Enjoyable debut novel exploring hauntological themes. It flagged a bit in the second half, getting bogged down in overlong sequences involving a series of seances which I was sorely tempted to skip. Maclean needed them for the plot but you could tell he was regretting this somewhat. I doubt I‘ll be buying any more from this author but I love a bit of nostalgia and this had it in spades. Good cover, too.

Just lost a whole review so will keep this brief: Harpur asserts that many big cat sightings - pumas, lynx, jaguars, et al - are anomalous to the point of incomprehensibility: particularly in countries like the UK where such animals are not indigenous. Her conclusion: they‘re daimons. Trickster-beings with only one foot - or two paws - in this world. An intriguing hypothesis, backed by a wealth of data.

Before Covid, the disappearance of flight MH370 was the quintessential Fortean mystery of our times. De Changy‘s book is a detailed and worthwhile examination of the facts. She concludes that there was no turn-back at waypoint IGARI and that MH370 met a violent end over the South China Sea. Definitive study of a gripping and still unresolved aviation mystery. More on my blog at www.markfox.co.uk if you‘re curious.

If it was possible to judge a book by its cover I‘d give this one a perfect score. In fact, the whole book is beautifully presented. Came with a quality bookmark too. Hats off to Schiffer publishing (I‘d never heard of them).

As I was telling AmyG the other day, I gave away, several years ago, a first edition NEL paperback edition of The Shining, originally bought during a family holiday to Spain in 1979. What was I thinking?!! 😩😱🤯Reading it in ‘79, I was so terrified that I dreaded walking down the hotel corridors. Later, I loved the film too, although King, I understand, didn‘t. Today‘s King question: which of his books absolutely straight-out scared you the most?

Shawshank has tended to eclipse the others but this is actually one of his ‘four stories‘ collections. The Body is my favourite: King doing his ‘lost innocence‘ thing in the way only he can. Stylistically it‘s superb, with dialogue to die for. Apt Pupil is great, too, and as for Shawshank: well, you know the rest. A great collection, revealing the author at the height of his powers. Things went a bit west in places after this.

These Omnibus editions are a thing of the past now but they‘re still going for a song second-hand. Worth picking up? Depends if you‘re happy settling down in your favourite chair with a ton weight in your lap, I guess. Bible-thin pages too. Carrie is the stuff of legend but I bailed on The Tommyknockers: King‘s worst ever, I reckon, despite a great premise. My other SK bails: Needful Things, Insomnia, Revival. So far. How about you?

Another year, another SK Hard Case Crime offering. King fairly churns this stuff out these days and although there‘s nothing exactly new here the plot is fresh and compelling. The usual twists and turns - and clunky dialogue in places - but there‘s none of the flab of his weightier tomes and the book is all the better for that. King is insanely readable when he‘s as good as this and Paul Mann‘s cover is the best in the series to date, I reckon.

Of all the King books I own - a lot - I like the cover on this one the best. The stories are consistently strong, too. I‘d call this ‘mid-period‘ King: not as good as the early stuff but the drug days were behind him and it shows. Incidentally, one of 600 or so books I gave away during a house move. Instantly regretted, then years later I found this at a car boot sale - identical to the one I gave away. Sometimes you just get lucky, I guess.

It struck me a while back that testimonies of ‘heavenly visits‘ by near-death survivors required some sort of theological response and this book was the result of several years reflection on Near-Death Experiences from the twin - but related - perspectives of religion and philosophy. More at www.markfox.co.uk if you‘re curious.

An ironically theological choice of title, given the book‘s attempt to use science to unlock the mystery of NDEs. Still, it‘s a readable engagement, in which the author argues that whilst no one scientific explanation can explain every feature of NDEs, a whole bunch of them suffices to explain them all. Ultimately reductive and generally unconvincing, it fails to adequately examine what experiencers actually report, which is a major flaw.

An odd book, published in 1978. The first study of Near-Death Experiences to show that not all such experiences are positive and that persons visibly distressed immediately after ‘hellish‘ experiences recall them as pleasant later on. They‘re replacing bad memories with good, according to Rawlings, as a way of dealing with extreme trauma. A brave book and a novel thesis, for which he was vilified by several other researchers in later years.

I‘d normally post a photo of the book cover but my copy long since disintegrated to the point where the cover went. Anybody else read a book so much that it simply fell apart? If so, what was it? In Life After Life, Raymond Moody coined the term ‘near-death experience.‘ It‘s a commonplace part of our vocabulary now but back in 1975 it was a ‘new thing.‘ Were these experiences really proof that the soul survives death? A compelling read, even now.

