A review by stephgraves
The Essential Supernatural: On the Road with Sam and Dean Winchester by Nicholas Knight

5.0

This is a stunning paratext, one that both explores and expands the world and mythology of Supernatural while at the same time providing a great deal of behind the scenes perspective. Those two trajectories may seem contradictory, but if you're a person in firm grasp of reality and are aware it's all a fiction, it works, mainly because it's the kind of show that leaves you wanting more--more of anything, any scrap--and this book delivers on two fronts. It's beautifully designed, overlarge and full of glossy photos and interviews with cast and crew, and it goes further by including a good deal of ephemera--some collectible type stuff, glossy cardstock pictures of the cast, a sheet of stickers featuring various symbols used in the show--but some is more strictly paratextual, such as postcards from the crummy motels the boys frequent, a guide to hunting demons, a sealed pouch of documents (that I haven't actually opened yet), even a pine-scented air freshener in its package, inserted into the section about the Impala. It's a feast for any Supernatural fan, worthy of a place of honor on any coffee table, except that if you put it there, other people might try to put their grubby mitts all over it...