Here are 100 books that Spook fans have personally recommended if you like
Spook.
Book DNA is a community of 13,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
I have loved Halloween since I ran through the suburban streets of southern Connecticut with ears and a tail. For more than thirty years Iâve been researching and writing about the holiday, and each year I find something new. Most of all, Iâm a Halloween advocate: At Halloween we can wrap our arms around the reality of the other 364 days and satirize, exorcize, and celebrate it. The joy of Halloween is not that itâs dark and we revel in that; itâs that Halloween can bring a bit of light and laughter into the darkness. And, of course, itâs big, creative, candy-fueled fun.
Trick or Treat takes the history of Halloween and brings it into the 21st century. The book chronicles the holidayâs long historyâdistant and more recent, misconceptions and globalizationâand offers up similar holiday stories as well, such as chapters on Dias de Los Muertos and All Saints Day celebrations. Looking for something to read or watch or listen to? Here youâll find a chronicle of Halloweenâs literature through 2012, as well as recent movies and music that capture the holidayâs culture in our world today.
Trick or Treat is the first book to both examine the origins and history of Halloween and explore in depth its current global popularity. Festivals like the Celtic Samhain and Catholic All Souls' Day have blended to produce the modern Halloween, which has been reborn in America - but there are also related but independent holidays, especially Mexico's Day of the Dead. Lisa Morton explores the explosion in popularity of haunted attractions and the impact of events such as the global economic recession, as well as the effect Halloween has had on popular culture through literary works, films and televisionâŚ
The brain: brilliant, powerful... and utterly bizarre. Why would someone be terrified they might slip down a shower drain? Or insist they've turned into a cat? What can rare brain disordersâand surprisingly common mental quirksâteach us about how we think, feel, and behave?
I have loved Halloween since I ran through the suburban streets of southern Connecticut with ears and a tail. For more than thirty years Iâve been researching and writing about the holiday, and each year I find something new. Most of all, Iâm a Halloween advocate: At Halloween we can wrap our arms around the reality of the other 364 days and satirize, exorcize, and celebrate it. The joy of Halloween is not that itâs dark and we revel in that; itâs that Halloween can bring a bit of light and laughter into the darkness. And, of course, itâs big, creative, candy-fueled fun.
This is my go-to book whenever I start a new Halloween writing project. It grounds me in details about the origins of Halloween (and holidays throughout the year) and illustrates brilliantly why the turning of the seasons has always been critical, and how holidays mark important cultural moments in so many ways. The origin of Halloween is here, but so is the origin of celebration itself.
Comprehensive and engaging, this colourful study covers the whole sweep of ritual history from the earliest written records to the present day. From May Day revels and Midsummer fires, to Harvest Home and Hallowe'en, to the twelve days of Christmas, Ronald Hutton takes us on a fascinating journey through the ritual year in Britain. He challenges many common assumptions about the customs of the past, and debunks many myths surrounding festivals of the present, to illuminate the history of the calendar year we live by today.
I have loved Halloween since I ran through the suburban streets of southern Connecticut with ears and a tail. For more than thirty years Iâve been researching and writing about the holiday, and each year I find something new. Most of all, Iâm a Halloween advocate: At Halloween we can wrap our arms around the reality of the other 364 days and satirize, exorcize, and celebrate it. The joy of Halloween is not that itâs dark and we revel in that; itâs that Halloween can bring a bit of light and laughter into the darkness. And, of course, itâs big, creative, candy-fueled fun.
Not only is this a complete history of pumpkins â itâs a fascinating history of America. Thereâs good, solid jack-o-lantern history alongside descriptions and photos of the gazillion ways we celebrate, decorate, grow, eat, idolize, and display pumpkins. Emerging as a symbol of lust in medieval Europe, the pumpkin became synonymous with the American wilderness, then came to stand for rustic life, and now Halloween. If you like history and Americana as well as Halloween, youâll like this one. And if youâre a Halloween nerd like I am, youâll love the 100 pages of footnotes.
Why do so many Americans drive for miles each autumn to buy a vegetable that they are unlikely to eat? While most people around the world eat pumpkin throughout the year, North Americans reserve it for holiday pies and other desserts that celebrate the harvest season and the rural past. They decorate their houses with pumpkins every autumn and welcome Halloween trick-or-treaters with elaborately carved jack-o'-lanterns. Towns hold annual pumpkin festivals featuring giant pumpkins and carving contests, even though few have any historic ties to the crop.
In this fascinating cultural and natural history, Cindy Ott tells the story ofâŚ
Diary of a Citizen Scientist
by
Sharman Apt Russell,
Citizen Scientist begins with this extraordinary statement by the Keeper of Entomology at the London Museum of Natural History, âStudy any obscure insect for a week and you will then know more than anyone else on the planet.â
As the author chases the obscure Western red-bellied tiger beetle across NewâŚ
I have loved Halloween since I ran through the suburban streets of southern Connecticut with ears and a tail. For more than thirty years Iâve been researching and writing about the holiday, and each year I find something new. Most of all, Iâm a Halloween advocate: At Halloween we can wrap our arms around the reality of the other 364 days and satirize, exorcize, and celebrate it. The joy of Halloween is not that itâs dark and we revel in that; itâs that Halloween can bring a bit of light and laughter into the darkness. And, of course, itâs big, creative, candy-fueled fun.