To kick off my NDE week, here‘s a new and very readable overview of half a century‘s research into Near-Death Experiences by one of the field‘s pioneers. There‘s nothing really ground-breaking here, but the testimonies are vividly related and the conclusions immensely thought-provoking. Death really isn‘t the end, according to many clinically dead and revived folks - that alone makes this study well worth the price of admission.

Through judicious use of FOI requests, Clarke was given access to a tranche of UK Defence Ministry files on UFOs from The National Archives and the result was this book. Alas for him, it turns out that there were no Great Secrets to be had there; no ‘smoking guns.‘ Not because of any grand cover-up, but simply because of a lack of money and personnel. There‘s certainly nothing here you can‘t find elsewhere. And not a single X-File in sight.

Basically, Hastings‘ thesis is that there is a clear link between UFO activity and nuclear bases. This has been the case since the dawn of the nuclear age and continues to be so. After nearly 600 pages I‘m still not entirely convinced but I must say the quantity of data is very impressive. I‘d have liked him to drill down more into the ‘classic‘ cases - Big Sur, Malmstrom - instead of his ‘scattergun‘ approach. The kindle formatting is poor.

A haunting and in many ways disturbing real-life tale of the tragic death of four - perhaps five - young men. It‘s been hailed - if that‘s the right word - as America‘s Dyatlov Pass: a group of young people leave their car in a place they shouldn‘t have been and walked to their deaths on a snowy mountain. This book needed way better editing, but even the regular bloopers couldn‘t distract from a genuinely engrossing, if tragic, tale.

Can cats show us the meaning of life? John Gray says: not really. And that‘s kind of the point: the preoccupation with meaning, he says, is a uniquely human endeavour that cats don‘t share. Still, they can teach us to simply be, and in doing so reveal where our own contentment might be found. An entertaining little book, exploring happiness, ethics, love, time, death and the soul: all through a very satisfying feline ‘lens.‘ Well-written, too.

Part-travelogue, part sad story of one man‘s search to find his son in America‘s wide open spaces. I thought it would be a bit more like David Paulides‘ Missing 411 series but it was rather more personal than those books, and mainly focussed on one case. Some other - notable - cases were introduced almost as asides and I would have liked to have known more about some of them, although I accept that this would have resulted in a dilution of focus.

Clever title for an interesting, if somewhat pedestrian, book. Alma Fielding was haunted by her past, Kate Summerscale suggests, and the result was the raging gimcrackery of poltergeistery that seemed to follow her wherever she went during several dramatic months in 1938. Fraud aplenty - Freud, even - and precious little in the way of actual supernatural events, but, as the author hints, that was never the real point.

Look at that cover! That title! A rollicking read; right? If only. It‘s dull, dull, dull. Whilst purporting to be some kind of grand expose of charlatan charismatics it‘s actually a trudgy slog through various kinds of obscure metaphysical arcana. There‘s not a rogue in the house, just a steady drip, drip, drip of sleep-inducing pseudo-esoterica. Maybe that‘s the point. Or maybe I‘m missing all the points. Whatever. I bailed well before the end.

I always had a soft spot for this franchise. The series was wonderfully terrible, the films uneven in quality, and the books fair to middling, but I can still remember the excitement I felt when I woke to see this annual at the bottom of my bed on Christmas morning 1975. Alternate histories - past, present, and future - fascinate me still. I guess what we watch and read as children leaves a massive legacy.

Introducing...Sir Alister Hardy: a maverick biologist who early came to the view that our capacity for spiritual and transcendent experience actually aided our evolution as a species. He devoted his life to a reconciliation of the ‘worlds‘ of biology and the spirit and this book charts, among other things, what he did in order to do that. Hay knows Hardy‘s world from the inside, and the result is a fitting biography of a truly unusual man.

Fascinating book with many applications. Criminology, obviously, but I‘m also thinking in terms of ‘anomalies‘: encounters with ‘ghosts‘, UFOs and the like. If testimonies are all you have, testimonies are what analysis should seem to explain: stories rooted in memory. Loftus shows how unreliable memory can be, but is in no way dismissive. I like this approach way better than the discarding of recollection because it doesn‘t supply ‘hard data.‘

Jung can be unfathomable but he‘s rarely less than interesting. These readings are fascinating, particularly those to do with synchronicity. I have on occasion experienced ‘coincidences‘ that left me speechless, humbled, and contemplative. Jung would say that this is entirely typical and part of the way the universe ‘works.‘ Openness is key, it seems.

