Fortean Times Books in Order

The Fortean Times connection shows another side of Mat Coward’s work: the part that enjoys a strange claim but insists on asking whether it is actually true. His Mythconceptions pieces began as a regular feature for the magazine, taking a familiar belief and pulling it apart with facts, history, and a well-timed joke.

The subject matter is wonderfully broad. One column might deal with boxing hares, another with supposed human pheromones, a famous historical claim, or a bit of popular wisdom that has become so common it barely gets questioned. The point is not to sneer at people for believing something. It is to show how easily a tidy story can take hold, even when the real explanation is more complicated, stranger, or funnier.

Mythconceptions collects 55 of these columns, with illustrations by Hunt Emerson. The usual rhythm is simple and inviting: first comes the widely repeated myth, then Coward explains what is known, what has been misunderstood, and why the claim has survived. That clear setup makes the book easy to dip into, whether you have five minutes or an entire evening.

It is skepticism with a sense of play.

That tone matters because the wider Fortean Times world is full of odd reports, folklore, unexplained events, and stories that sit on the border between fact and invention. Coward’s contribution does not ask readers to stop enjoying the weirdness. Instead, it treats curiosity as the starting point. A good question can be more entertaining than a quick answer, especially when the answer involves a piece of forgotten history or an assumption that turns out to be backwards.

Readers who like trivia books will find plenty to enjoy here, but this is not just a list of corrections. Coward is interested in the way myths get made. Some begin as garbled news reports. Some are repeated because they are satisfying or useful. Others survive because the truth is less catchy than the version people already know. The columns keep returning to that human habit of passing stories along.

For new readers, Mythconceptions is the natural place to start. It works as a collection of short, self-contained reads, and it gives a good sense of Coward’s mix of research, plain speaking, and amused attention to the peculiar corners of everyday knowledge.