Tag Archives: amazon

In which the Author talks zombies on the Grand Dark Conspiracy…

grand dark

I was recently interviewed by Daniel Bautz of the Grand Dark Conspiracy (‘Exploring the Unexplained, the Unseen, the Unknown’) on WQTT out of Ohio, the matter in hand being that pesky issue of the zombie apocalypse.

Specifically I was talking about Zombies from History, and how when the apocalypse does arrive, rather than wait

for that dull salesman from No.27 to eat you, why not step and seek and destroy some of history’s big guns?

The talk ranged wide and indeed far, taking in the likelihood of the author receiving abusive tweets from disgruntled readers during the apocalypse (‘Dude! Henry VIII wasn’t where you’d said he would be!’) to the exploding corpse

of William the Conqueror. We also covered records of belief in the walking dead from archaeological evidence and medieval chronicles. All in all, zombie fun central.

You can still listen to the podcast here. My thanks to Sunny Lambert and Daniel Bautz of the Grand Dark

Conspiracy.

zombies cover for blog 3

 

 

 

In which the Author talks witchcraft on the Spooky Isles site…

That fine institution The Spooky Isles has one of my witterings up today, the subject being the extraordinary (and

unique) Maggie Wall witchcraft monument in Dunning, Perthshire Scotland. Appropriately, it’s part of their Spooky Scotland week.

Maggie-Wall938x150011 - Maggie Wall monument

 

The piece is based on my book Maggie Wall – The Witch Who Never Was and the title itself may give you a clue

about my conclusions regarding this amazing site, the only historical monument to a named witch in the country.

spooky isles MW

 

You can check out the piece here, and while you’re there scope out some of the other goodies on the site. My

thanks to MJ Steel Collins.

 

 

In which the Author has some Zombies reviewed on The Spooky Isles…

There’s a genial review of my book ‘Zombies From History’ on The Spooky Isles site. “Holder’s humour and writing style is very engaging,” apparently. The book serves as “an excellent and entertaining introduction to famous

historical figures” as “he hammers home facts which you may not forget in a hurry.” Oh, and “The illustrations are also rather amusing and really well done.”

And the reviewer, a former sociology student, appreciated the joke about a resurrected Karl Marx leading the

Living Dead faction of the anti-capitalism movement with the slogan “Zombies of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your brains”.

zombies cover

The full review is here. And ‘Zombies from History: A Hunter’s Guide’, the definitive work on what do do when the

historic dead return during the zombie apocalypse, can be purchased on that there Amazon for ready money here.

spooky isles

My thanks to MJ Steel Collins.

In which the Author publishes a new book on Scotland…

Little Book of Scotland

My latest book, The Little Book of Scotland, has just been published. Here’s the blurb:

The ultimate compendium of trivia miscellany about Scotland’s unusual history

Take a funny, fast-paced, fact-packed look at the most frivolous, fantastic, or simply strange information that there

is to tell about Scotland. Here we find out about unusual crimes and punishments, eccentric inhabitants, famous

sons and daughters, and literally hundreds of other wacky facts about Scotland. This book contains historic and

contemporary trivia, including such gems as the real story of William “Braveheart” Wallace, which king was

murdered in a barn, and where the World War II Commandos were formed. With subjects ranging from Sir Walter Scott to Sir Sean Connery, Queen Victoria to Mary Queens of Scots, this remarkably engaging compendium is

essential reading for travelers and Scots alike.

scottish sun

The book has already picked up a fair amount of press interest in Scotland: here’s the full-page feature from

Saturday’s Scottish Sun. No doubt more to come.

The Little Book of Scotland can be picked up online here or here or at your favourite bricks-and-mortar bookshop – support bookshops, people, especially independent bookshops, they are Good Things.

In which the author publishes another book (this one’s on witchcraft)…

‘Maggie Wall – The Witch Who Never Was’ is out on December 1st. Telling the story of my investigations into the

famous Maggie Wall Witchcraft Monument in Perthshire, Scotland – the only historic monument to a named witch

in the whole of the UK – it is a non-fiction detective historical story, leading to some very surprising conclusions

about this most enigmatic of monuments. Here’s the blurb:

A remarkable and striking B-listed roadside cross in Perthshire is painted with the words

‘MAGGIE WALL

BURNT HERE

AS A WITCH 1657′

Maggie Wall has subsequently become the most famous witch in Scotland, featuring in folklore, folk history and

modern pagan belief alike.
Which is strange, seeing as she never existed.
This is the story of the Witch Who Never Was.

 

‘Maggie Wall – The Witch Who Never Was’ is  published as an ebook by The New Curiosity Shop out of Edinburgh. It is currently available on Amazon/Kindle, and will soon be downloadable for Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and the Apple iBookstore. The cost is around £2.80 or $3.60. 

Maggie-Wall938x1500

In which the Author appears on Into the Dark Radio (again) to talk zombies…

Those estimable gentlemen Steve Rogers and Shawn McMahon recently allowed me to blether on about Zombies from History: A Hunter’s Guide on their podcast-tastic Into the Dark Radio show. We talked anti-zombie weapons, where best to ride out the forthcoming zombie apocalypse, how the zombie of Charles Darwin would probably be writing Great Exhumations and David Potter’s Field, and other fun stuff, not least the exploding corpse of William

the Conqueror.

(It’s great being an author of the strange and peculiar: you can write “the exploding corpse of William the

Conqueror” as if it’s the most normal sentence in the world.)

You can listen to the podcast via iTunes or Stitcher, or go to Into the Dark Radio itself.

into the dark zombies