Now there‘s a question. Ostensibly, so the authors contend, because the situation was wrongly defined - and hence grossly mismanaged - from the start, with famously tragic consequences. Koresh was a scumbag, but it took a spectacularly incompetent administration to elevate him into a martyr. Interesting how that seems to go for many so-called ‘charismatic‘ figures from the past. Another instance of history repeating, I guess.

Surely the most reviewed book on Litsy this year and I couldn‘t help but join in. Apocalyptic and massive in scale, it‘s obviously what a novelist‘s idea of what a pandemic would be like and, we now know, nothing like the reality. Or, at least, 2020‘s reality. That said, any writer who namechecks Jerry Garcia is in my cool book. I first read it aeons ago and it made a massive impression which stayed with me. One of his absolute best.

I love these multi-disciplinary studies. So often we think of love in terms of feelings - obviously rightly - but I found this book useful as a catalyst for asking: what, exactly, is this gentle and not-so-gentle breeze that has so often completely blown me away? Turns out it‘s just as much to do with willing as it is with feeling. A great study, but obviously no substitute for the Real Thing. That‘d be like confusing the menu with the meal.

Love this cover. I knew John Hick and respected him enormously but cannot agree with his conclusion that all religions are to God as the colours of the spectrum are to light. It‘s the concept of ‘religion‘ itself that I struggle with. As if, say Buddhism and Judaism have anything at all in common. They don‘t. ‘Religion‘ is just some label with which to shoehorn incompatible things together. I respect ‘religions‘ - the term itself is the problem.

400th anniversary this month of the magazine named after the subject of Steinmeyer‘s excellent biography. Before I read it I thought Fort was some sort of trickster figure but after I‘d finished I realised that he was actually a wonderfully eccentric figure who devoted his life to his extraordinary interests. A wonderful man, who once emigrated because he got banned from the library. My type of hero.

Seminal - perhaps only - full-length study of premature burial. I can‘t think of anything worse than waking up to the terrifying realisation that I‘m in my coffin ten feet under but, as Davies shows, amazingly it‘s possible to survive even this horror-of-horrors. Some interesting Near-Death Experiences in this book too. Tip: if you want to make sure you don‘t wake up in your coffin, be cremated or embalmed. Happy Friday, guys!

A pair of scoundrels! I was half way through Gurdjieff‘s ‘Meetings‘, ostensibly an autobiographical account of his youth and early travels, when I realised he‘d made it all up. Brilliantly funny, though, even so. Alas, Osho‘s own attempt at emulating his mentor falls well short and the result is mostly drivel. Thumbs up for Gurdjieff, two thumbs down for his copyist.

Although he‘d been around for donkey‘s years when it came out this still seemed to me like King‘s ‘coming of age‘ book. It‘s what I‘d call ‘mature King‘, with all of the stories slow burns and the horror (mostly) understated, yet the whole package seems better for that. Made me feel pleased that I‘d stuck with him since nineteen seventy God-knows-when. I love these hardback editions, too. They feel good in the hand and not too heavy.

A little-known case; inexplicable given the chaos this polt caused. Probably the best case I‘ve come across and this book does it full justice. Polts are generally disruptive but at least this one had a sense of humour: when the family decided to move - because they couldn‘t take it any more - the polt made sounds of packing, as if it was coming too!

So hot off the press it‘s yet to arrive in Litsy‘s database - hence a previous title, above - may I proudly present, five years in the making, my first foray into fiction! It started with a name - Cold Inn is an actual place - and it grew from there: a rich blend of horror, romance and time travel with a pinch of mysticism and spirituality thrown in for good measure! More at www.markfox.co.uk - including a free ‘look in‘ - if you‘re curious...

Brunvand‘s been ploughing this furrow for quite a while now, proving that folkloristics can be...well, fun. We‘ve all heard the story: lonely motorist picks up rain-drenched hitchhiker on a country road in the middle of a stormy night. Ten miles further down the road he turns to offer him a cigarette and the guy‘s gone. Brumvand examines the richness and complexity of urban myths in a down-to-earth and accessible style. Social history at its best.

‘Notes and Queries‘ first appeared on 3rd November 1849 and quickly established itself as the nineteenth century‘s go-to miscellany of the odd and the eccentric. This book presents the best bits; questions and answers, mostly. My favourites (in no particular order): ‘ELEPHANTS: Are they aroused by mulberry blood and human earwax?‘; ‘GAME FEATHERS IN BEDDING: Do they delay death?‘; and ‘LEECHES: Can they predict the weather?‘ Terrific stuff.

Tremendous anthology with a most apt and appropriate title. If anybody‘s mind was awake it was Lewis‘s. The prose leaps off the page too: ‘A creature revolting against a creator is revolting against the source of his own powers - including even his power to revolt...It is like the scent of a flower trying to destroy the flower.‘ I‘m not sure I agree with him here but I sure as hell wish I could write like him.

