I am a great lover of fantasy art books. And lucky me, I'm still on the Fantagraphics mailing list. So today I was blessed to recieve a copy of "Beasts".
It's a glorious book, filled with mytho- and crypto- zoological monstrosities of every sort. 90 contemporary artists contributed to the book, including long time favorites of mine: Attaboy, Eric Reynolds, Martin Ontiveros, Tim Biskup and Tony Millionaire. Each monster gets a spread - the left page is the verbal description of the beastie, the right page is the illustration (and some very lucky beasties get full centerfold treatment!).
Like I said, I'm a lover and geeky collector of this kind of bestiary. But I'd put this book way up at the top of the stack. Highly recommended.