The most recommended bigfoot books

As a writer, I have sworn to read all over the place and try to get out of my comfort zone as much as possible. I also believe that great stories lie in waiting in many places in many forms. (The Last of Us, a video game, was the source material for one of the best HBO series last year.) For a long while I thought I should probably explore the banquet of great work being done in comics and graphic novels.

(Writers note: If you want to learn a lot about plotting and economical storytelling, Frank Miller's Batman comics are a great place to start.)

I was so lucky to have picked up The Department of Truth from the line at the register at Forbidden Planet here in New York City. It is a fever dream of conspiracy madness that slowly unwinds what we believe is the… show more.

I felt I needed to include at least one non-fiction book in my recommendations, and this title is a favorite. It is truly “encyclopedic” in its scope, encompassing first-hand accounts from all over the globe, as well as historical context, cultural references, physical evidence, and more. 

The author specializes in a number of cryptid subjects, and the level of research is impressive. Organized alphabetically and packed with photos, The Bigfoot Book is a go-to reference for all things Sasquatch. At 685 pages in length, you get a lot of bang for your buck!

Charlotte Drummond is a sort of anti-Carrie Simpson: same era, but fictional and feminist, living on the lower Columbia River. She joins a search for a girl lost from a remote logging camp and discovers more than she bargained for. There’s so much to love in this quiet novel, mainly the vivid and unflashy rendering of landscape and unfolding of memorable characters.

And, bigfoot. 

The discovery of the diminutive hominin Homo floresiensis, a.k.a. the “Hobbit,” was a sensation in paleoanthropology–one that was anticipated by the fieldwork of cultural anthropologist Gregory Forth. Stories of creatures of similar attributes were taken as descriptions of real encounters with an “empirical” entity rather than merely figures of folklore.

This book has been a case study in the realization of a paradigm shift in how human evolution is envisioned–one branch of a bushy family tree, accompanied by multiple parallel branches, i.e., relict hominoids. 

This is the book that’ll definitely get ‘em laughing. I like the idea of camping at home—in your living room or in your back yard—as well as in the wilderness. And this book is fun to bring along. Camping and nature-themed riddles, silly jokes, games, and lots of interactive laughs. Good for all ages, too.

This book was my encyclopedic introduction to the question of legendary man-like species existing around the world in the present day.

I was in my early teens the first time I read this book, returning again and again. I found inspiration in Sanderson as an unconventional scholar-adventurer who explored the planet and fostered my fascination with exotic and elusive species on the fringes and my appreciation of world biogeography. He was a founding figure of cryptozoology, the search for hidden animals. Through his synthesis, the legendary became zoology. 

Loren Coleman is one of the original researchers from the ’60s & ’70s. His knowledge of the subject is unparalleled, which makes Bigfoot! The True Story of Apes in America, one of the best books written on the subject. With his extensive experience, Coleman takes a historical, scientific, and personal approach in developing a valid argument for the existence of Bigfoot in North America.

I discovered Gayne C. Young through the Severed Press catalog, taking notice of him as a fellow writer in the genre world. However, it wasn't until I began reading his essays and articles in various publications that I realized how much I enjoyed his work.

He is a writer with a love of  good scotch and fine cigars, an outdoorsman, travel writer, and journalist, on top of being a  novelist. All of that shines through in this book especially.

He captures the Vietnam era very well, from the characters to the setting, and blends that with the Bigfoot creature feature-type story in  a way that doesn't feel at all typical. If Ernest Hemingway wrote a Bigfoot novel, it would be something like this.  

For me, the ’60s & ’70s were the hay day of Bigfoot research. Along with Coleman, Moorehead, Green, and Dahinden, Peter Byrne was deep in the woods searching for the elusive creature. What I love about Byrne’s, The Search for Big Foot, is the authenticity of his quest. As I turned each page, I felt as if I was sitting by the campfire with Byrne as he shared his thoughts and compelling evidence for the elusive creature.

I have always sought out the strange and unusual. This book covers many different phenomena. Whether it is ghosts, aliens, legends, cryptids, or just weird lore, this book has a wide scope. I live in the state and occasionally participate in investigations of these subjects. I even wrote a play Ghosts, Aliens, and Bigfoot. This book almost reminds me of being with my grandfather as a child. He loved to scare with local legends and ghost stories spun with his special brand of creepiness and humor. Reading this late at night took me back to those special times.