It’s rare, the lit department filings here at Shared Darkness, but devoted horror fans will surely want to check out Crystal Lake Memories, the superb new hardcover chronicling of the Friday the 13th series from Titan Books. Clocking in at 320 pages, and including a foreword by Sean S. Cunningham and interviews with over 200 franchise alumni, author Peter M. Bracke’s tome is as impressive an overview of a so-called lowbrow genre series as I’ve seen — the ultimate oral memoir of the most successful and lasting horror franchise of our time.

And hey, it’s great merely as eye candy, too — full of storyboards, original script pages, rare archival documents and production materials, and over 600 never-before-seen photos. If you’ve still got that Jason hockey mask stowed in your closet from Halloween, and/or you just want a good, hard, long look at all the sort of feuding, controversy and rights bickering that feeds into the development process (and sustenance of such an iconic character), this book is right in your wheelhouse, in time for both Halloween (its proper release) and this fall’s later gift-giving season.