This month, we’re looking at smoke and mirrors, starting with fiction of course, making this weeks book Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke.

The study of smoke and mirrors this month continues with this weeks book Trust Me I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator by Ryan Holiday.

Smoke and mirrors are impressive when you personally have been targeted by the reader, so this weeks book explores that topic: The Full Facts Book of Cold Reading by Ian Rowland.

Smoke and mirrors work mostly because people want to believe, so this weeks book explores that: How Magicians Think: Misdirection, Deception, and Why Magic Matters by Joshua Jay.

Happiness and enlightenment do NOT include smoke and mirrors, so our book on religion does a 180 from the rest of the month, making this weeks book The Essence of Buddha: The Path of Enlightenment by Ryuho Okawa.

This month we’re taking a look at State sanctioned executioners and the one with by far the largest body count is Margaret Sanger, making this weeks book The Negro Project: Margaret Sanger's Diabolical, Duplicitous, Dangerous, Disastrous and Deadly Plan for Black America by Bruce Fleury.

As we’re looking at State sanctioned executioners this month, we’d be remiss not to examine the most infamous of all, making this weeks book Mengele: Unmasking the Angel of Death by David G. Marwell.

Rounding out our month on State sanctioned executioners, this week we’re looking at the little known but no less deadly executioners of Stalinist Russia, making this weeks book Stalin and His Hangmen by Donald Rayfield.

So I found a book that discusses primarily the worlds first recorded murder, The Beast That Crouches at the Door: Adam & Eve, Cain & Abel, and Beyond by Rabbi David Fohrman.

October is where I review books on spooky stuff, and this month I’ve decided to look more at the history of magic, by looking at historical beliefs with Three Books of Occult Philosophy by Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa. Fortunately, it’s three literal books, so we’re going to read them one by one, starting with Book 1: The Natural World. Translation is by Eric Purdue.

October is where I review books on spooky stuff, and this month I’ve decided to look more at the history of magic, by looking at historical beliefs with Three Books of Occult Philosophy by Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa. Fortunately, it’s three literal books, so we’re going to read them one by one, and next up is Book 2: The Celestial World. Translation is by Eric Purdue.

October is where I review books on spooky stuff, and this month I’ve decided to look more at the history of magic, by looking at historical beliefs with Three Books of Occult Philosophy by Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa. Fortunately, it’s three literal books, so we’re going to read them one by one, rounding out this month with Book 3: The Divine World. Translation is by Eric Purdue.

So how does this months reading tie together with religion? Well, that’s sort of the topic of this weeks book, Magisteria: The Entangled Histories of Science & Religion by Nicholas Spencer.

This month we’re looking at killers, starting with a fictional look at one who hunts monsters, Larry Correia’s newest book, American Paladin.

Last week we looked at a fictional monster hunter, lets move to people who did some real hunting of killers with The Murder Room: The Heirs of Sherlock Holmes Gather to Solve the World's Most Perplexing Cold Cases by Michael Capuzzo.

When law looks the other way, sometimes you have to defend yourself. This weeks book is Rooftop Korean by Tony Moon.

Sometimes, the crusaders are media personalities who actually do their job, making this weeks book Give Me a Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media... by John Stossel.

This month, I’m revisiting Zoroastrianism, mostly because the first book I read didn’t cover anything about Zoroastrianism, making this weeks book Zoroastrianism: Esoteric Teachings and the Priesthood of the Fire by Diohka Aesden.

This December I’m getting back to my heritage, starting with Embers of the Hands: Hidden Histories of the Viking Age by Eleanor Barraclough.

Continuing with Scandinavian history, this weeks book is The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman by Nancy Marie Brown.

Rounding out our learning of the Viking’s, this weeks book is The Hidden Lives of Viking Women: Archaeological and Historical Perspectives by Michele Hayeur Smith & Alexandra Sanmark.

Rounding out our month with the Vikings, this weeks book is The Viking Way: Magic and Mind in Late Iron Age Scandinavia by Neil Price.

We have five Sunday’s this month so I’m starting with fiction, and since I’ve long been curious about the writing of one of my favorite YouTubers, The Critical Drinker, this week I’m reading his book Redemption, by Will Jordan.

Since the fiction work was a spy thriller, I decided to dig into my non-fiction espionage books this month, making this weeks book The Great Game: The Myth and Reality of Espionage by Frederick Hitz.

Continuing our explorations of espionage, this weeks book is The Human Factor: Inside the CIA's Dysfunctinoal Intelligence Culture by Ishmael Jones.

Rounding out my month on espionage, this weeks book is Silent Warfare: Understanding the World of Intelligence by Abram Shulsky.

Since spys wear many faces but not all of them follow one religion, I went with a religion with many faces for this months book, making this weeks book Many Many Many Gods of Hinduism by Swami Achuhananda.

This month we’re taking down the serious a notch with a look at ancient Rome, starting with The Way of the Gladiator by Daniel P. Mannix.

Continuing through Ancient Rome, this weeks book looks at one of the earth’s first recorded plagues with Pox Romana: The Plague That Shook the Roman World by Colin Elliott.

How did Rome end? Well, rather than the massive three (or more?) volume work on the subject, I chose this slightly more manageable work, Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire by Simon Baker.

I have decided to look at more broad spectrum of religion, and try to pick books topical to the month. Sometimes. This month definitely, making this weeks book An Introduction to Roman Religion by John Scheid.

Since Communism and it’s worship is basically a cult, this weeks book is Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of "Brainwashing" in China by Robert Jay Lifton.

Continuing with mind control techniques, this weeks book is The Rape of the Mind by Joost Meerloo.

Now that we know how mind control happens, how do you fight it? That’s the topic of this weeks book, Combatting Cult Mind Control by Steven Hassan.

This month’s religious reading is a classic, often mistaken for an economic treatise, but clearly religious bollocks, The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx.

This month I’m revisiting the biographies of women who have lived under Islam, but I’m starting with a work of fiction, the publication of which had a fatwa called upon the author’s head, making this weeks book The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie.

During a random browse at my local Barnes & Noble, I found a trio of books by more survivors of Islam, so we’re starting this month with The Girls in the Wild Fig Tree: How I Fought to Save Myself, My Sister, and Thousands of Girls Worldwide by Nice Leng’ete & Elizabeth Butler-Witter.

This week’s survivor story is Defiant Dreams: The Journey of an Afghan Girl Who Risked Everything for Education by Sola Mahfouz & Malaina Kapoor.

The final memoir on survivors of Islam is Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi.

I’m sure there is a book out there about how great Islam is…but not today. Today’s book is The Tragedy of Islam: Admissions of a Muslim Imam by Imam Mohammad Tawhidi.

Time for a brain break with fiction, but this one is semi-topical to the rest of the months theme, McMasters Guide to Homicide Volume 1: Murder Your Employer by Rupert Holmes.

It’s been a while since I spent an entire month with the same author, or in this case authors, but this month we’re looking at the criminal mind, starting with Mindhunter by John Douglas & Mark Olshaker

Continuing with our look at the criminal mind, this weeks book is Journey Into Darkness by John Douglas & Mark Olshaker.

This weeks book completes the trilogy by John Douglas & Mark Olshaker on the criminal mind, The Killer Across the Table.