Here are 100 books that Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries fans have personally recommended if you like
Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries.
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I am a scientist and biologist. Learning about evolution changed my life and put me on a path to studying it as a career. As a child, I was a voracious reader, and as an undergraduate, I read every popular science book on biology I could get my hands on. In retrospect, those books were almost as important to my education as anything I learned in a lab or lecture theatre. When writing for a general audience, I try to convey the same sense of wonder and enthusiasm for science that drives me to this day.
Less about biology specifically and more about the general value of the scientific method and rationalism; I think that this book should be read by everyone. Never smug or condescending, Sagan and Druyan show how easily one can be misled by mystical thinking and illustrate the many dangers of credulity.
From cargo cults to baloney detectors, this book is a primer for life in the modern world and how to recognize and protect against disinformation and one’s own biases. I have more than once bought copies of this book for people who are overly enthused about crystals.
A prescient warning of a future we now inhabit, where fake news stories and Internet conspiracy theories play to a disaffected American populace
“A glorious book . . . A spirited defense of science . . . From the first page to the last, this book is a manifesto for clear thought.”—Los Angeles Times
How can we make intelligent decisions about our increasingly technology-driven lives if we don’t understand the difference between the myths of pseudoscience and the testable hypotheses of science? Pulitzer Prize-winning author and distinguished astronomer Carl Sagan argues that scientific thinking is critical not only to the…
Since childhood, growing up in a family with spiritualist beliefs, I’ve been fascinated with mysterious phenomena. Once I became a little older, and my childhood love of zoos, museums, and dinosaurs became a broader love of science, I began to re-examine certain fantastic claims and beliefs with a skeptical lens. I became fascinated not only with the subject of certain beliefs, but the reason we as humans have these beliefs. The study of ghosts, monsters, or UFOs is really a study of the human condition and our belief systems. It’s the exploration of the human side that motivates the characters in my books and my continued interest in mysterious phenomena.
Hunting Monsters zeroes in on some of the more mysterious creatures said to haunt our forests, lakes, and the deep ocean. Darren Naish brings his expertise in zoology and paleontology to the world of cryptids such as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. Naish, the scientific advisor for Prehistoric Planet, examines both the scientific credibility of creature sightings as well as the culture that influences our belief in mysterious animals. This well-written and fascinating book leaves readers not only with a better understanding of contemporary myths involving cryptids, but zoology as well.
The Loch Ness Monster. The Yeti. Bigfoot. These are just some of the iconic mythical creatures studied by the discipline of 'cryptozoology'.
The idea of mysterious and terrifying creatures goes back centuries. They are known by the experts as cryptids. Today, these legendary beings continue to capture our imaginations.
Discover the fascinating and often bizarre stories of real life monsters and the scientists who strove to separate the fact from fiction.
In Hunting Monsters, Palaeozoological researcher Professor Darren Naish explores the fascinating science behind these elusive monsters - a science known as 'cryptozoology'. Bizarre stories of ancient sea-monsters and resurgent…
I’ve been a full-time non-fiction author since 2012 and have over 170 titles to my name. My Yeti book is one of several children’s books I’ve been lucky enough to write for Penguin Random House. My other titles in this series include: the Donner Party, Nazca Lines, the Roswell Incident, the Kraken, and Crop Circles. I have written another children’s book on the Yeti called Hunting for Yetis, which is a first-person account that tracks the creatures around the world.
I found this to be an excellent handbook, which explores the legend of the Yeti alongside other mysterious cryptid creatures such as the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot.
The authors present an entertaining and educational compendium on cryptids and give good arguments both for and against their existence. Seeing these opposing sides of the Yeti debate is great, and I highly recommend this book!
Throughout our history, humans have been captivated by mythic beasts and legendary creatures. Tales of Bigfoot, the Yeti, and the Loch Ness monster are part of our collective experience. Now comes a book from two dedicated investigators that explores and elucidates the fascinating world of cryptozoology. Daniel Loxton and Donald R. Prothero have written an entertaining, educational, and definitive text on cryptids, presenting the arguments both for and against their existence and systematically challenging the pseudoscience that perpetuates their myths. After examining the nature of science and pseudoscience and their relation to cryptozoology, Loxton and Prothero take on Bigfoot; the…
Since childhood, growing up in a family with spiritualist beliefs, I’ve been fascinated with mysterious phenomena. Once I became a little older, and my childhood love of zoos, museums, and dinosaurs became a broader love of science, I began to re-examine certain fantastic claims and beliefs with a skeptical lens. I became fascinated not only with the subject of certain beliefs, but the reason we as humans have these beliefs. The study of ghosts, monsters, or UFOs is really a study of the human condition and our belief systems. It’s the exploration of the human side that motivates the characters in my books and my continued interest in mysterious phenomena.
