The most recommended books about human sacrifice

Another parable, another legend, another work of manual labour turned mystical. In this tale of a bridge-building gone wrong, Albanian novelist Ismail Kadare considers the harms and inevitabilities that come from spanning disparate cultures. This book features a human sacrifice at the altar of erection; it feels antique and yet timeless; it explores the boundaries of human endeavor. Notes the narrator, a silenced sceptic, “all great building works resemble crimes.” It is a recognisable concern from Kadare, an exile of Hoxha’s totalitarian regime.

Should there be an afterlife and if there’s someone greeting me in the sweet hereafter, let it be Willa Cather. 

Maybe you read her in high school and did or didn’t fall in love, but in any case, no one in school reads The Professor’s House. As always, Cather looks down upon her characters with severe compassion, the sharp eye of someone who has seen all, and she’s wryly amused by her people. 

Professor Godfrey St. Peter is going through a mid-life crisis, he’s got a wife, two daughters, and he’s trying to see the way ahead. The center of the novel is devoted to a former student of St Peter’s, Tom Outloud, now dead, who it also happens was his daughter’s fiancé. 

At the center: Tom Outland’s experience of an ancient cliff city in New Mexico. It’s not a snooze, I promise! St. Peter’s recollection of Tom’s spiritual… show more.

This Black sociologist demands that we take a deep look into the religious basis of American racism.

Of 5,000 cases of lynching reported between 1880 and 1930, at least 40% functioned as actual human sacrifices, very large communal rituals that identified certain individuals as the source of the community’s problems and eliminated them. The sacrifice created a compact between the people and their deities, expiating their sins and reinforcing their values.

"The victim mediated between the sacred and the profane...the burning cross distilled it all: sacrificed Negro joined by the torch with sacrificed Christ, burnt together and discarded...” Well into the 20th century, “The cross – Christianity’s central symbol of Christ’s sacrificial death – became identified with the crucifixion of the Negro.” Forced to carry all the projections of the white unconscious, the Black man became the American Dionysus.

Patterson observes that in recent generations the stereotype of America’s internal… show more.

Ann Leckie is not an author known for standard narration or gender roles, but she is known for great science fiction. Which is why I was astounded and delighted by her fantasy novel, The Raven Tower. Told in the second person, just when you think you know who is spinning the tale…well, I won’t give anything away except to say this is an amazing book filled with gods and rituals, tradition and sacrifice, that will keep you guessing right to the end.

I love a noir detective story. Set that story in a fantastical, blood-drenched Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec empire, and I’m totally sold.

The story follows Acatl, who is a high priest of the dead, as he, I kid you not, tries to solve what appears to be a murder case. Except he’s not walking the streets of some modern city – his journey takes him through the fascinating world of a familiar yet unique Aztec empire where human sacrifice is the only thing keeping the world spinning in its proper order.

Having familiar conflicts, including family issues, makes this one a unique standout. Acatl sounds like people I know. Following his determined efforts to bring a specific evil to heel – all while in a society that seemingly glories in bloodshed – is awesome.

The best novel ever about WWI. I was there with them in the trenches and finally understood how the generals came to have the mentality that allowed the slaughter to continue.

Forester is a superb writer and grossly underrated. He is a model for any aspiring writer. I must have read it four times at least, and each time found some new aspect to enjoy.

Can you call it “urban fantasy” when most of the action happens in rural areas? You really get a sense of how much young Paxton Locke lost when his mother murdered his father to summon a demon, and how that shapes him in the present into a man who goes out of his way to help others all over the country. Paxton isn’t the only character whose layers we get to dig into either. Without spoiling anything, he does pick up a sidekick in his travels who is more than meets the eye, and the narration occasionally switches to some other colourful characters on their own arcs to intersect Paxton’s.

Eventually, I recommend a work of fiction.

Micro-psychology by a brilliant storyteller, this was the first of Proulx’s books that I ever read, even though it was the last of the Wyoming trilogy. I went on to read the rest – and then more of her work.

Proulx draws me into the characters, their lives, the plot, setting, and atmosphere, using cleverly interpretative, and uniquely descriptive language. Just a few of her words and I am inside the story. I have been to Wyoming, taking the trilogy for company, although I had read them previously.

Some of her stories remain firmly fixed in my head, and I can re-read them without ever becoming bored. 

Why have one world when you can have multiple? The Unspoken Name took me by surprise when our main character was taken from her death cult and whisked through a gateway that would lead her to many worlds all connected by a misty maze. Dead worlds and gods, flying ships, undead cities, and a revenge plot that twists into something far bigger, The Unspoken Name feels like three stories in one, but in the best way. The various worlds and their cultures are intricate and vibrant, brought to life by the lovely cast of characters the story is told through. From an orc mercenary outrunning a god, to a wizard with godlike ambitions, the cast is phenomenal and diverse in both race and sexuality, something I love reading in fantasy. 

The Bible contains stories of unspeakable violence and brutality against women: the rape of Abraham and Sarah’s enslaved servant Hagar, the incestuous assault of David’s daughter Tamar, the human sacrifice of the warrior Jephthah’s unnamed daughter, and other horrifying accounts. Scripture also contains passages by the Apostle Paul and men writing in his name—passages that restrict women’s roles in churches and which subordinate women in households. In the late twentieth century, feminist scholars challenged these passages and critiqued the patriarchy found in the Bible. But women’s challenge to patriarchal biblical texts did not begin in the twentieth century, In this essay collection, authors identify women working in the 1600s, 1700s, and 1800s who had similar insights into the gendered problems found in the Bible.