I took a deep dive into
Lovecraft’s oeuvre this year in an effort to make my way through Alan Moore’s
fantastic “Providence” (which constantly references HPL).
At the Mountains of Madness clearly stands
out as his magnum opus. After a long,
suspenseful trip to Antarctic wastelands, we discover an origin story for much
of Lovecraft’s entire mythos, in the form of the “Elder Gods”, who despite their utter otherness still invoke
our sympathies.
The love and detail
which Lovecraft puts into describing these creatures and what they were
attempting to do is mesmerizing, and I’m surprised how often I’ve returned to
this singular piece. If you only
read one HPL story, this vision of alien gods and lost civilizations will stay
with you long after you've turned the last page.
At the Mountains of Madness is a science fiction-horror novella by American author H. P. Lovecraft.
An expedition to Antarctica goes horribly wrong as a group of explorers stumbles upon some mysterious ancient ruins, with devastating consequences. At the Mountains of Madness ranks among Lovecraft's most terrifying novellas, and is a firm favourite among fans of classic horror.
Curious about Ancient Rome and especially about gladiators, I asked myself, who were the backstage team of the Colosseum? The more I searched for the team, the more I realised there was hardly any mention of them. If there were hundreds of animals, dancers, singers, gladiators, criminals, and more about to be shown off to an audience of 60,000, who was planning and managing it all? And so I created the Colosseum’s backstage team – a retired centurion called Marcus and his scribe Althea, along with a motley crew of slaves, a prostitute, a street boy, even a retired Vestal Virgin… they came alive for me while researching and I eventually created a four-book series.
A superb title and an irresistible page-turner. I could have filled whole novels with the jobs described here. Each role was interesting in its own right but also collectively built up really interesting cultural insights. A very strong sense of daily life in all its fun and messiness and a brilliant book to engage not just adults but (with a bit of redaction!) older kids too.
Vicki Le?n, the popular author of the Uppity Women series (more than 335,000 in print), has turned her impressive writing and research skills to the entertaining and unusual array of the peculiar jobs, prized careers and passionate pursuits of ancient Greece and Rome.
From Architect to Vicarius (a deputy or stand-in)-and everything in between-Working IX to V introduces readers to the most unique (dream incubator), most courageous (elephant commander), and even the most ordinary (postal worker) jobs of the ancient world. Vicki Le?n brought a light and thoughtful touch to women's history in her earlier books, and she brings the…
I’ve been an explorer since I was young. My first short trip was to Cahokia Mounds, a site so little is known about that researchers have yet to discover the name of the people who built the famous city of mounds. As I grew into an adult, I was drawn to visit the Pyramid of Chichen Itza in Mexico and Stonehenge in England. As a writer, I decided the one thing missing from the mysterious places field was a fun way to learn about them. So I wrote a mysterious places book in a trivia game format, as learning something new is always more fun when presented as a game.
In this book, Robert M. Schoch challenges the mainstream belief of mere coincidence regarding the prevalence of pyramids worldwide.
Schoch explores mysterious geographical and historical examples, from ancient Egyptians to Buddhists and the Mississippi Indians; Schoch argues that ancient cultures shared a common vision of these majestic structures. He believes ancient sailors from Southeast Asia spread the concept of pyramids throughout the world, even reaching the Americas.
Schoch presents a thoughtful, well-reasoned theory that proposes the possibilities of cross-cultural exchange. I really enjoyed Schoch’s thinking, supported by solid evidence from this Boston University Geology professor.
Is it a mere coincidence that pyramids are found throughout our globe? Did cultures ranging across vast spaces in geography and time, such as the ancient Egyptians; early Bud-dhists; the Maya, Inca, Toltec, and Aztec civilizations of the Americas; the Celts of the British Isles; and even the Mississippi Indians of pre-Columbus Illinois, simply dream the same dreams and envision the same structures?
Robert M. Schoch-one of the world's preeminent geologists in recasting the date of the building of the Great Sphinx-believes otherwise. In this dramatic and meticulously reasoned book, Schoch, like anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl in his classic Kon-Tiki, argues…
I’ve been interested in ancient Egypt ever since I read Asterix and Cleopatra when I was a boy. The hilarious moment of Obelix accidentally knocking off the Sphinx’s nose has always stayed with me in particular. By my early twenties, I was reading authors like Graham Hancock, Robert Bauval, and Colin Wilson, who showed me that what we think we know about ancient Egypt is not wholly correct. For instance, there’s little evidence that the Great Pyramid’s purpose was to be a tomb and the Sphinx seems to be much older than Egyptologists believe. In 2010, at thirty-four years old, I finally got to visit the wonders of Egypt myself.
