This book is packed with great material, and it's beautifully illustrated. I love having it on my bookshelf. Unfortunately, it's also packed with the densest, most hard to read prose I've tried to struggle through in a long time. Using it as reference is difficult, because the descriptions of the various entities are practically unreadable. Perhaps meant to be whimsical or charming, the prose is merely laborious to slog through. The book is also quite heavy and unwieldy, so hard to handle if you're not sitting at a table to read it.

Again, beautifully illustrated and a great thing to have, just frustrating and a bit inaccessible if you want to grab some quick information. (which is after all, the point of an encyclopedia or other reference book) ( )

Totally wonderful, big coffeetable book about faeries. Over 350 pages full of faeries and their relatives from all around the world. From less-known creatures to famous ones. They even have Finnish Nukku-Matti here!

Every creature is introduced with pictures, description of appearance, behavior, food and other facts collected from folk tales. In addition to that, there's an overview explanation or a story about the faerie in question. There's a lot of information and the pictures are colourful, beautiful and detailed. This book is a must for all faerie-fans. ( )