4 Books Like Out-Of-Body Experiences

Revisiting Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China after many years, in anticipation of the sequel, 35 years on, it’s still an extraordinary read, bringing to light the history of hidden twentieth century China through the lives of three generations of Chinese women. The ascent and overwhelming power of Mao Zedong , instigating blind obedience, collective insanity, deprivation and persecution, unfolds as a hyper-dystopian nightmare: ‘He ruled by getting people to hate each other… managed to turn the people into the ultimate weapon of dictatorship’.

Neighbours, friends, family members were pitted against each other; flowers, grass, sparrows were declared bourgeois enemies of the people, to be ruthlessly eliminated. Millions of people died.

Virtually every page delivers some kind of new derangement, but it’s also a tale of fortitude, resilience and survival against impossible odds. Wild Swans has lost none of its first time impact and stands as a stark warning of… show more.

Anthony Peake's new book on near-death experiences (NDEs) goes far beyond many others in this field of study. It explores not only the potential evidential value of NDEs -- including a critical reevaluation of a number of famous cases -- but also the various ways the phenomenon can be interpreted. Peake incorporates data, hypotheses, and ideas from science, philosophy, religious studies, and anthropology. He looks in detail at some of the elements that make up NDEs, including the out-of-body experience, tunnel, life review, and time distortion. Importantly, his approach is not merely descriptive for he assesses the implications of all these elements in light of various explanatory theories about NDEs -- including an innovative one of his own. This is a thought-provoking work which should be of value both to those new to the subject and to those well versed in it.

P. D. Newman has produced a book with a rare and elusive combination of qualities: engaging, intellectually stimulating, and benefitting from sound scholarship and personal experience. His attempt to reconstruct the interface between psychedelics and shamanic afterlife journeys among the Indigenous people of the Mississippi Valley is both inventive and original. Much thought and research went into this book, drawing on archaeology, anthropology, botany, and comparative religion, and it's all integrated in a compelling and entertaining way.

Writing a new John le Carré novel when you are not John le Carré would be a daunting task for any author. Maybe even more so when he happened to be your dad. But Nick Harkaway has risen impressively to the challenge. Karla’s Choice is a return to the murky labyrinthine world of international Cold War chicanery and espionage. Murder, betrayal, deceit, clandestine ops and geopolitics - George Smiley and the Circus are back. It’s as if John le Carré never left us.