Kelly takes apart paranormal phenomena case by case, debunking pretty much every episode of The X-Files in doing so. From spontaneous human combustion to ESP to The Bermuda Triangle and certain famous cryptids, Kelly provides background information, the holes in the story, and the most likely explanations. The strength of this book is simultaneously its weakness, and that’s its specificity. Readers won’t take away as much about the scientific method and concepts of zoology or archaeology that can be applied to other mysteries, but they will come away with the knowledge to debunk some of the most famous tabloid claims. They’ll also come away with some interesting cocktail party conversation topics.
Can a human being really spontaneously burst into flames? Just how deadly is the Bermuda Triangle? And what's the real story behind all those alien abductions? The answers to these and many other questions lie within the covers of The Skeptic's Guide to the Paranormal. Guaranteed to liven up any dinner party, this delightful, highly readable book offers color photographs and scientific case-by-case explanations for twenty-seven phenomena that appear to defy known science, including ghosts and poltergeists, the predictions of Nostradamus, and yogic levitation, among many others. Speaking directly to the reader, and always with respect for those who believe,…
Tim Murray has been a leading exponent of the history and philosophy of archaeology for the past thirty years. He has used the history of the discipline to explore the nature of archaeological theory and the many complex intersections between archaeology and society. Of his many publications flowing from this general project, the award-winning global scale five-volume Encyclopedia of Archaeology,the single volume global history of Archaeology Milestones in Archaeology. Murray is a global leader in applying studies in the history of archaeology to the reform of archaeological theory. This is evidenced by the publication of a collection of his essays, From Antiquarian to Archaeologist, and his numerous academic papers on the subject.
In its original edition, Bruce Trigger's book was the first ever to examine the history of archaeological thought from medieval times to the present in worldwide perspective.
Now, in this new edition, he both updates the original work and introduces new archaeological perspectives and concerns. At once stimulating and even-handed, it places the development of archaeological thought and theory throughout within a broad social and intellectual framework.
The successive but interacting trends apparent in archaeological thought are defined and the author seeks to determine the extent to which these trends were a reflection of the personal and collective interests of archaeologists as these relate - in the West at least - to the fluctuating fortunes of the middle classes.
While subjective influences have been powerful, Professor Trigger argues that the gradual accumulation of archaeological data has exercised a growing constraint on interpretation.
In its original edition, Bruce Trigger's book was the first ever to examine the history of archaeological thought from medieval times to the present in world-wide perspective. Now, in this new edition, he both updates the original work and introduces new archaeological perspectives and concerns. At once stimulating and even-handed, it places the development of archaeological thought and theory throughout within a broad social and intellectual framework. The successive but interacting trends apparent in archaeological thought are defined and the author seeks to determine the extent to which these trends were a reflection of the personal and collective interests of…
Having lived in the countryside for more than two decades and fallen for its charms, I find myself fascinated by its heritage. Rural history is often overlooked for the grand stories of royalty, urban life, and warfare. For me, the archaeology and history that speaks of daily life, practical struggles, and the humanity of people–that’s what really switches me on. I constantly yearn to get inside the minds of our ancestors to try and understand how they saw the world. Whether that’s strange superstitions or ingenious inventions, it’s all part of what it means to be human.
Since hunter-gatherer times, our relationship with animals has been full of contradictions. We relied on them not only as a source of food and traction but also worshipped and deified creatures through the millennia.
This feisty and, at times, refreshingly irreverent book pulls together everything we know about the cultural history of human-animal relationships, from pampered pets to sacrificial offerings.
Zooarchaeology, the study of ancient animals, is a frequently side-lined subject in archaeology. This 'important and provocative' volume, now available in paperback, provides a crucial reversal of this bizarre situation - 'bizarre' because the archaeological record is composed largely of debris from human-animal relationships (be they in the form of animal bones, individual artifacts or entire landscapes) and many disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, and geography, recognise human-animal interactions as a key source of information for understanding cultural ideology.
By integrating knowledge from archaeological remains with evidence from texts, iconography, social anthropology and cultural geography, Beastly Questions: Animal Answers to Archaeological…
Ilan Pappé is a professor with the College of Social Sciences and International Studies at the University of Exeter. He was formerly a senior lecturer in political science at the University of Haifa. He is the author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, The Modern Middle East, A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples, and Britain and the Arab-Israeli Conflict.
The Israeli narrative is particularly strong among Christain and Jewish communities due to a tale full of fabrications that stretches back to ancient times. This methodical and erudite research exposes the role of archeology in providing "scientific" scaffolding for that tale.