Haunted Air is a book of undated photos of adults and children in costume. Not all of them may be Halloween photographs (we dressed up on so many occasions back then!), but most of them are. I love the handmade costumes and makeup, the creepy masks, the way the costumes tie into popular culture and the sheer joy of imagination they exude. Itâs a creepy book, in a good way. David Lynch wrote the forward.
The roots of Hallowe'en lie in the ancient pre-Christian Celtic festival of Samhain, a feast to mark the death of the old year and the birth of the new. It was believed that on this night the veil separating the worlds of the living and the dead grew thin and ruptured, allowing spirits to pass through and walk unseen but not unheard amongst men. The advent of Christianity saw the pagan festival subsumed in All Souls' Day, when across Europe the dead were mourned and venerated. Children and the poor, often masked or in outlandish costume, wandered the night beggingâŚ
Iâve always been nostalgic. I long for a connection with times and places Iâve never experienced, and I think my fascination with ghosts and the uncanny is connected to that. As a child, I fell in love with ancient Egypt, with its famously complex religious traditions concerning death and the afterlife. I earned a PhD in Egyptology and spent a lifetime crafting stories about the past, often with a speculative or supernatural twist. For me, ghosts and history are a natural combination. Â
I read this book not long after reading Spook, and it scratched many of the same philosophical itches for me. I love its dreamlike quality and haunting sense of nostalgia. As far as I know, it's also unlike any other work of fiction in its approach to the question of life after death.
It blends two seemingly unrelated topicsâhistorical disasters (e.g., the Hartford circus fire, the sinking of the Titanic)âand the science of near-death experiences in a striking, unique way. Although it is, in many ways, a deeply sad story, it ultimately feels hopeful. This is one of those novels that left a lasting impact on my psyche. Â
One of those rare, unforgettable novels that are as chilling as they are insightful, as thought-provoking as they are terrifying, award-winning author Connie Willis's Passage is an astonishing blend of relentless suspense and cutting-edge science unlike anything you've ever read before.
It is the electrifying story of a psychologist who has devoted her life to tracking death. But when she volunteers for a research project that simulates the near-death experience, she will either solve life's greatest mystery -- or fall victim to its greatest terror.
At Mercy General Hospital, Dr. Joanna Lander will soon be paged -- not to saveâŚ
Iâve always been nostalgic. I long for a connection with times and places Iâve never experienced, and I think my fascination with ghosts and the uncanny is connected to that. As a child, I fell in love with ancient Egypt, with its famously complex religious traditions concerning death and the afterlife. I earned a PhD in Egyptology and spent a lifetime crafting stories about the past, often with a speculative or supernatural twist. For me, ghosts and history are a natural combination. Â
Iâve been enamored with the history of spiritualism and supernatural flimflam for years, but this book was the first account I read by an insider. Keeneâs explanations of how phony mediums operate are fascinating, as are his incisive musings on the nature of belief.
But I found Keene himself the most intriguing aspect of the book. I got the impression of a bright, insightful, and deeply conflicted manâin some ways, as much of an elusive trickster as ever. His descriptions of his antics as a spiritualist charlatan are bombastic and glib, but thereâs an underlying poignancy.
I was left with a clearer picture of how the spiritualist con game worked but more questions than answers about Keene and his motives for leaving it behind.Â
M. Lamar Keene, who came to be known as the "Prince of the Spiritualists," enjoyed the riches and fame that accompany the life of a sought-after medium. He claimed to be clairvoyant and to produce objects out of thin air. He conducted seances in which participants talked with and even touched the dead. Yet every miracle Keene performed was a fraud, a lie, and a trick played on willing, gullible victims. In this powerful and brutally honest book, Keene exposes the secrets of the seance room, including ghostly apparitions, floating trumpets, "spirit sex," and other tricks used by mediums toâŚ
Iâve always been nostalgic. I long for a connection with times and places Iâve never experienced, and I think my fascination with ghosts and the uncanny is connected to that. As a child, I fell in love with ancient Egypt, with its famously complex religious traditions concerning death and the afterlife. I earned a PhD in Egyptology and spent a lifetime crafting stories about the past, often with a speculative or supernatural twist. For me, ghosts and history are a natural combination. Â
This book profoundly appeals to the history nerd in me. It places the American Spiritualist movement in its historical and cultural context, examining everything from the connection between spiritualism and 19th-century technological innovations to the role of gender and sexuality in the sĂŠance room.
