Book cover of Speaking with Vampires: Rumor and History in Colonial Africa

Book description

During the colonial period, Africans told each other terrifying rumors that Africans who worked for white colonists captured unwary residents and took their blood. In colonial Tanganyika, for example, Africans were said to be captured by these agents of colonialism and hung upside down, their throats cut so their blood…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Speaking with Vampires as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Among all the world’s monsters one perennial favorite is vampires.

Yes, I know they’ve been done to death (or would that be undeath?) but there’s a rich history of vampires beyond Dracula, Nosferatu, Lestat, and their legions. I’m talking about “real” vampires—or at least those people believed to be real vampires.

This is the subject of Luise White’s book Speaking with Vampires: Rumor and History in Colonial Africa. White is an anthropologist and folklorist who investigated rumors of vampires throughout East Africa. She found that many Africans told similar stories of real, actual vampires that sucked the blood…

From Benjamin's list on The best (real-life) monster books.

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December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

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