100 books like Zod Wallop

The only reason I don’t list Love in the Ruins as my favorite novel is because the shadow of this book looms large over every speculative novel I read.

Both books are extraordinarily funny, but Love in the Ruins has become more of a comfy read, while I still find Gravity’s Rainbow complex and challenging. It’s a cross between slapstick and mind f*ck. I would issue a trigger alert for readers who find occasional perverse sex and violence uncomfortable, but I personally believe reading uncomfortable books can make us grow into better readers and better writers.

Okay, I’m a big fan of Lovecraftian lore, but who needs me to recommend Lovecraft? I might as well recommend White Castle to stoners.

While this book (which was also an HBO series) isn’t as funny as Ruff’s Sewer, Gas, and Electric (a wonderful spoof of Atlas Shrugged), I reread it after watching the series and found it as thrilling and exciting as the first read. It plays on science fiction as well as horror, and the chapter depicting Hypolita Freeman’s discovery of a portal to other universes in an observatory has haunted me since I first read it.

I’ve never read a book that weaves horror and science fiction so seamlessly. (Note: I love the irony of writing a book about a closely-knit black family tackling the horrors inspired by the openly racist Lovecraft.)

I read this book every year. In my opinion, Walker Percy, along with Flannery O’Connor, is the premiere southern novelist of the last half of the 20th Century. I consider it one of the finest novels written and an example of the plotting, character development, use of language, and religious parody to which young novelists should aspire.

Percy’s novel blends Southern Gothic, science fiction, and comedy to create a world in which the racial divide in New Orleans blossoms into an apocalypse with hilarious and unpredictable results.

What if elevator inspectors had their own influential guild? Not science fiction, not fantasy, and not even alternative history. Just a riveting, delightful, challenging ‘what if’ that does not fit in a box. In a shaft. In a skyscraper. When I first heard about this book, I thought elevator inspection might be, let’s say, resistant to novel-sized interrogation.

To this, I now say, behold the umbrella that fits in the purse or the king-sized mattress that arrives in a toddler-sized box. This book unfolds and puffs up deliberately and warmly, and eventually, you find yourself curled up, reading about the very nature of thought. In a person. In a society. You don’t want to turn out the light and stop. 

While not explicitly written from a witchcraft point of view, The Psychic Energy Codex by Michelle Belanger is a highly approachable book for awakening your psychic ability and learning how to manipulate energy, which are very crucial skills for the psychic witch. Despite being a world-famous psychic and an occult researcher with encyclopedic knowledge, the way Belanger breaks everything down in this book makes the information easy to understand for even the absolute beginner. In addition, the book provides foundational techniques that are essential for any energy worker, witch or not. One of the brilliant aspects of this book is that Michelle emphasizes that everyone is wired differently energetically, perceiving and working with energy differently. As such, the author provides impressive guidance and insight to help you tailor practices to suit you so that you can effectively engage in psychic and energetic practices.

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.       

If, after all this, you remain a skeptic—and skeptic, in its classical sense, is a noble term that any of us should gladly claim—scientist Radin sorts out the issues in a manner that reflects both his integrity as a researcher (something that most critics are not) and his humor and skills as a communicator. Radin is, in my estimation, the inheritor of JB Rhine and a tireless seeker after truth in a clinical setting. He is the generational voice of many contemporary parapsychologists and philosophers of consciousness. Radin has personally rescued me from more errors than I can enumerate and in this book he impeccably surveys some of parapsychology’s evidence-based insights—and the social reasons for resistance to them.  

I, like thousands of others, watched some of the paranormal shows on TV.

Since I was learning a lot myself, I could dismiss the ones just in it for the shock effects and ratings. I did enjoy Ghost Whisperer, partly because at about the same time I discovered the show, I discovered Winkowski's book. She was the medium upon whom the show was based and she actually consulted for the show.

Her story truly intrigued me, partly because I learned we could actually help lonesome and troubled ghosts cross into the light. I feel it's the most important gift I have these days. So very many souls wander lonely and confused. Helping them cross over is a very satisfying experience.

This title drew me in right away, and the contents did not disappoint. This is a well-written and thoroughly researched book with interesting first-hand accounts of ghost hunts by an English author who, as a child, lived in a haunted house, yet has never actually seen a ghost.

The approach to the subject is also right up my alley: why do people fear the supernatural, and why are some cultures and people more likely to encounter ghosts than others?

Ghost stories are fascinating in their own right, but exploring how people in different times and places reacted to these encounters is even more interesting. 

Adam Selzer writes as if you're listening to him tell ghost stories over a beer and a plate of nachos in a dark Chicago bar, with a summer night's breeze blowing in off Lake Michigan. Selzer is hands-down the expert on Chicago history, and he's no slouch at the paranormal aspect of the city's background either -- he's a tour guide for one of the Chicago ghost tour companies. He has a snarky, irreverent style that makes any of his books a sheer pleasure to read. In addition to his historical and paranormal nonfiction, he also writes YA fiction.