While itâs easy to dismiss spiritualism as a fringe oddity, McGarryâs book illuminates just how vital it was in shaping American culture and politics as we know them today. The academic language is a little dense in places, but that did not detract from my enjoyment of the meticulous scholarship and the enthralling subject matter.Â
"Ghosts of Futures Past" guides readers through the uncanny world of nineteenth-century American spiritualism. More than an occult parlor game, this was a new religion, which channeled the voices of the dead, linked present with past, and conjured new worldly and otherworldly futures. Tracing the persistence of magic in an emergent culture of secularism, Molly McGarry brings a once marginalized practice to the center of American cultural history. Spiritualism provided an alchemical combination of science and magic that called into question the very categories of male and female, material and immaterial, self and other, living and dead. Dissolving the boundariesâŚ
Iâve always been nostalgic. I long for a connection with times and places Iâve never experienced, and I think my fascination with ghosts and the uncanny is connected to that. As a child, I fell in love with ancient Egypt, with its famously complex religious traditions concerning death and the afterlife. I earned a PhD in Egyptology and spent a lifetime crafting stories about the past, often with a speculative or supernatural twist. For me, ghosts and history are a natural combination. Â
I love weird and inexplicable things, and Gef's story is undoubtedly the weirdest tale of a real-life (ostensibly) paranormal phenomenon I have ever encountered.
The more you know about it, the weirder it gets, and Christopher Josiffeâs meticulously researched account really delivers. Gefâs story isnât exactly about ghosts, per seâitâs not clear where the Extra Special Talking Mongoose came from or what he was supposed to beâbut it fits nicely with my interest in the uncanny.
In true Fortean fashion, Josiffe lays out all the evidence for what happened with minimal attempts at interpretation, leaving the reader to puzzle it all out. And the final chapters, which cover similar âhauntingsâ and potentially relevant folklore, are worth the price of admission alone. Â
An exhaustive investigation of the case of Gef, a âtalking mongooseâ or âman-weasel,â who appeared to a family living on the Isle of Man.
âI am the fifth dimension! I am the eighth wonder of the world!â
During the mid-1930s, British and overseas newspapers were full of incredible stories about Gef, a âtalking mongooseâ or âman-weaselâ who had allegedly appeared in the home of the Irvings, a farming family in a remote district of the Isle of Man. The creature was said to speak in several languages, to sing, to steal objects from nearby farms, and to eavesdrop on localâŚ
I love stories about âpilgrimage.â I have always been an admirer of those characters who search, whether in fiction or nonfiction. I respect their steadfast endurance to undertake a calling, meet unforeseen obstacles, and overcome insurmountable circumstances, while never allowing the burning flame that drives them to extinguish.
My own memoir, Drummer Girl, is the story of my pilgrimage. I have the distinct memory of traveling through a dark tunnel toward a clear light during surgery as a child. This experience of near death has since driven me to seek understanding, to look for words when there were none, and to find solace through lifeâs many turns.
Always curious about those who experience near-death, I recently read In My Time of Dying.
Besides my self-interest in Jungerâs actual experience, I found his curiosity and relentless determination to understand his experience, his idea of an afterlife, a pilgrimage into the metaphysical unknown. Mastering the medical knowledge of his vascular failure, Junger remains at a loss to intellectually grasp a cognitive understanding of his near-death experience.
At one point, an attending nurse said, âInstead of thinking of it as something scary, try thinking of it as something sacred.â It is Jungerâs honest inquiry into the sacred and his weaving of questions with no clear answers that make this autobiography a humbling and insightful read.Â
A near-fatal health emergency leads to this powerful reflection on deathâand what might followâby the bestselling author of Tribe and The Perfect Storm.
For years as an award-winning war reporter, Sebastian Junger traveled to many front lines and frequently put his life at risk. And yet the closest he ever came to death was the summer of 2020 while spending a quiet afternoon at the New England home he shared with his wife and two young children. Crippled by abdominal pain, Junger was rushed to the hospital by ambulance. Once there, he began slipping away. As blackness encroached, he wasâŚ
Raised in an atheist family, I came to faith in Christ in middle age and am now devoted to spreading the Gospel. I am a PhD biochemist and the author of the award-winning The Works of His Hands: A Scientistâs Journey from Atheism to Faith. I was a professor at three major universities and held leadership positions at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. I have published over 200 peer-reviewed scientific papers, as well as articles on science and faith. I serve as the Editor-in-Chief of the quarterly magazine God and Nature. My passion is to proclaim the harmony between science and Christianity.
Michael Guillen, a well-known science reporter and broadcast journalist, has published an exciting and easily understood book about how science, especially physics, supports the idea of a divine creator of the universe.
Guillen, a former atheist and skeptic of Christianity, found his worldview turned around by his scientific studies.Â
This book is beautifully written and absolutely accessible to everyone, including those with no training in physics or other sciences.
The author describes his own journey to faith through his science and answers all the questions a reader might have about the truth of the evidence. His faith shines through all the pages of this book and it is a must read for anyone interested in the harmony of science and Christian faith.
Is your worldview enlightened enough to accommodate both science and God at the same time?
Dr. Michael Guillen, a best-selling author, Emmy awardâwinning journalist and former physics instructor at Harvard, used to be an Atheistâuntil science changed his mind. Once of the opinion that people of faith are weak, small-minded folks who just don't understand science, Dr. Guillen ultimately concluded that not only does science itself depend on faith, but faith is actually the mightiest power in the universe.
In Believing Is Seeing, Dr. Guillen recounts the fascinating story of his journey from Atheism to Christianity, pulling back theâŚ
