Nonfiction About Witches, Ghosts, and Other Odd Creatures

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Steph Auteri is a journalist who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her extra artistic work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, below the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, “The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart,” revealed in Southwest Review, was listed as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2021. She additionally writes bookish stuff right here and on the Feminist Book Club, is the creator of A Dirty Word, and is the founding father of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, cat snuggling, and staring on the birds in her yard feeder. You can study extra at stephauteri.com and observe her on Insta/Threads at @stephauteri.

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“Do you believe in unicorns?” asks my 9-year-old, who insists she is a caticorn cloaked in human type.

I have a look at her and think about my phrases rigorously.

“Well…” I say. “I want to believe.”

I pause, desirous to be sincere but additionally not desirous to stomp throughout my little one’s religion in magic.

“They’re called mythical creatures,” I lastly say, “because they’re considered to be myths. People don’t think they actually exist.”

I can see Em getting indignant, so I resolve to finish on a hopeful word.

“The thing is,” I say, speeding to talk earlier than she will be able to get all up on her tiny soapbox, “we can never know all the things that exist in this world.”

“Yeah!” she says, feeling vindicated. And off she flounces on her merry manner.

Last Christmas, Em requested Santa (one other legendary being in whom she nonetheless believes) for a unicorn. As a compromise, I scoured the web, looking for a farm inside driving distance that supplied unicorn rides so Santa might go away a ticket in her stocking. By the time we have been lastly capable of get to the farm to money in that ticket, I frightened she’d see via the entire facade. But half a yr after that trip, her religion stays robust.

I used to be like that, too, once I was younger, although my pursuits tended towards the horror-tinged supernatural. I used Ouija Boards to conjure ghosts and a hand-me-down witchcraft package to solid spells. I searched the home for secret passageways that presumably hid darkish secrets and techniques.

Now, as an grownup with a permanent love for the horror style, I can’t assist however nonetheless — as I informed Em — need to imagine.

And there are many others like me.

In the checklist under, zombies and werewolves are scrutinized below the lens of science, haunted homes are explored, and witches are proven to be actual. Where do our beliefs in these creatures come from, and why? These books have the solutions.

A Season with the Witch by J. W. Ocker

Ocker has a ton of books I might have included on this checklist on every thing from cryptids to cursed objects. In this one, the occult fanatic delves right into a location quite than an entity, spending a complete autumn in Salem, Massachusetts, a spot that’s constructed its complete model across the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. Salem is A Whole Vibe and, as an individual who enjoys that vibe, I assumed this e book was a enjoyable strategy to Ocker’s traditional fare.

In Defense of Witches by Mona Chollet

Speaking of witches, I’ve a factor for them. In current years, particularly, there have been a ton of books demystifying these much-maligned women, and with the ability to see them as flesh-and-blood feminist icons quite than as manipulators of the magical hasn’t ruined them for me; it’s made me love them much more. In Chollet’s cultural critique, witches are proven to be symbols of feminine rise up and independence, marked as depraved as a result of they’ve angered the patriarchy.

Brujas by Lorraine Monteagut, Ph.D.

Continuing with this theme, Monteagut’s e book is an instructional strategy to witchcraft. In it, she explores the BIPOC witches of immediately, these witches of coloration who’re reaching again towards their ancestral roots and utilizing witchcraft in its place strategy to modern-day points, significantly on a social justice stage. As the e book description reads, “witchcraft is more than a trend — it’s a movement.” This e book is an enchanting have a look at what witches all the time have been…and who they proceed to be.

cover of The Man Who Could Move Clouds: A Memoir

The Man Who Could Move Clouds Ingrid Rojas Contreras

Just another witch-related title, y’all! Please. Indulge me. This memoir is a few curandero, a healer who makes use of pure and religious treatments to assist others. He’s additionally the creator’s grandfather, and although it’s frowned upon inside their Colombian tradition for girls to apply these therapeutic arts, he teaches his daughter — the creator’s mom — every thing he is aware of. When the creator, her mom, and her sisters all have the identical dream, she turns into decided to relearn her household historical past and the historical past of those presents. I am keen on this e book.

book cover - Ghostland-An American History in Haunted Places by Colin Dickey

Ghostland by Colin Dickey

Moving on from witches to haunted homes, right here’s one from creator Colin Dickey, whose bio specifies that his focus is on the methods through which supernatural symbols perform as metaphors. In this specific deep dive, he takes a visit throughout the United States to study extra about these locations which have been deemed haunted. In the method, he uncovers an unstated historical past through which ghosts are stand-ins for the darkest elements of our tradition’s previous.

Midwestern Strange by B. J. Hollars

In this e book — billed as half memoir, half journalism — Hollars chases down unusual and uncommon sightings within the “flyover states,” studies that run the gamut from werewolves to aliens and every thing in between. In doing so, he questions the issues we imagine in and why. No matter what you imagine, this learn is quirky, curious, and enjoyable.

The Japanese Yokai Handbook by Masami Kinoshita

When I googled well-liked legendary creatures (for causes involving my little one), search outcomes included unicorns, dragons, mermaids, the phoenix, the kraken. But inside Japanese tradition, people have their yokai, a catch-all time period for every thing from ghosts, demons, and monsters to shapeshifters, tricksters, and different kinds of supernatural beings and mysterious phenomena. In Kinoshita’s e book, out this month, she paperwork over 100 yokai, every description accompanied by a full-color illustration.

The Night Parade by Jami Nakamura Lin

Speaking of yokai, in Lin’s forthcoming speculative memoir — additionally out later this month — she makes use of the yokai and different figures from Japanese, Taiwanese, and Okinawan legend to discover what she as soon as noticed as her personal monstrousness and to deal with the query of how our concern of all that’s totally different shapes who we’re as individuals. Like Ocker (bear in mind him?), I’m such a fan of how supernatural creatures might be metaphors for one thing else, and I like to see narratives through which the mythological is intertwined with present-day experiences. I’ve been wanting ahead to this one for a very long time.

Women and Other Monsters by Jess Zimmerman

Big on monsters and metaphor? I’ve received much more for you. Zimmerman’s e book is a cultural evaluation of feminine monsters from Greek mythology, and she makes use of this evaluation to discover how ladies in our oldest tales have all the time been solid as monsters every time they’ve dared step out of line. In this e book, she presents a name for girls all over the place to reclaim these tales and embrace their very own monstrousness as a pressure for change.

The Science of Monsters by Meg Hafdahl and Kelly Florence

Leaving metaphor behind, the ladies behind the Horror Rewind podcast use science to dig into how monsters would truly function IRL. Topics lined embrace the decomposition charges of zombies, real-life examples of shape-shifting, the issues that trigger evening terrors, and extra. Each presumably fictional creature is explored throughout the context of one of many authors’ favourite horror flicks. I dig it.

Not sufficient monsters for ya’? How about these 100 must-read books about monsters? Or, in the event you’d quite begin smaller, listed below are 10 books about cryptids and cryptozoology.