curled up with a good, spooky book? Like Cosimo’s new collection, Loren Coleman Presents, beautiful new editions of cryptozoology classics with brand-new introductions by Coleman, one of the most respected names in the field.

The latest book in the series is The Book of Werewolves, the 1865 work by Sabine Baring-Gould. One of the many chilling episodes he details are a 1521 case heard by a French Inquisitor-General of two men — Pierre Bourgot and Michel Verdung– were accused of witchcraft and cannibalism. Among the horrific crimes allegedly committed by them:

On another occasion they fell upon a little girl of four years old, and ate her up, with the exception of one arm. Michel thought the flesh most delicious.

Another girl was strangled by them, and her blood lapped up. Of a third they ate merely a portion of the stomach. One evening at dusk, Pierre leaped over a garden wall, and came upon a little maiden of nine years old, engaged upon the weeding of the garden beds. She fell on her knees and entreated Pierre to spare her; but he snapped the neck, and left her a corpse, lying among her flowers. On this occasion he does not seem to have been in his wolf’s shape. He fell upon a goat which he found in the field of Pierre Lerugen, and bit it in the throat, but he killed it with a knife.

Michel was transformed in his clothes into a wolf, but Pierre was obliged to strip, and the metamorphosis could not take place with him unless he were stark naked.

He was unable to account for the manner in which the hair vanished when he recovered his natural condition.

Other recent books in the series include Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come to Life, the hard-to-find 1961 work by Ivan T. Sanderson; The Great Sea Serpent, the classic 1892 survey by A. C. Oudemans; and The Romance of Natural History, the 1860 bestseller by Philip Henry Gosse.

Armchair monster hunters will also enjoy Thunderbirds: America’s Living Legends of Giant Birds, the 2004 book by Mark A. Hall, with an introduction by Coleman, a publication of Cosimo partner Paraview.

Coleman’s own books as author delve into the world of bizarre creatures: Mothman and Other Curious Encounters, also from Paraview; Mysterious America: The Ultimate Guide to the Nation’s Weirdest Wonders, Strangest Spots, and Creepiest Creatures, available in a new edition from Paraview Pocket Books; and Bigfoot!: The True Story of Apes in America, also from Paraview Pocket Books.

These and other Cosimo books are always available at Amazon.com and other online booksellers.

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It’s all too easy to panic in the current economic environment, and it’s particularly important not to give in to that impulse, especially when you know that the stock market runs on fear, not logic. Some sound advice on keeping your cool from motivational advisor Chellie Campbell, excerpted from her book The Wealthy Spirit, and also appearing in her newsletter, “The Wealthy Spirit,” which you can sign up for at Chellie Campbell’s Financial Stress Reduction:

Relaxxxx. Breathe. Stay centered. Stay focused on what you want and not what you don’t want. This is the Law of Attraction and the hardest time to remember it is when you most need to remember it. This too shall pass, and the good times will come again. You only lose if you panic. Hold on!

…

Chellie’s List of 6 Actions to Help You Be Rich and Happy:
• Double up on your affirmations. When you think positive, you look positive, and people are drawn to those who are happy and successful even during stressful situations. Here are a few of my favorites: 

“I am a successful money manager and always make smart financial decisions.”
“I invest wisely and well and all my investments pay me handsome rewards.”
“I am a winner. I win often and I win big!”

• Network! Support your fellow business owners and buy their goods and services. And then there will be people who can buy from you, too. Money has to circulate to keep an economy thriving. What goes around, comes around.

• When stock prices are low, it’s a buying opportunity.

• When real estate prices are low, it’s a buying opportunity.

• Buy low and sell high – remember? Most people don’t, though. They buy when prices are high because they’re afraid they’ll be priced out of the market, then they sell when prices are low because they’re afraid they’re going to lose their investment. Don’t make fear-based decisions – make smart investment decisions.

• Invest in learning and growing. Take a class, get a coach, get support. Get solid professional advice from people you trust who have been through the up-and-down cycles in the economy before. Then follow it.

For more advice, see The Wealthy Spirit.

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What with Oprah Winfrey’s ability to sell books well established, can there be any doubt that her endorsement of Kindle, Amazon’s e-reader, will have an enormous impact on the device’s popularity?

We’ll just have to wait and see.

In the meantime, Amazon.com is offering Oprah’s viewers $50 off the price of Kindle — just enter the promotional code OPRAHWINFREY during the checkout process at Amazon.com to receive the discount. This offer is valid through November 1, 2008.

(Don’t tell anyone we said so, but you actually don’t have to be an Oprah viewer to take advantage of this offer.)

