Batman: The Ultimate Guide

Scott Beatty. DK Publishing (Dorling Kindersley), $24.99 (128pp) ISBN 978-0-7894-7865-8

Readers can uncover the secrets of two superheroes in Batman: The Ultimate Guide to the Dark Knight by Scott Beatty and Spider-Man: The Ultimate Guide by Tom DeFalco. The first, for example, opens with the murder of Bruce Wayne's parents, then tracks Wayne's transformation into the evil-avenging ""Guardian of Gotham"" and includes reproductions of many drawings from the archives of DC Comics. The latter chronicles the adventures of Peter Parker, who gains unusual powers after being bitten by an irradiated spider, with reproductions of drawings from the Marvel Comics archives. Each contains more than 700 illustrations. ( Oct.)

Featured Nonfiction Reviews

Daniel Saldaña París

Novelist París (Ramifications) reflects in these striking essays on the complicated relationship between place and identity. Traversing the cities “that have marked my life,” Continue reading »

John Gilbert McCurdy

The 1774 trial of British army chaplain Robert Newburgh (1742–1825) for “vicious and immoral behavior” sheds valuable light on contemporaneous ideas about homosexuality, Continue reading »

Dean Jobb

Jobb follows up The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream with a top-shelf work of true crime focused on lovestruck “gentleman thief” Arthur Barry (1896–1981). A con artist since his Continue reading »

Corinne Fowler

“Colonialism... affected the remotest corners” of Britain’s landscape, demonstrates historian and curator Fowler (Green Unpleasant Land) in this revelatory Continue reading »