Much of the key stuff that’s mentioned in the books above are contained in Heaven’s Mirror by the great Graham Hancock and his wife Santha Faiia. So, the book’s a great place to start if you’re new to all this rethinking ancient Egypt malarkey. Heaven’s Mirror also covers other civilizations like the Mayans and Incas. For me, this book is so special because it contains some absolutely glorious and spellbinding photos of key ancient sites in Egypt, such as Karnak, Dendera, Abydos, and the pyramids of Giza, Dashur, and Saqqara, which I was lucky enough to visit myself and which I wrote about in The Road To Purification.
This is the sequel to the international bestseller, "Fingerprints of the Gods". In very different parts of the world, evidence exists of a common legacy - shared by cultures separated by hundreds, sometimes thousands of years. From Mexico to Iceland, Cambodia to Easter Island, China to Egypt, we are finding a common astronomical wisdom handed down from a time before history, a time perhaps before the 'Great Flood'. This book addresses a common wisdom from a lost civilisation which might hold the key to our own identity on earth. "Heaven's Mirror" is a personal quest for the answer - the…
I am a veterinarian who has worked extensively with African Wildlife in the heart of the African bush. I have also met African Sangoma’s, witch doctors. I have made a study of African mysticism and Ancestral communications and have participated in African mystic rituals, including the cleansing ritual called smudging or burning of herbs and utilizing the smoke for spiritual cleansing. In my books, I fuse my knowledge of African wildlife, African customs and rituals, and my innate ability to tell a good story and have brought forth the Jamie James series. They are quintessential African Adventures taking place in the heart of the African bush.
The Sunbird was Wilber Smith’s first book. It was one of the first books on Wild African Adventure that I read and has kindled in me a lifelong passion for Africa, African animals, and the love of wildlife. It was a reason that I became a veterinarian and that I wanted to work with African Wildlife. It is a mix of contemporary and historic African Fiction. It is memorable because it is a wonderful story that I would want to share around the fire in a camp somewhere in the heart of the African bush. I would want Wilbur Smith to tell me the story as we sit around the fire. It evokes all that is magical and wonderful about Africa, the continent I love and live on. The book taught me that the story is paramount. Not the skill of the author as a literary giant. I want to…
A photograph and a curse are the only clues Dr Ben Kazin has before he stumbles on the archaeological discovery. Beneath the red cliffs of Botswanaland a civilization has remained buried for millennia. But the magic of uncovering a lost culture is interrupted by the violence of terrorists, love, intrigue and the secrets of centuries.
Balakrishna Kamath has to his credit a 39-year-long service in one of India’s premier Intelligence agencies. His long service has taken him to many places and enabled him to gain considerable experience in handling challenging operations. The coveted national-level honors - The Indian Police Medal and President's Police Medal, he had received during his service, would indicate the distinction he has earned in his career. After his retirement, he has written two novels – The Velvet Gloves (November 2018) and The Ace of Shadows (March 2022). These novels dwelling on intelligence operations have been recently signed for adaptation into web series.
Published in the 1960s, Chariots of the Gods is a book forever! Mysteries do not limit to fiction works alone. There are stunning mysteries remaining shrouded in the limitless cosmos. What is there in the space? Are we the only intelligent beings in the universe? Thousands of years ago, how were the pyramids in Egypt and South America built, without the help of developed tools and technology? What do the magnificent cave drawings, and huge carved granite temples in India and elsewhere, tell us? A well-researched book Chariots of the Gods takes the readers on an exploratory trip to the fascinating cosmos and beyond. The possibilities are countless and life proves to be different from what we knew. The lucid narration could keep even ordinary readers glued to the book.
The groundbreaking classic that introduced the theory that ancient Earth established contact with aliens.
Immediately recognized as a work of monumental importance, Chariots of the Gods endures as proof that Earth has been visited repeatedly by advanced aliens from other worlds. Here, Erich von Daniken examines ancient ruins, lost cities, spaceports, and a myriad of hard scientific facts that point to extraterrestrial intervention in human history. Most incredible of all, however, is von Daniken's theory that we are the descendants of these galactic pioneers-and he reveals the archeological discoveries that prove it...
I've been fond of the Homeric poems since my youth. I followed classical studies in the high here in Rome, so I studied Latin and Greek before graduating in nuclear engineering. Then, in addition to my professional activity, I've devoted myself to the study of The Iliad and the Odyssey, with their huge contradictions between geography and their traditional Mediterranean setting. The book I published on this topic was translated and published into eight foreign languages (as The Baltic Origins of Homer's Epic Tales), and has given rise to many scientific discussions. I also published The Mysteries of the Megalithic Civilization, a Bestseller here in Italy.
