Public reader discussion about A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder in the WeRead Catalog by James De Mille.
By LuckyBrush
I figured I’d throw in a few lesser-known, interesting reads :) This one I picked up sometime over the summer or during winter break, I think: *Perfect Behavior: A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises* by Donald Ogden Stewart. It was genuinely hilarious—like a straight-up etiquette book that totally veered off the rails, and I kept laughing while I read it.
By whiteplate
Hi and welcome to the Anglicanism space! Everyone’s invited—folks from the Anglican Communion, churches that are in full communion with it, self-described Anglican groups outside the official communion, and anyone just curious about the Anglican tradition. Hope you’re okay with lots of different viewpoints across Anglican life. Rules are basically: be nice, don’t post anything oppressive or unchristian, no big “news aggregator” links, no broad dunking on specific jurisdictions, no anti-Anglican rants, and self-promo can get removed. Also no trying to convert people to other denominations. There’s also a reminder to think about whether you should really be talking to clergy or a mental health professional instead of posting here—and please don’t share huge amounts of AI-generated text/media. FAQ’s there too, plus there’s a Discord link if you want to join on Anglicord.
By curious-bookish86
Hey! I’m working on my master’s dissertation about how prehistoric animals get imagined in really early sci-fi (roughly 1850 to 1930). I was hoping someone might have suggestions for books/stories in that same vein as *Journey to the Centre of the Earth* or *The Lost World* that I might’ve missed. So far I’ve mostly turned up Edgar Rice Burrough’s Caspak stuff, plus a short story by Henry Francis called “The Last Haunt of the Dinosaur.” If anyone can point me to other things, I’d really appreciate it—especially if it’s more like pulpier, trashier, over-the-top fiction. edit: thank you so much, everyone! These are exactly the kinds of examples I was hoping for. I’ll definitely update people if they’re curious about how the project turns out :)
By cougar-steady
I had a pretty similar “wait, how did I end up with this?” moment with James De Mille. I was just killing time in a bookstore and the title caught my eye, even though his name had never really landed with me before. From what I can tell, this was put out after he’d already gone, maybe from an older draft, and you can feel it in places. Some bits read like they still needed a little smoothing over, and a few passages feel a bit shaky. That said, the writing is way clearer than I expected, especially compared to a lot of that same old-era stuff that can get overly dressed up. It’s actually pretty easy to get into, even now. The whole story kind of goes story-within-story, and most of it follows an English sailor who’s stuck in a South Polar civilization that basically nobody knows about. And honestly, there are also dinosaurs involved—like, De Mille seems to have gotten there before some of the more famous “humans vs prehistoric beasts” ideas people point to. There are moments that are so vivid they almost remind me of later pop culture visuals (like that whole flying pterodactyl setup), even though the feel is different. What really keeps it interesting to me is the satire. It’s not just adventure for adventure’s sake; it’s got this edge to it, like something you’d expect next to the vibe of “Gulliver’s Travels.” The society there is basically upside down in a way that makes you think about Western attitudes—especially the part where poverty and suffering get treated like something almost honorable, which was definitely a thing at the time with missionaries and the like. It also messes with the “meek shall inherit” idea in a pretty extreme direction. I don’t want to get too deep into the South Polar setup because that feels like it’d spoil things. The dialogue is honestly one of the best parts—fast, engaging, and it hits with that satirical bite. But when it gets into long stretches of the sailor’s adventures, it can drag a little, and sometimes it feels kind of borrowed or too familiar. The ending lands as a “sort of” resolution, but not fully, and it makes you sit there thinking about why the characters do what they do. Overall, I really think it’s underrated. It feels like it should be right there with the big speculative names from the era—like Poe or Conan Doyle—rather than sitting forgotten.
By river-ash
I’m not talking about one of those King books that just doesn’t get as much love as his bigger stuff. I mean something way more underrated—like basically nobody’s heard of it, and the author’s even more unknown. What’s a book that totally deserved more attention? Like, it makes no sense it didn’t blow up and become a bestseller. It feels like some kind of crime, honestly—like a double homicide. Or I’m overreacting, but it’s got that “what even is happening” end-times vibe.
