Fans pick 100 books like Monsters of the Gevaudan

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!

The Jersey Devil, is a horrifying creature said to lurk in the rugged New Jersey pine barrens.

It’s been the subject of (fruitless) searches and scary legends for well over a century. But it’s not an intrepid cryptozoologist or weekend monster hunter who finally cornered the beast, but instead two historians, Brian Regal and Frank Esposito.

Just as Jay Smith tackled the beast of Gévaudan as a historial mystery, the pair trace the origins of the Jersey Devil from an eighteenth-century settler named Daniel Leeds to the present day.

Along the way we find a smattering of compelling –yet evidence-free—eyewitness reports, much folklore, some professional feuds, and several outright hoaxes (including a painted kangaroo exhibited as the Devil!)

As with the chupacabra and other monsters, the true story is in many ways more interesting than the fictional one. 

While some people may not think of genies (or jinn) as monsters in the same category as Bigfoot or dragons, from a cultural and folkloric point of view they definitely are.

Most Americans probably think of the wisecracking genie in Disney’s Aladdin, but belief in genies is both serious and widespread. In his book Legends of the Fire Spirits journalist Robert Lebling describes how the creatures appear in the Koran (hint: it’s closer to the recent film Three Thousand Years of Longing).

They are in some ways the Muslim equivalent of Christian angels, imbued with magical powers and viewed by the devout not as real and tangible as you or I. What I love about this book is how Lebling reveals the real stories of jinn—in both their wonder (granting wishes) and terrible vengeance (mass murder).

As with all monsters, whether you believe in them or not is… show more.

Among all the world’s monsters one perennial favorite is vampires.

Yes, I know they’ve been done to death (or would that be undeath?) but there’s a rich history of vampires beyond Dracula, Nosferatu, Lestat, and their legions. I’m talking about “real” vampires—or at least those people believed to be real vampires.

This is the subject of Luise White’s book Speaking with Vampires: Rumor and History in Colonial Africa. White is an anthropologist and folklorist who investigated rumors of vampires throughout East Africa. She found that many Africans told similar stories of real, actual vampires that sucked the blood out of Africans.

What I love about this book is how White takes a scholarly approach to the rumors of (alleged) real-life vampires, sometimes from their victims. Along the way we learn about colonialism, racism, and the cultural contexts in which these rumors flourish.

Among so many brilliant authors on city life – if I could have chosen 10 books, I would have surely also have given you books by critics like Walter Benjamin and Marshall Berman, and writers like James Joyce, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Charles Baudelaire. One of the pleasures in reading Vanessa Schwartz’s book is that she knows and draws on so much of this older work to think about the astonishing spectacle of late 19th-century Paris. Here is life on its boulevards; sensational stories of the city as presented in mass-circulation newspapers; the morgue (!) as a place for both science and entertainment; the wax museum, the panorama, and the cinema. A sensationalized version of everyday life is what most fascinates the author, and us as readers, making us think about what is “real” and what is important to understand, public and private life, commercialism, modern ways of seeing… show more.

I love David Sedaris’s writing. He is so observant and has a brilliant ear for dialogue. I’ve read his diaries, which are some of the source material for this book of essays. The title refers to him learning French whilst living in Paris.

His attempts to read his essays to the class are often met with contempt by his French teacher, who barely disguises her scorn at his efforts. But, respect for David’s work ethic–he often spent the whole day on his French homework, so determined was he to crack the language. Another life lesson: there are no shortcuts–you have to put the work in.

A story is not the words that you write down. That’s a narrative. A story is what your audience builds in mind for themselves when they receive the narrative.

If I give you a six-word story: For sale. Baby’s shoes. Never worn. You don’t just see an advertisement. You think about the lives of the people who placed the advertisement, right?!

What you just did in your mind is how stories work, and Roland Barthes was the first to recognise this. His book is a series of articles demonstrating the mythology that lies behind the words and symbols we are fed in everyday life.

My knowledge gap theory of how stories work owes a great deal to Roland Barthes, and this book in particular.

Ok, you’ve read Cohen and Monsters and the Monstrous. This monster stuff is getting pretty good, and you might be able to feel around the edges a bit. How does it apply to contemporary America which “no longer believes in monsters?” This is where Poole’s book comes in. Poole walks through monstrosity in the US from Columbus’ first steps to just shy of 2020. All the juicy topics that Americans have used monsters for—sex, race, and politics—emerge in this monstrous tour de force of US history. This is one of the first books I recommend to my students.

This book was a pleasant surprise for me. The covers look a little bit cheesy, which might be off-putting to some. However, and that’s a big however, I adored this trilogy. The main characters gave off Feyre and Rhysand vibes, the main characters from my first pick. I love a book that is inspired by a popular book, but can hold its own. This can definitely hold its own. And it has the ever-popular “enemies to lovers,” which is my favorite trope to write.

I am a lifelong Stephen King fan. I was that potbellied kid, perpetually with a stack of books, who insisted that the librarian let me check out Skeleton Crew, even if she told me it would absolutely give me nightmares. One of many, and often. I read the classics like The Stand and It–and watched the TV and film adaptations of Uncle Stevie’s best. Stephen King’s love of pop culture (music, movies, comic books) is evident in most of what he writes, no less so than in his magnum opus: The Dark Tower series.

Want to see where Marvel Comics, Harry Potter, and Stephen King's other fictional characters start to clash and co-mingle? Well, I’m sure you do, because you know. By the time you get to Book V: The Wolves of the Calla–you are already along for the ride and you know how thin that… show more.