Fans pick 74 books like Imprisoned with the Pharaohs

I love that this book was the result of a dare! In 1816, eighteen-year-old Mary Shelley and three friends held a contest to see who could write the scariest story. Mary’s story—like her monster—has since taken on a life of its own and today permeates all forms of storytelling.

I find it amusing that my favorite version of the monster is the one Mel Brooks gave us in Young Frankenstein. I wonder what Mary Shelley would think if she knew how much her acceptance of a dare would change storytelling forever.

I like to revisit the original story from time to time to savor the gothic drama and flowery writing. If I’m reading it on a dark and stormy night, all the better.

This was one of the hardest books to "get into," but a friend of mine told me to stick with it because the rewards of getting through the first quarter would be so great. I'm glad I did. It is an astounding piece of work, quite different from anything I've ever read before or since, and remains one of my top five books.

The tangents the book takes, and the blasé attributes of the leading character are superbly crafted. It was suggested it was "unfilmable," and there's one scene in particular I thought they'd never get away with, but if you look at the movie version carefully, it's in there. 

I read this as a teenager, just as I was diving into the horror genre. I already knew at this point that I wanted to be a storyteller. What struck me while reading It was the jumping back and forth between time periods.

I had never read a book structured that way, and it seemed that every chapter ended on a cliffhanger, forcing me to keep reading. There aren’t many books that I would say I had a hard time putting down (I get bored easily), but It was certainly one of them!

Perhaps better known as the futuristic Arnold Schwarzenegger action vehicle Total Recall, I’m picking this novelette over some of Dick’s other, more popular works simply because it makes the most of its short length to tell a snappy and surprisingly amusing and layered the story. The tale of a menial office worker haunted by dreams of Mars, this novelette peels back perceptions of identity and memory by having protagonist Douglas Quail’s dreams be distant recollections of a former life. While this drops him into a cycle of violence and memory erasure, the novelette pulls an effective and humorous twist by having Quail, once seen as just another expendable peon, actually be the one man standing between the Earth and total destruction! 

I simply had to include one of Daniel Stashower’s brilliant mysteries, as this all-too-brief series features one of the greatest and most famous illusionists of them all: Harry Houdini.

The story is narrated by Houdini’s brother, Dash, who serves as a kind of “Watson” to Houdini’s boisterous “Holmes,” and the two find themselves embroiled in numerous mysteries peppered with old-fashioned derring-do.

What I love about this book is the meticulous research that has clearly gone into it – but Stashower wears his learning lightly; this is a brisk adventure where the pace never sags.

This is the first book I responded to in a big way when I was fourteen.

It had everything: close-up tricks, illusion secrets, magic history, an exposé of phony mediums and spiritualists, how to escape from ropes and boxes, pick locks, read minds, and walk through a brick wall.

And most important, it also had a hero I could identify with – Houdini, master magician, escapologist, daredevil, pilot, author, historian, and champion of truth and justice. And he was Jewish, like me.

I found the book incredibly rich on many levels. It confirmed in me that I wanted to be a magician and that magic was wonderful.  

I’m not going to lie. I find the life of Houdini fascinating. It would be easy to focus on the magician/escape artist parts of his persona. However, the book details his drive and intentions from a young age to absorb information and develop his craft are inspiring. Before he was even a teenager, Houdini was walking 20+ miles (one way) to the neighboring town to find work and develop his craft.

As he became the worldwide phenomenon he is known for today, Houdini used his talents and never abused his notoriety. Houdini was very intentional in how he wanted to entertain the masses. But when other groups (alleged psychics and spiritual mediums) started to abuse the power of (dis)belief, Houdini took it upon himself to discredit the practice of these scam artists based on his sense of social awareness.

Like lots of books I’ve ended up loving, I came across this by chance.

It turned out to be an immensely entertaining portrait of a twentieth-century American gambler whose name meant nothing to me until then. Born Alvin Thomas, he ended up being known as Titanic Thompson.

He was a so-called proposition gambler, who challenged wealthy people to all sorts of often bizarre wagers. One of my favourite anecdotes from Kevin Cook’s anecdote-stuffed book involves Titanic betting Al Capone that he could hurl an orange onto the roof of an adjoining multi-story building.

Read Titanic Thompson and you’ll have plenty of what used to be called cocktail party conversation.

Like Spirit Slate Writing and Kindred Phenomena, this 1897 book exposes the various ways that Spiritualist mediums manifest ghosts. Henry Ridgely Evans was a magician and historian who took on the Spiritualist movement, much like Harry Houdini would in the decades that followed. Filled with wondrous stories, secrets, and illustrations, this book is a must for any fan of Spiritualism and/or magic.

I love history—not just historical fiction but actual history books—and this book skillfully weaves together an abundance of intriguing facts and true stories from that city’s history.

Why 1912? Because in that year, Winnipeg was one of the most important cities in North America, largely because it was (and is) located in the very center of the continent, which led to it developing the biggest rail yard in the world.

As we learn from this book, luminaries such as Charlie Chaplin, W.C. Fields, Charles Dickens, Harry Houdini, and many more passed through this thriving city. But that changed in 1914 when the Panama Canal opened, and suddenly, goods were shipped from one ocean to another through that waterway instead of through Winnipeg. In terms of commerce, Winnipeg never fully recovered.