I am an artist and writer drawn to the intersections of non-believe. My work explores the friction points non-believers encounter and illuminates a path forward informed by reason and empathy. My writing is evidence-based, with the skepticism that comes with being an atheist, but infused with warmth, clarity, and understanding. Grief can present friction for non-believers. I aim to support those navigating such losses by providing evidence-based guidance and compassion. I hope you find some valuable nuggets in this list of books.
This simple children’s book shares the story of the death of a beloved pet and the subsequent processing of the loss. It has a gentle and clear approach, without any suggestion of an afterlife but rather an appreciation for all the wonderful things about the pet who is gone.
If you are interested in continuing bonds with a child after a loss, this is a nice way to approach and expand on the topic.
My cat Barney died this Friday. I was very sad. My mother said we could have a funeral for him, and I should think of ten good things about Barney so I could tell them... But the small boy who loved Barney can only think of nine. Later, while talking with his father, he discovers the tenth -- and begins to understand.
I’ve always been nostalgic. I long for a connection with times and places I’ve never experienced, and I think my fascination with ghosts and the uncanny is connected to that. As a child, I fell in love with ancient Egypt, with its famously complex religious traditions concerning death and the afterlife. I earned a PhD in Egyptology and spent a lifetime crafting stories about the past, often with a speculative or supernatural twist. For me, ghosts and history are a natural combination.
I love weird and inexplicable things, and Gef's story is undoubtedly the weirdest tale of a real-life (ostensibly) paranormal phenomenon I have ever encountered.
The more you know about it, the weirder it gets, and Christopher Josiffe’s meticulously researched account really delivers. Gef’s story isn’t exactly about ghosts, per se—it’s not clear where the Extra Special Talking Mongoose came from or what he was supposed to be—but it fits nicely with my interest in the uncanny.
In true Fortean fashion, Josiffe lays out all the evidence for what happened with minimal attempts at interpretation, leaving the reader to puzzle it all out. And the final chapters, which cover similar “hauntings” and potentially relevant folklore, are worth the price of admission alone.
An exhaustive investigation of the case of Gef, a “talking mongoose” or “man-weasel,” who appeared to a family living on the Isle of Man.
“I am the fifth dimension! I am the eighth wonder of the world!”
During the mid-1930s, British and overseas newspapers were full of incredible stories about Gef, a “talking mongoose” or “man-weasel” who had allegedly appeared in the home of the Irvings, a farming family in a remote district of the Isle of Man. The creature was said to speak in several languages, to sing, to steal objects from nearby farms, and to eavesdrop on local…
The Valor of Valhalla series by Martin Kearns is a pulse-pounding dark urban fantasy trilogy that fuses the raw power of Norse mythology with the grit of modern warfare. Set in a world where ancient gods and mythical creatures clash with secret military organizations and rogue heroes, the series follows…
I’ve been fascinated by Dante since my first years at university. For me, reading Dante was the beginning of a journey, opening up a rich world of theology, philosophy, art, literature, science, and culture. As Professor of Theology at the University of St Andrews, I especially enjoy facilitating students’ first encounters with Dante, and seeing how Dante so often leads them, also, to a deeper appreciation of some of the greatest thinkers and makers of our civilisation, from Aristotle and Virgil to Aquinas and Giotto.
Just as Dante needed good guides on his epic journey through the afterlife, so contemporary readers typically need reliable companions on their own journeys into Dante’s poem. The best thing, I find, is to read Dante with, and alongside, his commentators. An ideal way to do this is through the invaluable online Dartmouth Dante Project and Dante Lab,which provide the entire texts of more than 75 of these commentaries in a customisable digital workspace. But if you want a book to hand,The Cambridge Companion to Dante’s ‘Commedia’provides a really helpful overview of Dante’s masterpiece and its core narrative, linguistic, cultural, and doctrinal features, as well as useful introductions to the poem’s composition and reception.
