This certainly looks like a book that will be of great interest to Grail readers: Fringe-ology:
Fringe-ology is journalist Steve Volk’s attempt to reconcile a mysterious ghost story from his childhood with his lifelong, down to earth occupation as a journalist. His solution was to do journalism—to investigate that family ghost story, and other paranormal topics, in the high style of narrative nonfiction. What he found is a great tale that’s been relegated to the fringe of our discourse for too long—a story about all of us, a story filled with ghosts, UFOs, maverick scientists, psychics, spoon-benders and the people who love and hate them. More importantly, he found common ground we can all share—a place for skeptics and believers, spiritualists and scientists, to stand together—not at the fringes, but at the heart of what it means to be human.
Fringe-ology will be released on June 7th, and can be pre-ordered from Amazon.com. Here’s more info on the book, from the author himself:
Volk has also guest-hosted the most recent Skeptiko podcast, in which he talks to esteemed science journalist Deborah Blum (author of Ghost Hunters) about paranormal experiences, and how the topic is treated by scientists and journalists.
This was actually a bit of a synchronicity for myself, as earlier this morning I had been wondering whether Blum was now distancing herself from that book – she’s now receiving much positive attention from the science community for her new book The Poisoner’s Handbook (Amazon US and UK), but there doesn’t seem to be much mention of Ghost Hunters in her Twitter feed. In my 2007 interview with her about that book she certainly was of the opinion that these experiences were worthy of serious scientific attention, and happily it seems from the Skeptiko interview that nothing has changed on that front. It’s an excellent interview, well worth adding to your iPod for a listen. Hopefully we can talk to Steve Volk about Fringe-ology in the near future as well.
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