I’m a psychologist by profession and I’m fascinated by the way personalities develop and change with life events. In novels, I’m drawn towards wounded characters who are searching for something to make them feel whole. Common issues I see in my psychotherapy work include imposter syndrome, low self-esteem, feelings of not being good enough. Many people try to hide their vulnerability behind a mask, faking confidence or bravado, or pretending to be something they’re not. But these fictional characters take it up a level, one small step at a time, until the lies build and they end up in a web of deceit with no way out.
From the opening sentence I was hooked. Whatmight have started earlier? Why was the protagonist scratching on his forearm rather than using pen and paper? From the first page we are deep inside the head of the lead character, Paul Morris, and it’s not always a pretty place. He is a cynical manipulative liar, a deeply unpleasant man, but I was intrigued by how far he would go and whether he would get caught out.
It’s a slow burn as we watch the deceit unfold. We experience the lead character’s tension as he realises the mess he’s got himself into with his lies, then witness his struggle to backtrack and make things good. By the end I felt quite sorry for him. It had me gripped!
The truth is, we all tell lies... take a deep breath and dive into the book everyone's raving about.
'If you've had a hole in your literary life since finishing Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train, this is the book to fill it' Grazia
It starts with a lie. The kind we've all told - to a former acquaintance we can't quite place but still, for some reason, feel the need to impress. The story of our life, embellished for the benefit of the happily married lawyer with the kids and the lovely home.
As a longtime Angeleno, I’ve read a lot about the dark underbelly of our dysfunctional metropolis, both in the news and in fiction. I try to incorporate the City of Angels as a strong presence in my writing, and when I read other writers who have put Los Angeles at the center, it gives me a sense of things the way they really are, a glimpse at a deeper reality. I see the detectives in LA noir and crime fiction as inextricably intertwined with the city, their weaknesses, and their emotional quandaries emerging from this place.
I’d be afraid to meet this detective, Slater, in a dark alley, as he’s unpredictable and has a quick temper. At the same time I have to admit he’s the kind of guy I’d want to date. Smart and competent in his investigative work, Slater is a mass of contradictions, a textbook sex addict and in complete denial about it, plus he drinks too much. His pugilistic approach to the world evolves through the series, and in this book his slightly warped moral compass has him working to outsmart the cops to track down a violent conspiracy theorist.
Don’t mess with the hothead—or he might just mess with you. Slater Ibáñez is only interested in two kinds of guys: the ones he wants to punch, and the ones he sleeps with. Things get interesting when they start to overlap. A freelance investigator, Slater trolls the dark side of Los Angeles, rooting out insurance fraud, not afraid to use whatever means necessary to get things done, and not about to hold back with his fists. A queer antihero for a new age, Slater walks the line between ordinary life and the frayed fringes of society, keeping his balance with…
Dandelions are the misunderstood underdogs of the flower
world, and boy, do they ever need some advocacy! That’s exactly what this book
does, and I love it!
Most people and organizations are more concerned about
having perfectly green lawns than avoiding the dangers of pesticides like
Roundup or harvesting edible goodies like dandelions. Grass cannot be digested
by humans, but every part of a dandelion can be used to make something useful,
like wines, teas, vitamin tinctures, meals, and more!
Dandelions are also one of
the earliest blooming springtime flowers, which makes them very important for
feeding bees. This book contains dozens of stunning photographs and recipes for
all things Dandelion.
It makes me see beauty where I least expect it - and it’s
been fun trying the recipes! This is one conspiracy theory I can get behind!
The Dandelion Conspiracy is our third book on wild edible plants and like the previous two books, it too contains interesting information, beautiful photographs and one hundred and twenty-five delicious dandelion recipes. Dandelions have a long history. They have been used as both a source of food and a source of herbal therapy. Up to the early 1970’s, many people with bags in hand combed their neighbors’ lawns and local parks for an ample supply of dandelions. The Dandelion is not a native of North America. Historians believe that the first dandelion seeds arrived in the personal possessions of the…
As a writer of dystopian novels, I have always been interested in narratives that challenge the reader. Why? Because I firmly believe that if literature is, as they say, "a window on the world," then mind-bending texts create their own windows, and hence allow the readers to free themselves from all sorts of conventions. What's more, many of my novels deal with a drug, "Synth," that allows the users to change their surroundings at will. So I do write some “mind-bending” stuff myself, with precisely the purpose I mentioned above. To challenge yourself through fiction is to challenge a reality you have not chosen to live in. It is not only an act of defiance, but also, very often, an act of courage.