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Hazel Henderson, coauthor of the Cosimo book The Power of Yin and a longtime advocate for global financial reform, has some advice for the world leaders who will join President George W. Bush in Washington D.C. on November 15 in a summit to discuss economic issues. Among her suggestions:

Imposing globally-harmonized currency exchange taxes is an obvious step.  Promoted for decades by economists from James Tobin, Bank of Sweden’s Nobel Memorial prizewinner, to former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, this below 1% tax on the $2 trillion daily currency trading would reduce some of its 90% speculative activity.  Recent levels of turbulence in currency markets are not sustainable, and Bernanke’s ideas about selling US dollars to buy other currencies are unprecedented.  Only global regulation of currency markets can address the problem of weaker currencies leading countries to default.

…

Reform of ill-designed monetary systems based on debt (see www.ethicalmarkets.tv “Money as Debt” and the American Monetary Reform Act of 2008 at www.monetary.org); in the UK, monetary reforms proposed by banking expert James Robertson at www.jamesrobertson.com and those of the New Economics Foundation at www.neweconomics.org).  This includes raising capital reserve requirements for banks and reducing leverage used by all financial players.

Read the whole article at Henderson’s site Ethical Markets. (See also Henderson’s recent article “And We All Thought That Banks Had Money!”.)

The Power of Yin is avaiable from Amazon and other online booksellers.

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The U.S. stock market is wrapping up its worst week ever. More than 12 million American homeowners are now underwater, stuck with mortgages worth more than their homes. And the pain is global: The credit freeze is causing cargo to pile up at shipping ports around the planet as banks refuse to accept letters of credit guaranteeing payment. The nation of Iceland is bankrupt.

Investigative journalist and “News Dissector” Danny Schechter has been on top of the impending — and now arrived — economic crisis, as demonstrated by his new book, Plunder: Investigating Our Economic Calamity and the Subprime Scandal, recently published by Cosimo. In the book, he explains the origins of the crisis and lays the blame at the feet of those who knowingly engineered it.

And the word is spreading. The Economist mentions Plunder alongside other books such as The Subprime Solution by Yale professor Robert Schiller, The Partnership: The Making of Goldman Sachs by leading investment expert Charles Ellis, and The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World by Harvard professor Niall Ferguson, in a piece called “Read it and Weep: The Banking Bust and The Book Bubble.”

Schechter has been making numerous appearances in the media to talk about Plunder, the financial crisis now playing out, and the possible solutions:

• NPR’s program On Point (listen to the program here)

• Laura Flanders’ GritTV, on which Schechter and others put the current financial crisis in its historical context:

• The Real News:

Read the introduction to Plunder here. (Alert: PDF.)

Plunder is available at Amazon.com and from other online booksellers.

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What’s going on with the wildly fluctuating stock markets, in the U.S. and around the globe? As The New York Times explains, the motivating factors certainly are not about logic — they’re about fear:

Anybody searching for cause-and-effect logic in the daily gyrations of the market will be disappointed — even if the overarching problem of a crisis of confidence in the global economy is now becoming clear.

Instead, the market has become a case study in the psychology of crowds, many experts say. In normal times, it runs on a healthy mix of fear and greed. But fear now seems to rule, with investors often exhibiting a Wall Street version of the fight-or-flight mechanism — they are selling first, and asking questions later…

This, of course, is nothing new. Almost a century ago, in the classic 1919 work of social psychology Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War, Wilfred Trotter introduced the concept of “the herd instinct” in relation to human behavior and explored the fundamental importance of gregariousness among animals as well as among humans. Trotter drew incisively on the concept of social habit to provide a deeper understanding of the nature of human behavior as well as its affect on the national morale… particularly in times of war. As Trotter noted, these ideas may also be of use to “a tired nation seeking peace.”

Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War is available at Amazon.com and from other online booksellers.

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Danny Schechter, author of the new Cosimo book Plunder: Investigating Our Economic Calamity and the Subprime Scandal, will be appearing at McNally Jackson Booksellers in New York City tomorrow, Tuesday, October 7, from 7pm to 8pm, as part of the store’s First Tuesday series:

This monthly series curated by author and activist Mark Crispin Miller features authors whose books tackle political and public issues from a stance outside the mainstream. Plunder follows up on Emmy Award-winning investigative journalist Danny Schechter’s 2007 film In Debt We Trust, exposing the role Wall Street played in promoting deceptive and dodgy subprime lending. This evening’s event is guest hosted by Steve Fraser.

McNally Jackson Booksellers is located at 52 Prince Street (between Lafayette & Mulberry Streets) in Manhattan’s Little Italy. For more info, visit the shop’s Web site or call (212) 274-1160.

Read the introduction to Plunder here. (Alert: PDF.)

Plunder is available at Amazon.com and from other online booksellers

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