7 Books Like Presence

The author of this book attacks the self righteous attitude of women's rights, gay rights and transexualism and the bias of positive discrimination in race as it actually creates more prejudice against these groups of people in the general population. It is fascism by any other name or outrage politics, hissy fits and victim hood, attempting to manipulate the public into accepting the lies of the situation as truth when it patently isn't.

Like his other three books in the series, you really felt for those involved and saw through the illusions of war that politicians sold as a viewpoint. The German war machine was driven by grit and determination, not weaponry or tactics, despite the lies told after the war about advanced technology (most Germans walked to war across the Russian steppes and they were overwhelmed by the size of the country and the amount of badly trained and armed forces fighting them, also they relied on horse drawn artillery, more than tanks).

In this claustrophobic modern classic, a grieving father and Ted Hughes scholar finds himself haunted by an oily, unnerving, anthropomorphic crow.

I’m a fan of anything Porter writes, but his debut is deserving of the indelible mark it’s made upon the modern literary landscape. The crow is a character like no other, and Porter’s poetry brings this strange and beautiful bird to life.

While you read this story, you step into a world where magic and science intertwine, where armored bears rule the icy north, witches soar through the skies, and every person has a daemon—a living reflection of their soul. The adventure takes us across breathtaking landscapes, from the bustling streets of Oxford to the frozen wastelands of the Arctic, uncovering secrets that shake the very foundation of reality.

Lyra’s journey is thrilling, full of mystery, danger, and a sense of wonder that never fades. Philip Pullman weaves a story so immersive and thought-provoking that it makes us question everything we think we know. It’s a book that sparks curiosity, adventure, and just the right amount of rebellion.

My book starts with a series of conversations with people who have psychosis and hear voices. Some people described to me a particularly unusual experience: the feeling of a voice being there, even when it wasn’t speaking.

As an undergraduate student one of the books that first got me thinking about these topics was Richard Bentall’s Madness Explained. It really opened my eyes to the possibilities of the mind and how we can think about experiences like hallucinations without necessarily pathologizing them.

This book was my gateway to then learning about things like the International Hearing Voices moment, which argues against an overly medicalized understanding of unusual experiences like voice-hearing. My book is quite wide-ranging, but I’ve tried to retain some of the ethos of Madness Explained in how I’ve approached the world of uncanny presences. 

Some of the most famous felt presences are those that occur in survival situations under the name of the “Third Man”.

The name comes from a line in The Wasteland, by T.S. Eliot, in which he recalled the story of Antarctic explorers being accompanied by a phantom figure. Tat story was Ernest Shackleton’s: at the end of the ill-fated Endurance expedition, Shackleton experienced something like a felt presence when crossing the interior of South Georgia Island to save the rest of his crew.

He recounts the story of the whole expedition in South, and it’s an amazing read. When I was writing my book, I was really struck by how good a psychologist Shackleton was: he was constantly trying to understand and motivate his crew, while being acutely aware of the impact of the situation and the environment around them.

At several points he directly comments on… show more.

I devoured this book and its main premise: that to be a therapist is a great art and a deep discipline. Yalom is the inspiration for many psychology and psychotherapy students and trainees, and for good reason. He is the kindly, wise father many of us wish we had.

I adored this book for its insights into psychotherapy and the therapy room and for the tenderness with which Yalom treats his patients. He was also one of the first professionals to openly and publicly share his own emotions and thoughts about his patients and being a therapist. He powerfully puts forward the ‘human first, therapist second’ philosophy, one that informed my work fundamentally. He takes chances, loves his patients sincerely, and, as a result, was a hugely respected clinician who taught as well as he practiced. It is a great read for patients and therapists alike.