This newly commissioned volume presents a focused overview of Dante's masterpiece, the Commedia, offering readers of today wide-ranging insights into the poem and its core features. Leading scholars discuss matters of structure, narrative, language and style, characterization, doctrine, and politics, in chapters that make their own contributions to Dante criticism by raising problems and questions that call for renewed attention, while investigating contextual concerns as well as the current state of criticism about the poem. The Commedia is also placed in a variety of cultural and historical contexts through accounts of the poem's transmission and reception that explore both its…
It’s natural for humans to wonder who or what might have power over our actions. We’ve clawed our way to the top of the food chain, channeled the power of the elements, and tamed much of nature to our whim. What if something out there was the architect—or more—of our successes and failures? It’s something I’ve explored since I first began writing: fed by the adventures of living as an “Army brat” with a new life every two years, in keeping with my natural inclination to solve puzzles, and spurred by my fear of death and the equally frightening possibility that someone is or isn’t pulling the strings…
As a speculative fiction fan, I love to read horror, science fiction, and fantasy, and Spacelingis one of my favorite science fiction escapes. I first read it as a teenager and immediately connected with the idea of having a power that could literally transport me to another world. I was already a bit of an outsider, but I wanted to be an outsider like Daryl—wisecracking, resourceful, and fearless when it came to taking the leap and letting Fate’s cards fall where they may. This book is sometimes labeled YA fiction, but Doris Piserchia once said she wrote what she liked and had no specific aged audience in mind. I re-read it whenever I want to feel that rush of endless possibilities.
The ability to see other-dimensional rings that float in Earth's atmosphere was a late mutation of a few space-age humans. Daryl was under the care of the institution for muters, and she had discovered that if you jumped through the right ring at the right time it would land you in another dimensional world and another shape.
Spaceling is the story of Daryl's desperate efforts to unravel the mystery of why she was being held captive and of what was really going on in a certain alien dimension. Because she was sure it was all bad and that someday everyone…
The greatest thrill is seeing something a new way. Remember the end of the movie The Sixth Sense, when you learn he was dead the whole time? It blows your mind and makes you re-think everything you saw. That's how it feels to learn another philosophy or a new distinction in understanding the world. I'm always seeking more of those moments, and these five books (plus mine) do that more than any I've found so far.
Awesomely creative think-piece. 40 very short fictional stories about what happens when you die. The framework is inspiring for anyone: coming up with 40 different answers to any one question. But they’re also just brilliant ideas and powerful little fables.
In the afterlife you may find that God is the size of a microbe and unaware of your existence. Or you may find the afterlife contains only those people whom you remember. In some afterlives you are split into all your different ages; in some you are recreated based on your credit-card records; and in others you are forced to live with annoying versions of yourself that represent what you could have been.
In these wonderfully imagined tales - at once funny, wistful and unsettling - Eagleman kicks over the chessboard of traditional notions and offers us a dazzling lens…
I’ve loved fiction that excites my mind and imagination since I was very young. I spent a lot of time in the library growing up, mostly reading horror and historical narratives. Later, I became interested in music, painting, film, philosophy, psychology, cognitive science, religion, and politics. I’m not an expert in anything—I’m too driven to make things to be a good scholar—but these are the subject areas that inform what I write.
This novel evokes an extraordinary range of emotions. Skibell works wonders with folklore and history, turning out a tale of tales that is by turns shocking and horrifying, tender, and outrageously funny. The language is deceptively simple and beautiful. Consider this description from the murdered narrator, on returning to his plundered neighborhood after climbing out of a mass grave: “In front of every house were piles of vows and promises, all in broken pieces. How I could see such things, I cannot tell you.” The balance here—of imagination, grief, and lightness—is exquisite.
Joseph Skibell’s magical tale about the Holocaust—a fable inspired by fact—received unanimous nationwide acclaim when first published in 1997.
At the center of A Blessing on the Moon is Chaim Skibelski. Death is merely the beginning of Chaim’s troubles. In the opening pages, he is shot along with the other Jews of his small Polish village. But instead of resting peacefully in the World to Come, Chaim, for reasons unclear to him, is left to wander the earth, accompanied by his rabbi, who has taken the form of a talking crow. Chaim’s afterlife journey is filled with extraordinary encounters whose…
When Elliot finds herself dead for the third time, she can't remember her past, is getting the cold shoulder from her best friend, and has no idea why she keeps repeating the same mistakes across her previous lives. Elliot just wants to move on, but first, she'll be forced to…
I love to read books by Japanese authors. This one was special as the young boy Kenji boards this magical train with one of his friends, Minoru. This magical train takes him on a journey to the stars and Heaven, where he meets a lot of people.
Reading this book made me wish I could go on a magical train to a journey to Heaven, where I could once again see my Dad and Uncle and my grandparents and have a marvelous journey. It made me happy to imagine that.
It was an emotional story-magical and mystical. Kenji returns home, and the professor tells him his father is coming home, and Kenji is happy. This is a book that kept me reading and dreaming.