Based on the "radiocarbon revolution" as a method of dating archaeological finds, the great English archaeologist Sir Colin Renfrew redraws the map of the dawn of civilization in the Mediterranean basin and in Europe. The result is a new framework, in which the idea of a single cradle, located between Egypt and the Middle East, from which civilization would have spread to the rest of Europe, is replaced by the identification of different places where it started, scattered throughout the continent.
The refinement of radiocarbon dating using the information form tree-ring counts has raised serious doubts about the accepted theoretical frameowkr of European prehistory. Monuments in Central and Western Europe have proved to be considerably older than their supposed Near-Eastern forerunners, and the record must be almost completely rewritten in the light of these new dates. Before Civilsation is a preliminary attempt to do this with the help of analogies from more recent and well-documented primitive societies. The more glaring inconsistencies in the old theory are re-examined and Professor Renfrew shows convincingly how the baffling monuments of prehistoric Europe, like Stonehenge,…
I’m a historian who wants to understand the big picture as best I can. And while occasionally I can clear my schedule enough to read a 1,000pp book, realistically that won’t happen often so I am always on the alert for short books that aim to provide what I am looking for: a coherent vision of the whole of human history. That’s asking a lot of an author, but these five do it well.
This one is 359 pages and says almost nothing about the 20th century. It is quirky in terms of what it includes and what it leaves out, but reliable in its facts and judgments, and full of insights I haven’t encountered elsewhere. It does not bother with grand theories or overarching narrative, but focuses on what the author finds interesting. Cook is a specialist on the history of Islam, which gives the book an uncommon vantage point.
Why has human history been crowded into the last few thousand years? Why has it happened at all? Could it have happened in a radically different way? What should we make of the disproportionate role of the West in shaping the world we currently live in? This witty, intelligent hopscotch through human history addresses these questions and more. Michael Cook sifts the human career on earth for the most telling nuggets and then uses them to elucidate the whole. From the calendars of Mesoamerica and the temple courtesans of medieval India to the intricacies of marriage among an aboriginal Australian…
As a child, I was fascinated with astronomy but discouraged from investigating the UFO phenomenon due to religious reasons. Not until I was in my forties, did I begin to see the strange Biblical hints of what ended up in my writing my book UFOs In The Bible. Along the way, my research led me to diverse related topics including Sumerian mythology and astrobiology which have resulted in a few more books (and more to come). I see logic as a fundamental tool for this line of investigation, and so, I embrace books that engage with the evidence logically. I firmly believe we must all make room for experiencers to tell their stories without recrimination.
Philip Coppens is not afraid to take on even the weirdest of niches within the already weird realm of ufology and paleoarchaeology. He does so with an even keel and an unlimited curiosity. He doesn’t simply parrot what everyone around is saying, but he does examine their claims to see if they hold water. Like in most other aspects of life, there are grains of truth and bald-faced lies. Coppens attempts to separate the wheat from the chaff.
“ . . . an important and outstanding contribution.” —Erich von Däniken, bestselling author of Chariots of the Gods
“The Ancient Alien Question provides a captivating adventure around the world and sheds an interesting perspective on the Ancient Astronaut Theory.” —Giorgio A. Tsoukalos, producer of Ancient Aliens: The Series
“Philip Coppens covers all the bases on this controversial topic. His research is thorough and he addresses each topic with a balanced overview that cuts through the jungle of confusion with a very sharp machete of reason.” —David Hatcher Childress, author of Technology of the Gods
This book is a wonderful overview of several overlooked societies of the Classical world.
Most English speakers have heard of ancient Greece, Rome, and Egypt. However, ‘barbarian’ peoples like the Dacians, Illyrians, and Sarmatians receive far less attention. Each group receives its own short chapter with maps and summaries of cultural achievements; because the author gives each group its own ‘legacy’ section, readers can readily understand how that society contributed to the modern world.
If you want to learn about the ‘barbarians’ of the Mediterranean world (and more), this is the book for you. I chose this book because it was equal parts wonder and sorrow: every chapter had an Ozymandius moment, where I realized that no matter how great, the individuals therein were destined to be forgotten—at least, until now.
The ancient world saw the birth and collapse of great civilizations. In mainstream history the Classical world is dominated by Greece and Rome, and the Biblical world is centred on the Hebrews. Yet the roughly four-and-a-half thousand years (4000 bc-ad 550) covered in this book saw many peoples come and go within the brawling, multi-cultural mass of humanity that occupied the ancient Middle East, Mediterranean and beyond. While a handful of ancient cultures have garnered much of the credit, these forgotten peoples also helped to lay the foundations of our modern world. This guide brings these lost peoples out of…