By misty-orchid1988
Love this genre. Even though a lot of stuff like this leans hard into spooky/mysterious vibes, I feel like it’s still pretty rare to see an author who actually put the work in. I’m mostly talking about books where the “secret knowledge” angle feels real-ish—stuff like gnosticism, kabbalah, alchemy, weird conspiracies, that sort of thing. (And yeah, I’m not a practitioner or anything. I just can’t help being a total nerd about it.) Also, there are 14 books here for the generations between Abraham and King David and the buckthorn tree in gematria… kidding. Mostly, I just want more recommendations. I did look for movies/TV too, but nothing I’ve seen really matches what I’m after. **Fiction** - **VALIS (Philip K. Dick)** A pink beam of light starts showing a guy (Horselover Fat) an alternate reality where the Roman Empire is still running things. Then he has to figure out if he’s losing it or if something bigger is basically giving him the real picture. Not as “famous” as some of Dick’s other stuff, but if there’s a quintessential gnostic-feeling novel, this one’s it. The weird part is it’s tied to Dick’s own life in a way that’s honestly hard to believe. I thought the first half was really brilliant—half philosophy, half “wait, what,” and somehow both things. But the second half kind of falls apart for me. It drops the cooler gnostic/absurd vibe and turns into more straight-up sci-fi nonsense. - **Piranesi (Susanna Clarke)** Piranesi lives in this endless house where the rooms just go on forever, there’s an ocean trapped somewhere in there, and there’s another guy who shows up twice a week asking for help with “a great and secret knowledge.” But the more Piranesi explores, the more it feels like there’s proof of a different truth hiding under everything. I really do love this book. It’s gorgeous and feels way deeper than it has any right to. It also plays with esoteric stuff in both literal and metaphor ways, and you can feel influences from Borges, Plato, Jung, plus people like Blavatsky/Crowley. Not sure if that makes it sound like I’m overselling it, but… I am. - **Foucault’s Pendulum (Umberto Eco)** Three bored editors make a hoax that links the Templars to a bunch of occult groups and ends up pointing to this specific spot in Paris where you can control “the powers of the earth.” You’d think it would stay a joke… and then it basically doesn’t. Occult groups start taking it seriously, and people start getting killed. I’m gonna admit I didn’t finish it. It felt like non-stop infodumping about crusade-style conspiracy stuff, and it got old fast for me. Still, Eco clearly knows the material—kabbalah, alchemy, conspiracy culture, all that. I just think his point is basically to satirize it and show how ridiculous it all is, even if the delivery dragged. - **The Crying of Lot 49 (Thomas Pynchon)** Oedipa Maas gets pulled into this weird mess after being named executrix for someone’s estate, and she ends up tracking a postal-system conspiracy. This one’s a little different from the others since it’s not really based on real esoteric stuff. But it really *feels* like it could be. It’s super tangled, weird, and you keep getting the sense you’re “finding” hidden meanings right alongside the character. - **The Course of the Heart (M. John Harrison)** A group of Cambridge students do some mysterious ritual and then spend the rest of their lives haunted by it. Later, through a post-war autobiography, they find out about this country called the Coeur that keeps reappearing, where it feels like everything is possible. Honestly I thought it was great. If it weren’t scared of going fully weird, I’d compare it to *The Secret History*. It also feels like it’s about how people try to make sense of trauma by wrapping it into a bigger story than themselves. Unsettling, strange, and definitely talking back to esoteric traditions. - **Kraken (China Miéville)** A squid goes missing from the natural history museum, and a regular scientist gets dragged into some hidden under-city full of cults, magic crime stuff, talking tattoos, and chaos nazis. He starts realizing there’s a bigger reason behind why the squid disappeared. This isn’t the kind of Miéville I expected from him, but it was really impressive. The setup sounds ridiculous, but the book commits to it and plays it seriously. Every chapter basically adds new mind-blowing ideas. (My favorite were the “Londonmancers,” who read the future by cutting into the city through the sidewalk—feels like an old-school divination thing.) The whole magic system is basically symbolism: if it fits in the story, it works. Clever. - **Lote (Shola von Reinhold)** Mathilda gets obsessed with 1920s glamour and Black modernist history, and then she finds a photo of Hermia Druitt, this forgotten poet tied to elite art circles. That leads her to this strange residency town (Dun) where Hermia lived, and Mathilda ends up stuck in a world of secrets, aesthetic groups, and escapism—rituals, weird philosophies, art sabotage, all of it. It’s clearly written by someone who knows modernist history and culture really well, and there are some genuinely smart satirical parts too. It started strong, but I felt like it didn’t really live up to its own premise and it kinda ended up