Episode 016 - Supernatural and Paranormal Non-fiction

Book Club for Masochists: a Readers’ Advisory Podcast

Just in time to miss Halloween, this episode has us reading Supernatural and Paranormal Non-fiction. And by “reading” we mean “not reading”, as several of us fail to finish any books. Thankfully, we can blame everything on gremlins. Plus wolfmen, ghosts, mermaids, dramatic readings, and special guests.

Your hosts this episode

Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray | Inti Dewey | Jessi

Recommended (thanks entirely to Jessi)

• Ghosts: A Haunted History by Lisa Morton
• National Geographic Ultimate Guide to Supernatural Places by Sarah Bartlett
• Haunted Hotels by Jo-Anne Christensen
• The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Paranormal by Nathan Robert Brown

Read

• Yurei: The Japanese Ghost by Zack Davisson
• The Little Book of True Ghost Stories by Echo Bodine
• Mermaids 101: Exploring the Magical Underwater World of the Merpeople by Doreen Virtue

Did Not Finish

• On Monsters: An Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears by Stephen T. Asma
• Abominable Science!: Origins of the Yeti, Nessie, and Other Famous Cryptids by Daniel Loxton and Donald R. Prothero
• Sex & the Paranormal by Paul Chambers
• Unbelievable: Investigations into Ghosts, Poltergeists, Telepathy, and Other Unseen Phenomena from the Duke Parapsychology Laboratory by Stacy Horn
• Will Storr vs. The Supernatural: One Man's Search for the Truth About Ghosts by Will Storr
• Hostage to the Devil: The Possession and Exorcism of Five Living Americans by Malachi Martin
• Real Wolfmen: True Encounters in Modern America by Linda S. Godfrey
• The Strange Case of Hellish Nell: The Story of Helen Duncan and the Witch Trial of World War II by Nina Shandler
• The Enigmas of History: Myths, Mysteries & Madness from Around the World by Alan Baker
• Haunted Girl : Esther Cox & the Great Amherst Mystery by Laurie Glenn Norris
• Fringe-ology: How I Tried to Explain Away the Unexplainable-And Couldn't by Steve Volk

Links/Other

• Supernatural vs. Paranormal
• Normcore, Superflat, and Supernormal?
• What Anna means by Scary Stories and More Scary Stories is the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series by Alvin Schwartz
• XKCD ruins Matthew’s ability to believe
• Nazis and the Occult
• The Spear of Destiny
• Hellboy's World: Comics and Monsters on the Margins by Scott Bukatman references Mr. Wuffles by David Wiesner
• Alien languages in Futurama (not specifically mentioned, but a good example)
• A Ghost Story by Matthew Murray
• Aokigahara: The Japanese Suicide Forest
• Koro: The "overpowering belief that one's genitalia are retracting and will disappear" (women did it)
• The dangers of Dungeons & Dragons
• The sad life of Rosemary Kennedy
• Hellish Nell’s story in the format that Matthew prefers
• A compendium of paranormal askReddit discussion threads

The magic sound introducing our guests is "fairy magic wand" by Robinhood76 from freesound.org.

Questions

• What colour of the rainbow did you cross over into Atlantis on?
• What appeal factors for the paranormal/supernatural genre did we miss?
• How could cataloguing be altered to make things more ‘findable’?
• Can you draw our Guardian Gremlins for us?