Two Books
I've been reading a couple of interesting library books: The Atlas of Atlantis and other lost civilizations, and Our Gods wear Spandex.
Atlantis
The first of these deals with how the idea of Atlantis has changed, every since Plato wrote a parable based on the idea. Like vampires, the idea of Atlantis has come represent different things for different people. The book is very much a coffee table book, but no less entertaining and instructive for that. It also details the lives of major contributors to the myth, such as Ignatius Donnelly, Madame Blavatsky, Edgar Cayce and others. It lists potential candidates for a historical Atlantis (and believe me, people have come up with ones on every continent!) and similar concepts like Mu, and Lemuria.
I found the book very informative and entertaining. As a Fortean I love to read about the strange things that people experience and/or believe. Atlantis (whether there was a historical place the myth was based on or not) is a wellspring for both of these.
Superhero Gods
The second book, which traces a line of inspiration and storytelling from ancient gods to modern super heroes, surprisingly covers very similar ground. The same names, like Blavatsky, Bulwer-Lytton and so on, kept on being mentioned in this book too. What isn't immediately obvious, is just how much popular culture (the New Age and super hero comics included) is based on their writings.
An awful lot of that was very racist, proclaiming over-classes that ought to rule purely because they were "better". Read any old comic from the so-called "Golden Age" and you'll see what I mean. The main problem with the book is that it's too pedantically written. If you already know half of this stuff (which it appears that I do) it's a little tedious re-reading it. Was almost everybody who wrote for comics into the occult?
The book is also illustrated by J.M Lisner, whose work I much admire. I can't help feeling though that in this case his illustrations are more than a little forced.
Mind you, none of this is going to stop me reading the next library book of this ilk - Hollow Earth: The Long and Curious History of Imagining Strange Lands, Fantastical Creatures, Advanced Civilizations, and Marvellous Machines Below the Earth's Surface!