Jordan Krall is, in my opinion, one of the greatest speculative fiction writers alive today. This novella takes simultaneously place in two different locations: on a spaceship on its way to Mars and in a unnamed city, both with a main character that may or may not be the same. Easy to read, but difficult to understand, Beyond is both a pleasure and a riddle, challenging the reader in the most satisfying way. Dealing with the questions of identity, metaphysical anguish, and conspiracy theories, it radically breaks apart the world as we know it.
Find yourself on a starship as it lumbers across the desert.Find yourself on a train looking out at the stars, the earth a blue marble in the infinite black abyss behind you. Find yourself overdosing on narcotics in a bathtub at home.The Red Planet.Pharmaceuticals.The Demiurge.Assassins.Suicide bombers.Underground railroads between worlds.What mysteries link them? Pull back the veil and see. In Beyond the Great, Bloody, Bruised and Silent Veil of this World author Jordan Krall creates a wholly unique experience; all at once revelatory, hypnotic, and hallucinatory. All literal, all parable, all a twisted drug-trip. So read on and know this; it's…
I’ve been writing for publication since I was a student, crudely the writing has been a way of medicating the fact I’m incurably curious about a range of things and I’ve also suffered from an over-production of ideas my whole life. Wrestling this under control into writing and live speaking where the subjects must fit within a title, word limit, or running time for a talk has been helpful, beyond which the whole writing career has been a trade off between things I’ve chosen to do because they matter a lot to me, and the occasional accepting of an offer I thought too good to refuse.
A clear and well-argued account of how the planet became obsessed with stories of alien encounters and what they might mean to us.
An essential read for anyone curious about the subject largely because it considers the whole planet, not just the truly UFO-obsessed United States. It frequently presents the best and most challenging UFO cases with a clarity that gets to the heart of each claim, and never forgets that one thing driving the enduring popularity of the subject is that – whatever the truth behind each claim – we’re dealing with incredible claims that make for great stories.
A history of the various manifestations and shifting meaning of the Twentieth Century's single great contribution to mythology: the UFO.
Neither a credulous work of conspiracy theory nor a sceptical debunking of belief in 'flying saucers', How UFOs Conquered the World explores the origins of UFOs in the build-up to the First World War and how reports of them have changed in tandem with world events, science and culture. The book will also explore the overlaps between UFO belief and religion and superstition.
Kees van der Pijl was lecturer at the University of Amsterdam and professor of International Relations at the University of Sussex in the UK. He retired in 2012. At Sussex he was head of department and director of the Centre for Global Political Economy. Besides democracy and anti-war activism he continues to write on transnational classes and policy networks, including the role of “deep politics”.
Of all studies trying to uncover the true background and perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, this book goes furthest by claiming they were a plot jointly hatched by neo-conservative Zionists in the US government and Likud hardliners in Israel.
It makes a convincing case that the attacks used 19 Arab patsies and various decoy operations to convince the world that the culprits were fanatical Muslims and a War on Terror (in practice, against Israel's enemies) was justified.
An independent analysis of the events of September 11, 2001. Includes historical and geo-political background and examines the motivation of the people who played key roles in the destruction of the evidence and the obstruction of justice for the families of the victims.
I’m a law professor who, among other things, writes about the culture and law of secrecy. I’ve written two books: Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American Culture, the second edition of which was published in 2008, and The Transparency Fix: Secrets, Leaks, and Uncontrollable Government Information (2017). I hold a J.D. from Yale Law School and a Ph.D. from the Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and I teach at the University of Florida.
Hofstadter’s Paranoid Style is more a work of historiography than history and attempted to explain the rise of a right-wing “paranoia” to a liberal intellectual audience in the early 1960s. By contrast, Jesse Walker’s book offers a more detailed, engaging, and sympathetic history of U.S. conspiracy theories and the individuals and groups who have made and circulated them. It’s funny and deadpan, with a keen eye for subcultural details and the singular American oddballs that have traveled from the margins to the mainstream. As Walker demonstrates, Qanon is not the first example of a bizarre, syncretic set of beliefs that has attracted a surprisingly large number of adherents.