Archaeology in Israel is truly a national obsession, a practice through which national identity-and national rights-have long been asserted. But how and why did archaeology emerge as such a pervasive force there? How can the practices of archaeology help answer those questions? In this stirring book, Nadia Abu El-Haj addresses these questions and specifies for the first time the relationship between national ideology, colonial settlement, and the production of historical knowledge. She analyzes particular instances of history, artifacts, and landscapes in the making to show how archaeology helped not only to legitimize cultural and political visions but, far more powerfully,…
Observant of the world around me, and intellectual, I discovered my ideal way of life at age 16 when I read Kroeber's massive textbook Anthropology, 1948 edition. Anthropologists study everything human, everywhere and all time. Archaeology particularly appealed to me because it is outdoors, physical, plus its data are only the residue of human activities, challenging us to figure out what those people, that place and time, did and maybe thought. As a woman from before the Civil Rights Act, a career was discouraged; instead, I did fieldwork with my husband, and on my own, worked with First Nations communities on ethnohistorical research. Maverick, uppity, unstoppable, like in these books.
Palace of King Minos at Knossos on Crete seized the imaginations of scores of modernist writers, artists, psychoanalysts, and philosophers as wealthy English archaeologist Arthur Evans had its ruins disinterred and reconstructed with reinforced concrete, a novel building material in the early twentieth century. Evans' imaginative palace complex is today mobbed by tourists (I recommend going off-season in January, as I did) who revere the Aegean as the birthplace of Civilization. Gere ties it in to Modernist projects rejecting Victorian overstuffed ornamentations in favor of supposed ancient purity. Her fascinating documentation of culture leaders from Freud to Le Corbusier buying into Evans' myth of an idealized past embeds archaeology in arts and humanities fashions that still confuse speculation with history.
In the spring of 1900, British archaeologist Arthur Evans began to excavate the palace of Knossos on Crete, bringing ancient Greek legends to life just as a new century dawned amid far-reaching questions about human history, art, and culture. With Knossos and the Prophets of Modernism, Cathy Gere relates the fascinating story of Evans' excavation and its long-term effects on Western culture. After World War I left the Enlightenment dream in tatters, the lost paradise that Evans offered in the concrete labyrinth - pacifist and matriarchal, pagan and cosmic - seemed to offer a new way forward for writers, artists,…
I grew up in Yorkshire and spent many happy hours as a teenager wandering about the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, looking at giant Henry Moores in the rolling landscape. I subsequently trained as an art historian and have spent the last thirty years writing about art, from the YBAs to our prehistoric roots. A Little History of Art was borne out of this journey. Increasingly I have been drawn to researching what art can tell us about British history. My bookshelves groan with monographs but these five volumes have helped me think more deeply about Britain’s landscapes and its past. I hope they will do the same for you.
I first read this book when I was trying to pull together all the disparate locations, time periods, and art movements for my book.
This task was a little overwhelming and Digging Up Britaintaught me how to make choices about what to include and what to leave out, how to weave it all into a narrative that makes sense, and how to bring prehistory to life.
Unusually, this book travels back in time as we travel through it. It is like an archaeological dig – we start with the Vikings and then the Staffordshire Hoard but end up with the Star Carr deer hunters and a million years of history.
It is a book you can dip into or read cover to cover (as I did) and it has some good illustrations and maps throughout.
Britain has long been fascinated with its own history and identity, as an island nation besieged by invaders from beyond the seas: the Romans, Vikings and Normans. The long saga of prehistory is often forgotten - but our understanding of our past is changing.
Mike Pitts presents ten astounding archaeological discoveries that shed new light on those who came before us, and radically altered the way we think about our history. His compelling, sometimes teasing, archaeological odyssey illustrates the diversity, complexity and sheer strangeness of the lives that represent Britain's past.
I love stories, and as a child I found that some of the best and most powerful stories I ever heard were those that people told about the past. When I grew up, I pursued a career as an academic archaeologist and historian, and I am now Professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Vienna. But while I am of course interested in the past, in recent years I have been increasingly thinking about the politics of the past as well. Why do we choose to celebrate some stories about the past and not others? I have found these books all useful in helping me to think through this.
This more recent book focuses specifically on archaeology, which is my own area of expertise, and so I rushed to buy it when it first came out.
I don’t agree with absolutely everything in it, but it’s the mark of a good book if you come away with a head full of questions and exciting thoughts, which I definitely did with this one!
Archaeology, Nation, and Race is a must-read book for students of archaeology and adjacent fields. It demonstrates how archaeology and concepts of antiquity have shaped, and have been shaped by colonialism, race, and nationalism. Structured as a lucid and lively dialogue between two leading scholars, the volume compares modern Greece and modern Israel - two prototypical and influential cases - where archaeology sits at the very heart of the modern national imagination. Exchanging views on the foundational myths, moral economies, and racial prejudices in the field of archaeology and beyond, Hamilakis and Greenberg explore topics such as the colonial origins…