Really struggling with this one. To read the reviews you‘d think this was a seismic moment in Ufological history but in truth it‘s dull as ditchwater and contains little or nothing new. In fact, it‘s just a re-hash of old stuff; decades old in many instances. Several weeks in and I‘m still only on page 65. Time to bail, I think. A major disappointment leading me to un-stack her latest on life after death. You can‘t win ‘em all.

Apparently we‘re ‘wired for God.‘ That is, we‘re biologically designed to experience episodes of ‘the divine.‘ I confess that this is the least surprising thing I‘ve heard in a long time. After all, God, should He exist, could surely only communicate with biological beings in a way which was congruent with their essence and nature. Foster demonstrates this lucidly and carefully and with an admirable deftness of touch. A very nice man, as well.

Anybody else like James Morrow? He‘s funny, clever and one of the most unclunky writers I‘ve ever come across. Like Towing Jehovah - my favourite - this one is sharp, philosophically literate and absolutely rewarding. I guess he‘s blasphemous but only vaguely so. Worth a go if you haven‘t already.

Interesting book. Ian Stevenson spent a lifetime trying to ‘prove‘ reincarnation via an examination of children‘s‘ ‘past life‘ memories. Shroder went along with him on some of his field trips and this book serves both as a popularisation of Stevenson‘s work and a travelogue in which he examines some of the best cases. It‘s readable, thought-provoking and a tad unsettling. I trust this evidence more than I do the evidence from regressive hypnosis.

‘Meeting with God does not come to man in order that he may concern himself with God, but in order that he may confirm that there is meaning in the world.‘ I sometimes wonder if that‘s why there are so many conspiracy theories about so many things nowadays. Something has to fill the meaning vacuum that opens up when God is displaced from the world. We were made for a bigger picture. We crave it. And so we draw it.

I re-read this a few weeks back in preparation for a small study group I lead. We were looking at anxiety and this book turned out to be helpful. Service for others, courage, confession, a ‘right view‘ of ourselves and the world: it all sounds so easy and right yet if you‘ve ever suffered from anxiety you‘ll know that all the rationality in the world won‘t make it go away. Talking about it helps, as we found in our group. Have a good week, folks.

Even when it was supposedly ‘new‘, the New Age wasn‘t really new. This book shows how almost a hundred years before the New Age the comparable ideas of Steiner, Gurdjieff and Madame Blavatsky herself had made significant inroads into the West. I love books like this, where the author‘s deftness of touch makes alive what in less capable hands would be drier than dust. What it also shows is the West‘s insatiable quest - even lust - for meaning.

What‘s ‘real‘? Could ‘this‘ all be a dream; a game; an illusion; a computer simulation? The Matrix and its sequels raised profound - some would say pointless - philosophical questions which had already been asked by philosophers from Plato to Descartes and all points in between. This book of essays explores their points of view non-technically and without unnecessary jargon, examining various answers to the ‘real‘ question along the way.

Fascinating collection of textual ‘interpretations‘, diversions, reinventions and alternatives to the account of the creation of Adam and Eve as found in the Book of Genesis. Historical and cross-cultural, it provides ample testimony to the enduring power of the human religious imagination across time and space. ‘Inspired‘? Depends how you define that word. Challenging for sure, and never less than fascinating. And look at that cover!

Having been fortunate enough to share a stage with Prof Sheldrake in Oxford last year I was blown away by his talk. Gone are the days when ‘science‘ was pitted against ‘religion‘. As this marvellous book shows, science is becoming increasingly aware of the benefits of spirituality and has empirical proof to prove it. Meditation, gratitude, pilgrimage, ritual, singing and chanting all bestow benefits to body and soul - as Sheldrake lucidly shows.

Like sociology, folkloristics has a reputation for being dry and reductive, but Bennett‘s sympathetic, testimony-driven approach means that this study of the supernatural experiences of British women is anything but. Wide-ranging, it covers ghosts, poltergeists, ESP, dreams, premonitions and fortune telling. I suspect Bennett‘s conclusions - these experiences exist and are worthy of study - are replicated in other cultural contexts too. Superb.

I enjoyed his books on Heaven and Judas and this one adopts a similar format: a multi-disciplinary history both accessible and very readable. This is one of those ‘sophisticated-folksy‘ books that informs as well as entertains and which will, I‘m sure, repay a return visit sometime. And for those who wonder where the angels have ‘gone‘: well Stanford covers that base too. I won‘t give the game away, except to say that they may walk among us still.