The United States of Paranoia is a history of America's demons. Conspiracy theories, Walker explains, aren't just a feature of the fringe: They've been a potent force across the political spectrum, in the center as well as the extremes, from the colonial era to the present. Walker argues that conspiracy stories need to be read not just as claims to be either believed or debunked but as folklore. When a tale takes hold, it says something true about the anxieties and experiences of the people who believe and repeat it, even if it says nothing true about the objects of…
Thomas Perry is a 74 year old writer who is working on his 30th novel. His books have won a number of honors and awards, including the Edgar from the Mystery Writers of America for The Butcher's Boy, the Gumshoe for Pursuit, the Barry for The Informant, and again for Eddie'sBoy. Metzger's Dog was voted by NPR's listeners one of "100 Killer Thrillers--Best Thrillers Ever." He has always believed that a writer's most important job is learning to be a better writer.
This is a risky choice because the author is my old university colleague and later television writing partner, to whom I’ve been married for 41 years. I feel comfortable about it because of the number of fine British and American writers who have recommended this and her earlier books. I picked it because it’s the first novel I’ve read that makes a credible artistic attempt to grasp the experience of the current Pandemic. It’s a murder mystery that takes place during those first few months, when what was happening in the world seemed unthinkable, going out meant breaking a lockdown, and contact with anyone might be fatal. The amateur investigator, a young woman with an aimless and undisciplined past, takes a deep expedition into death, and it galvanizes her into taking charge and being really alive.
"Faultlessly imagined and beautifully written, this is one of the best novels I've read all year." –Timothy Hallinan, author of the acclaimed Simeon Grist series
Caught in a pincer movement between the sudden death of Evelyn (her favourite aunt) and the Corona virus, Ascher Lieb finds herself unexpectedly locked down in her aunt’s retirement community with only Evelyn’s grief-stricken dog Freddie for company.
As the world tumbles down into a pandemic shaped rabbit-hole Ascher is wracked with guilt that her aunt was buried without the Jewish burial rights of purification.
In order to atone for this dereliction of familial duty,…
Following mysterious trails and uncovering esoteric stories: it’s what I love to do, and it’s also what I love to read about. Before I released Extreme Music, I wrote extensively about unusual music subcultures and audiological anomalies, for example artists who put out hourlong blocks of unchanging white noise. I’ve learned that the most interesting ideas – and tales – exist in these outer fringes.
I promise you my publisher isn’t strong-arming me into including this (now long out of print) book – which I stumbled upon years before I linked up with them. A spin-off of Kossy’s zine of the same name, Kooks is a kind-spirited examination of several conspiracy theorists, aspiring cult leaders, and miscellaneous cranks. In each profile, Kossy does her best to meticulously research her topic, digging deep into piles of rambling documents so that you don’t have to. Who can forget Francis E. Dec, sworn enemy of the Mad Deadly Worldwide Communist Gangster Computer God, who mailed out unintelligible hand-typed diatribes to media outlets for years?
I’ve been interested in philosophy ever since I heard the album Poitier Meets Plato, a product of the 60’s coffee house culture, in which Sidney Poitier reads Plato to jazz music. As a professional philosopher, I investigate the nature of knowledge and reality, and if paranormal claims turn out to be true, many of our beliefs about knowledge and reality may turn out to be false. In an attempt to distinguish the justified from the unjustified—the believable from the unbelievable—I’ve tried to identify the principles of good thinking and sound reasoning that can be used to help us make those distinctions.
The book introduced me to time travel, hyperspace, superstitious rats, psychic horses, conspiracy theories, and UFOs. Watzlawick, a psychologist by trade, explores the many facets of communication: how it occurs, how it fails, and how we can be misled by it.
One of the first people to explore the psychology of conspiracy theories and disinformation, he alerts us to the perils and pitfalls of all sorts of communication—both verbal and nonverbal-- through amusing anecdotes and erudite examples.
The connection between communication and reality is a relatively new idea. It is only in recent decades that the confusions, disorientations and very different world views that arise as a result of communication have become an independent field of research. One of the experts who has been working in this field is Dr. Paul Watzlawick, and he here presents, in a series of arresting and sometimes very funny examples, some of the findings.
