Bufo Calvin
P O Box 5231, Walnut Creek, CA 94596
Internet: BufoCalvin@...
Website: http://members.aol.com/bufocalvin
Linkto Amazon.com

March-April, 2000 (Vol. 3, #2)

Books mentioned in BAR can be ordered on most e-mail systems by clicking on the
hyperlink title. This will take you to the book at Amazon.com. You can readmore
about it at that point and decide if you want to order it. If you do, you add it
to your "shopping cart". Then, if you want another title mentioned here, please
click on it in this post. If you have questions, please e-mail Bufo at
BufoCalvin@.... Replying to this message will send it to anaddress that I
simply use to make my e-mailings more universally legible. While I do check it
occasionally, it is not the best way to reach me. If you wish to unsubscribe,
remember that you can do so just be sending an e-mail to
anomalit-unsubscribe@onelist.com

Books in BAR now include some titles available from the UK. This is for the
convenience of my European subscribers, as well as allowing for the listing
ofmore titles. These books will be indicated with a (UK) designation. Release
dates will generally reflect the U.S., except for exclusively UK titles. My
apologies to my European readers this time: I was not able to include those
availabilities. If you are interested, feel free to e-mail me.

Work on my first book, being co-written with Gini Scott for Paragon House, is
taking up much of my “free time”. I would expect these to go to bimonthly for
the next several months, although I will try and provide at least two featured
titles each time. If anyone wants to be included in the book, please let me
know. I have already begun doing interviews. Everyone who is interviewed should
get a chance to review their interview prior to inclusion. Also, we will not
include comments criticizing explicitly named otherliving people. The book is
about howbeing involved with UFOs (as a researcher and/or experiencer) has
affected people. While it will provide some resources and some overview, the
main goalwill be to let the readers meet the people involved. Interested
parties should e-mail me at UFOBOOK@....

If you have books to recommend, please let me know. If you would like to be
named as recommending it, include that information as well and tell me you would
like to be cited.

In this issue: Featured Titles, Bestseller, and Recent Additions

FEATURED TITLES:

MYSTERIESOF PLANET EARTH (paperback)
Subtitle: AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE INEXPLICABLE
by Dr. Karl P. N. Shuker
192 pages: Profusely illustrated, index, bibliography

”What have you got to top that one?”
H. Wells, announcer, in THE AMAZING COLLOSAL MAN, screenplay by Bert I.
Gordonand Mark Hanna

”Our planet is a realm still replete with mystery, an island of inexplicabilia
drifting passively upon the ever-trembling currents of time that emanate fromthe
greatest undivined secret of all, which we call the universe for want of a
better name or definition, and it is sheer folly to profess otherwise.”
Dr. Karl P.N. Shuker, MYSTERIES OF PLANET EARTH

This remarkable coffee-table style tome seeks to show those people who have
leapt beyond the mundane to land precariously in a zone of belief in suchthings
as UFOs and Bigfoot that they have merely attained the first rung of a ladder of
constantly-escalating-paradigm revisions.

Ah, now he’s got me doing it! Just kidding…I love the somewhat high-flown
writing style of Dr. Shuker in thisbook. His point, well-made in the
introduction, is that most books on anomalistics repeat the same stories over
and over again. The good doctor (who isa well-known motorcycle-riding,
leather-jacketed zoologist who has focused on cryptozoology) seeks to provide an
alternative by deliberately coveringlesser-known mysteries.

While that might make you concerned that the subjects covered would be less
well-documented and lacking in evidence, that isn’t the case. How many readers
are aware of the Hand of Fire? This is a phenomenon in which books are scorched
by what appears to have been a burning-hot hand. This is a case, somewhat like
crop circles, where it is the evidence that is predominant in the story. Shuker
fairly reports the work of Skeptic Joe Nickell in debunking several of these
stories. Is it the debunking that has kept this from being a “classic” mystery
in the popular books?  Unlikely,since the debunking came fairly recently (1993,
Lookingfor a Miracle (paperback)). Maybe it’s the religious nature of the
mystery (which was believed to be caused by the hand of a soul in purgatory).
Religion is one area into which this book delves, and it has sometimes been a
delicate area of crossover for authors, although embraced by others whosought to
“explain” religious beliefs as being caused by UFOs or others.

In addition to the religious mysteries (which, according to the book’s
organization, fall into the supernatural), there are a total of five
othersections: the partner for the religious in the supernatural section is
filled with truly odd happenings, such as reputedly real appearances by
centaurs, misty monsters and blood-dripping invisible ones, and discoveries
inspired by dreams; the natural world has two sections, one on land animals like
blue tigers, and another on the sea and sky, including light wheels in the ocean
(although UFOs are essentially not covered); and another two sections for the
ancient world, including some unusual crystal skulls.

While one might argue a bit about what gets placed where, the book flows nicely.
The pictures, as has become a hallmark of Dr. Shuker’s books, are striking and
very well reproduced. The publisher, Carlton, can be commended for the
excellent production values.

