Is anyone actually reading academic analysis of paranormal claims or just entertainment books?

I was trying to find a good, properly sourced book on paranormal investigation methodology and I was absolutely overwhelmed with entertainment-focused books - you know the type, dramatic retellings of famous hauntings written to be spooky rather than informative. Which is fine, that's a market, but it's frustrating when you're trying to find something actually rigorous.

The academic stuff exists - there are historians and folklorists who study these phenomena seriously - but it's scattered across journal articles and dissertations rather than available in book form.

So I'm curious: what's everyone actually reading? Are people here just consuming paranormal entertainment, or is anyone diving into the serious academic material? And if so, what would you recommend?

You've identified a genuine gap in the market. Most paranormal books are entertainment - they have to be to sell to a general audience. But there's genuinely good academic work on folklore, collective psychology, and how paranormal beliefs form. Ronald Hutton's work on witchcraft folklore is brilliant, for instance. Also anything by Celia Sinclair on Scottish folklore.

The problem is that actual academic paranormal research doesn't lend itself to dramatic narrative. Academic papers are boring to read - lots of methodology and statistics, not many spooky stories.

The 'serious' paranormal investigation books by people like Jason Hawes and some of the paranormal TV people at least try to be methodical, even if the entertainment aspect gets in the way. But yeah, genuinely rigorous academic analysis of paranormal claims is thin on the ground because academia as a whole treats paranormal claims as fringe.

My advice: read the entertainment books for case studies, then go find the academic papers on belief formation, group psychology, and folklore to understand what's actually happening.

Is anyone actually reading academic analysis

- probably not many of us, if I'm honest. Most people interested in paranormal stuff want the mystery and the spookiness, not a 200-page statistical analysis of misidentification rates. The folks properly invested in investigation methodology tend to just gather their own data rather than rely on published work.

Try 'The Skeptical Paranormalist' - it's written by someone who actually engages with paranormal reports but analyses them properly. Not academic but more rigorous than the typical paranormal entertainment book. Also some of the Fortean Times backlist articles are brilliant - they treat weird phenomena seriously without being credulous.