Book excerpt: Wild Talents captures Charles Fort at his finest, most thought-provoking, and is considered his wittiest work. Containing accounts of--among numerous other bizarre topics--strange coincidences, vampires, werewolves, talking dogs, poltergeist activity, teleportation, witchcraft, vanishing people, spontaneous human combustion, and the escapades of the 'mad bats of Trinidad.' This is essential reading for those who want to learn about the early years of research into the myriad mysteries of this world and beyond. CHARLES HOY FORT (1874-1932), life-long naturalist and independent journalist, wrote ten novels, though only one, The Outcast Manufacturers (1906), was published in the U.S. - critics said it was ahead of its time, but it was commercially unsuccessful. His most recognized work, The Book of the Damned (1919), referred to "damned data" that Fort collected, phenomena for which science could not account and was thus rejected or ignored. Upon his death in 1932, more than 60,000 notes were donated to The New York Public Library.