What I’m Reading: My Nonfiction Odyssey
I’m currently reading The Norns in Old Norse Mythology (2011) by Karen Bek-Pederson.
While I’m also a fan of comics, sci-fi, and fantasy, I’m currently on a nonfiction streak. My favorites are books about religion and mythology, history, folklore, and anything a bit strange, but you’ll often find me prowling the stacks, searching for something new.
After noticing that a lot of the more obscure nonfiction books don’t have any good reviews on sites like Goodreads, I’ve started writing my own. Here on my blog, each book review is accompanied with a public domain or Creative Commons image that I felt complemented the book.
Evil Incarnate: Rumors of Demonic Conspiracy and Ritual Abuse in History
In Evil Incarnate: Rumors of Demonic Conspiracy and Ritual Abuse in History (2006), David Frankfurter sets out to explain why people throughout history have constructed beliefs about secret, evil groups that engage in remarkably similar, lurid acts of violence and depravity, often involving infant sacrifice, blood-drinking and cannibalism, and sexual perversity. While providing some insights into this bizarre and unsettling pattern, which has recently repeated itself with QAnon conspiracy theories, the book ultimately fails to provide a convincing over-arching explanation…