One night, alone on a hilltop, a young boy is swept aboard a magical train bound for the Milky Way. A classic in Japan, this tender fable is a book of great wisdom, offering insight into the afterlife. One of Japan's greatest storytellers, Kenji Miyazawa (1896-1933) was a teacher, author, poet, and scientist.
I first turned to the ‘dark side’ of travel when a student of mine introduced me to ‘dark tourism’. Sadly the world is littered with places of tragedy where our misfortunes are exposed by dark tourism. As a social scientist, I have been writing about visiting our significant dead for over 20 years. I am fascinated as to why particular deaths are remembered, by whom, and how our dead are (re)presented within visitor economies. I have lectured and published extensively within academia, as well as being a media consultant. I continue to tell tales of our dead and how we attach cultural importance to certain kinds of death.
This was one of the first books that got me thinking critically about ‘dark tourism’. Harrison inspired me to look at how the dead maintain their relations with the living. In turn, the book galvanized my thinking of the many touristic places where the dead cohabit the world of the living. These range from graves, monuments, and memorials, and made me think about how we give the dead a memorialized afterlife. Drawing upon philosophy, history, and poetry, Harrison teaches us that as we follow in the footsteps of the dead, we are not self-authored. Instead, the thought of death shapes the communion of the living. Within the ‘Dominion of the Dead’, the dead become our guardians where we give them a future so that they may give us a past.
In The Dominion of the Dead, Robert Pogue Harrison explores the many places where the dead cohabit the world of the living - the graves, images, literature, architecture, and monuments that house the dead in their afterlife among us. This elegantly conceived work devotes particular attention to the practice of burial. Harrison contends that we bury our dead to humanize the lands where we build our present and imagine our future. Through inspired readings of major writers and thinkers such as Vico, Virgil, Dante, Pater, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Rilke, he argues that the buried dead form an essential foundation where…
Ramsey Campbell deserves to be as well known to any horror reader – any
reader of any genre really – as Stephen King and yet for some reason he isn’t.
If you are coming to this without having read any of his impressive back
catalogue, don’t worry because there are many, many treats in store for you. The
Lonely Lands is most assuredly one of them and is a great place to start.
This story has echoes of Richard Matheson (in Where Dreams May Come)
in its premise. The main character is dealing with the loss of his dearly loved
wife and must endure the horrors of the other world. There the similarity ends
as The Lonely Lands takes very different twists and turns, transporting
the reader along with it in true Campbell style.
Expect the unexpected in among
the scares and darkness, along with poignancy and themes that…
The latest bestseller from the ultimate craftsman of the dark fantastic, Ramsey Campbell. Joe Hunter has begun to adjust to the loss of his wife when he hears her calling from beyond, "Where am I?" His urge to help leads him into her afterlife, which is made up of their memories. Even the best of those is no refuge from the restless dead, and Joe can only lure them away from her. Soon they begin to invade his everyday life, and every journey he makes to find her leaves him less able to return. When her refuges turn nightmarish he…
Nine Stories Told Completely in Dialogue is a unique collection of narratives, each unfolding entirely through conversations between its characters. The book opens with "God on a Budget," a tale of a man's surreal nighttime visitation that offers a blend of the mundane and the mystical. In "Doctor in the…
I am an indie horror author from Yorkshire, England. I grew up on a steady diet of Stephen King and horror films and developed a love of all things spooky and/or creepy. Supernatural horror has always been my favorite genre. When it’s done well, it has the capacity to be absolutely terrifying. It took me writing a couple of books before I finally jumped headfirst into writing supernatural horror. To me, there’s nothing scarier than the unknown, and that’s what I want to explore in my writing, and also my reading. I am also a huge advocate of indie authors, and I am thrilled to share these recommendations with you.
I am such a lover of ghost stories, hauntings, and anything paranormal. After a while, haunting/supernatural books can all feel very similar. However, this book is a complete wild card. I love the unique take on multiple ghosts.
It is creative, funny, and has some really creepy scenes too. It’s perfect for somebody wanting to explore more horror because it’s not super dark but will still give you a good scare.
"It was a suffering like no other. And, oh, how they suffered." Recreating the séance that led to the infamous Victorian Suffering massacre seems like a good idea at the time. But Kyle Birbeck soon discovers that the ghosts his distant ancestor banished into the walls of Brackenby House in 1876 have been lurking, waiting for a chance to come out. One by one the 5 terrifying ghosts latch onto each of the students who reside at Brackenby, preying on their deepest fears: A 3-eyed Incan giant. A member of the Hellfire Club who struck a deal with the devil…
