As I wind down Magonia Review, I thought it might be interesting to see what were the reviews that attracted the most readers over the past fifteen years. Of course the older reviews will have had a longer time to attract readers, but some more recent entries feature in the Top Ten as well.
I don't really know what it says about the value of the books, the acuity of the reviewers or the tastes of Magonia readers. There are one or two surprises (to me), but they are all books that stimulate and often provoke. I suppose I should never be really surprised at what Magonia readers read, otherwise you wouldn't be reading Magonia, would you?
Thank you to our readers and reviewers - and authors and publishers as well of course - as we sail into port, for keeping the Magonia ship sailing this long! So here in reverse order are the ten most read Magonia Review reviews as of January 2025
At number ten is Sharon A. Hill's
Scientifical Americans; The Culture of Amateur Paranormal Researchers. This is a study of the phenomenon of ARIGs – Amateur Research and Investigation Groups. Written from an American perspective this gives a good summary of amateur paranormal research groups, although sometimes with the attitude of an anthropologist who has stumbled on a previously unknown tribe. In my review I concluded: “Overall though, she raises many valid criticisms, which members of such research groups would do well to consider.
Ninth place is
The Men Behind The Flying Saucer Review, from Steve Holland and Roger Perry. It gives us a fascinating account of the chequered history of what was possibly the worlds most influenza UFO magazine. With strange links to Fascism, boy's comics, super-intelligent Martian bees and Communist djinns, it steered a wayward path from hard-line contacteeism, through scientific rationalism under its greatest editor Charles Bowen to end in a stew of paranoia and conspiracy mongering.
Jacob Middleton's
Spirits of an Industrial Age: Ghost Impersonation, Spring-Heeled Jack and Victorian Society takes eighth place. It looks at ghosts, and just as importantly ghost impersonators, seeing them as a reaction to the urbanisation and industrialisation of the Victorian era. Spring-Heel Jack provoked dozens of imitators their pranks ranging from the mischievous to the criminal. Reviewer Peter Rogerson sees these as urban versions of the 'guiser' figures of English folklore “before these things were tidied up by the mid Victorians.”
Number seven is Whitley Strieber's
Solving the Communion Enigma, but there is little in it which Peter Rogerson feels goes in any way to doing that. Some have suggested that Strieber was a bandwagon jumper leaping on to the then-fashionable abduction wagon. However Peter writes “on this occasion not only has the bandwagon long departed, but has now crashed and is lying in a heap of twisted metal. If taken at face value, Strieber’s stories suggest he is having so many anomalous experiences that it is difficult to know how he has the time to eat his breakfast let alone write books.
Our number six title although posted online in August 2013, didn't really take off for two years with a sudden surge of interest in 2015. S.D. Tucker's
Terror of the Tokoloshe. Peter Rogerson explains that the Tokoloshe is “a hairy dwarf”, but what distinguishes him from similar petty supernaturals such as boggarts and djinns “is his rapacious sexuality, as evidenced by his giant penis.” He suggests that the Tokoloshe, like witches in early modern Europe, may be a product of the tensions of modernisation.
Fifth on the list is my own review of Christopher Josiffe's brilliant
Gef! The Strange Tale of an Extra-special Talking Mongoose. This account of an amazing combination of poltergeist, cryptozoology and Celtic legend has become a classic of historical paranormal research. My verdict on it was that it “not only gives the definitive account of the Talking Mongoose himself, but also supplies an insight into the society of the era. A Magonia Must-read!”
Peter Shaver's
The Rise of Science: From Prehistory to the Far Future is a straightforward history of science and scientific thought from prehistoric times, through Greece and Rome to the modern era, noting that science has fallen and risen again at least three times in that period. Reviewer Gerrard Russell concludes that “it is an ideal introduction to the development of scientific thought for the interested general reader, and could well be a standard textbook for schools, which would instil a real enthusiasm for science.”
Up to number three now, and it's Damion Searls' biography of 'the man who made the blots,
The Inkblots - Hermann Rorschach, His Iconic Test, and the Power of Seeing. Reviewer Kevin Murphy points out that although his 'inkblot' test is well know, the man himself and his life much less so. The book paints a vivid picture of his life and background, his work helping patients in mental hospitals and the development of his famous test, ensuring that thanks to this “very fine biography, Hermann Rorschach will deservedly be remembered as a man as well as a name.”
Jack Brewer's
The Greys Have Been Framed: Exploitation in the UFO Community has been praised elsewhere as one of the best UFO books of recent years. I describe it as the definitive deconstruction of the 'abduction industry', taking a scalpel to hypnotic regression and its practitioners, none of whom come out unscathed from Brewer's scrutiny. It exposes the 'seamy side' of UFO research, but also acts as a warning to researchers in other areas of paranormal research that they are dealing with human beings, not just 'phenomena'.
Top of our list is Jonathan Powell's
Rare Astronomical Sights and Sounds. As well as being a guide to astronomy and the cosmos, the author describes the development of the science from myth, legend and observation, discussing “... how our ancestors were continually challenged in the way they saw the skies and how they corrected and augmented their findings over thousands of years.” Reviewer Gerrard Russell feels that the author has caught the wonder of the universe and that “all in all, it is a comprehensive book on the sights and sounds of the night sky and all its mysteries.”
There then are the 'Top Ten' most read review on our Blog, but of course there are 1,200 others reviews out there for you on this Blog, as well as nearly 800 older titles in our Review Archive. That should keep you busy!
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