While intended for an audience already-informed about the major mysteries, it
would be an eye-opening introduction for those just wondering what is out
thereas well. Shuker shows what happens whena good writer turns his attention
to fresh mysteries, and leaves the bounds of the “known unknown”. It makes for
a thoroughly entertaining trip that makes us wonder why certain things get a
following and become part of the “unconventional wisdom”, and why others don’t.

WhereHeavens Meet (paperback)

by K.T. (Frankovich)
288 pages, no index, illustrations and photographs

”I know you don’t understand pain, Pete. You’ve hardened yourself to it, like a
lot of people, by pretending it doesn’t exist. So you convincedeverybody you’re
a real tough guy, a strong man, real independent. And you gave up some of your
humanity,too. Well, I won’t play that game. I’ll cling to my humanity, and
fight for it if I must. I loved once, really loved. And now I hurt. And I
won’t deny either of those things, or pretend they mean any less to me than they
do.”
Keith/”…FOR A SINGLE YESTERDAY” written by George R. R. Martin

What makes a life extraordinary? For some, it is a single moment different from
the rest, a sudden opening and shutting again of a door into a deeper reality.
For others, the fabric of their lives is woven from a different cloth. What
seems normal to most of us, like running and trusting and being isolated in our
own being is strange. WHERE HEAVENS MEET is the autobiography of such a life.

This was an extraordinary book of an extraordinary life. I wouldn’t say it was
the best writing technically I’ve ever read: it was often more like a
conversation than a book. However, there is, in some way, a genuineness that
comes across. You knowthat much of what this gentle person is telling you is
true. Why would you put in that you had polio as achild if you didn’t…it would
be so easily disproved. Much of it, such as meeting with Christ and Abraham and
aliens and for that matter, Sterling Holloway (the voice of Winnie the Pooh) and
Ricou Browning (the Creature from the Black Lagoon), seems impossible…and yet
the same voice that tells you one is telling you the other.

K.T. often appears on radio shows. Her ife is made up of so many different
facets that only one face is usually hown.She may be appearing as asurvivor of
Hurricane Andrew, a psychic, a nature photographer, or an observer o aliens
(including what she takes to be the pet of one). This book is like a trip into
the looking glass, only when you look around, you can’t tell which side of the
glass you occupy. It is told in a very unusualway…not scientific, not New Age,
but simply a case of “this is what happened tome.”

I can’t tell you that you will enjoy the book: parts of it are unsettling. I
can’t tell you that you will believe the book: some parts of it will be outside
anyone's ken. I can tell you that you are likely to find it fascinating.

BEST SELLER (Nov 1, 1999 through January 31, 2000)

US

Howto Know God (hardback)
by Deepak Chopra
Once again, the bestseller is a book which I have not featured in BAR.

RECENT ADDITIONS:

ThePsychic World or Derek Acorah (paperback)
by Derek Acorah

PsychicAwareness (paperback)

by Cassandra Eason


100of the World’s Greatest Mysteries (paperback)
Subtitle: Strange Secrets of the Past Revealed

by E. Randall Floyd


AlienAbductions (The Ufo Files) (paperback)

by Peter Hough, Moyshe Kalman


AlienAgenda (paperback) :
Subtitle: Investigating the Extraterrestrial Presence Among Us

by Jim Marrs
Paperback by the author of the book that inspired Oliver Stone to do J.F.K.


AliensOver America (paperback)

by Timothy Guy


AtHome in the Universe (paperback)  
Subtitle: Exploring Our Suprasensory Nature : Five Talks at the Hague,
November13-18, 1923

by Rudolf Steiner


Blessingin Disguise (paperback)
Subtitle: Another Side of the Near-Death Experience

by Barbara R., MD Rommer, Raymond Moody
Moody was the author of one of the books that really brought the idea
ofnear-death experiences to the public


TheCamino (hardcover)
Subtitle: A Journey of the Spirit

by Shirley MacLaine


TheComplete Book of Alien Abductions (hardcover)

by Jenny Randles


CosmicCrashes (hardback)
Subtitle: The Incredible Story of the Ufos That Fell to Earth

by Nicholas Redfern


DorlingKindersley Readers: Bermuda Triangle (paperback)

by Andrew Donkin

(for children)

FatherErnetti's Chronovisor (paperback):
Subtitle: The Creation and Disappearance of the World's First Time Machine

by Peter Krassa, Peri Poloni (Illustrator)


FieldGuide to UFOs (paperback)
Subtitle: A Classification of Various Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon

by Dennis Stacy, Patrick Huyghe
Stacy and Huyghe are two great writers, this should be a must read.


TheIsaiah Effect (hardback)
Subtitle: Decoding Our Future Through the Lost Science of Prophecy

by Gregg Braden

MyQuest for Yeti (hardback)
by Reinhold Messner

TheLittle Giant Book of UFOs (paperback)
by Jenny Randles
I’ve picked this one up: looks good so far.
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