flat for me. Still, there are good bits and interesting commentary, and I’d recommend it if you want something that pushes back on white male dominance. - **Masters of Atlantis (Charles Portis)** Lamar Jimmerson runs the Gnomon Society, basically a group dedicated to preserving “the arcane wisdom” of Atlantis. In 1917 France he finds a little book packed with Atlantean puzzles and Egyptian riddles and alchemy-ish metaphors (the Codex Pappus). He fully buys into the whole noble brotherhood mission thing. The joke is that despite all the “esoteric knowledge” stuff, there really isn’t any. So it kind of balances out the others here. But I also didn’t finish it—I found it dull and predictable. It’s witty at times, but it didn’t really cross into actually funny for me. That said, it feels like Portis understands how these “secret society” fantasies work in real life, like the Gnomon society could almost be real. Maybe real-life occult orgs are already so absurd it’s hard to top them. (Also: Occult America being on the list later feels related.) - **Death and the Compass (Jorge Luis Borges)** A detective tries to solve murders that seem to follow some kabbalistic pattern, and he thinks the answer is tied to the secret name of God. Borges clearly cared about kabbalah and Judaism and other traditions—he even got accused of being secretly Jewish back in 1934 by fascists, and he basically said he wasn’t, but didn’t mind the label since he respected the culture. You can feel that knowledge in the way he writes. Great story. **Nonfiction** - **The Gnostics (Jacques Lacarrière)** Found it cheap at a used bookstore and honestly felt lucky. It mixes history and philosophy and, in my opinion, leans too hard on primary sources. It’s not the most “strictly factual” thing you could buy if you want total grounding. But it’s a really fun read—makes history feel vivid and alive. I don’t totally buy the author’s conclusion about Gnosticism’s black-and-white worldview being something to aim for, but the argument is still compelling. - **Occult America (Mitch Horowitz)** Covers a bunch of different traditions—Freemasonry, spiritualism, hoodoo, Mormonism, etc. It’s kinda all over the place and a few topics don’t get enough depth, but it’s a solid starting point. What I liked most was seeing how spirituality ties into big historical moments like WW2, emancipation, and the industrial revolution. - **Kabbalah (Harry Freedman)** Kabbalah is tough to get into if you’re not academic and you’re not religious/scholarly already. This one works as a pretty great introduction. It’s readable, fascinating, and goes from the early stuff through to modern times. The best part might be the totally wild kabbalistic tall tales—like the guy who avoids persecution by burying himself (and his son) in a cave for seven years and only comes out on the Sabbath. - **Brainwash (Dominic Streatfeild)** Deals with mind control—cults, the satanic panic, subliminal messaging, MKULTRA, and more. It’s super interesting and it’s got solid research. I think it belongs here too because it gets at how belief can be shaped and “re-taught,” and it makes the point that the truth can be even stranger than conspiracy stories. TW: it talks about really dark torture stuff. - **Drawing Down the Moon (Margot Adler)** This is a really good look at American neopaganism from a social/scientific angle. It covers where Wicca came from in the 20th century and how it changed, especially with second-wave feminism. It’s based on interviews, so it feels grounded in how people actually do it—rituals, festivals, communities, all of that. It’s thorough but not boring, and even though it’s from 1979 it still feels like it holds up. The author is a neopagan too, but she’s pretty honest about it and tries to stay objective. - **Bonus: Esoterica on YouTube** I feel like I have to throw this in since it’s probably one of the best free sources online for occult/esoteric info that isn’t trying to be academic-proof. Justin Sledge (yep, that’s his real name) covers western esoteric stuff and ancient near-eastern prophetic tradition mostly, but he touches a lot of other things too.
By thyme-tower2004
Since the book is that “lost world” fantasy by James De Mille, *A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder*, I’m surprised nobody caught it earlier.
By delta-hare91
Pretty straightforward—just tell people what you’ve read this year, toss in a quick note on what it’s like, and whether you’d actually recommend it.
By Precheck-Bookish10
This is a trope I thought was really interesting, but I’m kind of at a loss for how to name it. I don’t mean epistolary stuff, and not really books in journal format either (although maybe it overlaps?). The ones I liked most were: - *No Longer Human* (Osamu Dazai) - *Steppenwolf* (Hermann Hesse) From what I can tell, the author sets up a “here’s how I got this thing” kind of foreword, and then after that you just get the manuscript itself—no real extra explanation, no trying to break it down, and no judging the person who wrote it in the first place. If anyone has recommendations for stuff like that, I’d love to hear them. Any genre is fine.
By library-eagle52349
I’m guessing it’s Jules Verne’s *Journey to the Centre of the Earth* (first published 1864).