So, I thought (just for the heck of it!) that I’d list some of my favorite reference books. Here goes:

For crime:

*Scene of the Crime: A writer’s guide to crime-scene investigations
*Deadly Does: A writer’s guide to poisons
*Cause of Death: A writer’s guide to death, murder, and forensic medicine
*Police Procedural: A writer’s guide to the police and how they work
The Criminal Mind: A Writer’s guide to Forensic Psychology
Forensics: True Crime Scene Investigation

*Indicates books are part of the really simple, easy to understand Howdunit series.

For the paranormal:

The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Mythical Creature
The Element Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures
The Vampire Book
Haunted Britain and Ireland
The Encyclopedia of Superstitutions
Monsters–An investigator’s guide to magical beings
Psychic-True paranormal experiences
The History of Mythology

For history:

Tutankhamun
Valley of the Golden Mummies
British Kings and Queens
Everyday life in the Middle Ages
What life was like in the age of Chivalry
The Medieval Warrior
Armor
Anatomy of the Castle
The history of Archaeology

There are many books of this sort lining my shelves–I’ve admitted it before and I’ll do it again, I’m a reference book addict. For any writer out there who wishes to build his/her own reference library, my advice is simple: Begin by hunting through the bargain books at Barnes and Noble or Books-a-Million–I’ve found so many great books there–and saved myself huge amounts of money.

Tell me, do you have a favorite reference book you’d like to share? Perhaps one I should get for my little library?

This entry was posted on Friday, January 26th, 2007 at 11:29 am and is filed under Romance. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.