Nostradamus: A Life and Myth

by John Hogue

The first comprehensive biography of the controversial seer explores the life of the man whose long shadow has dominated prophecy for five centuries--a man who accurately predicted the French and Russian revolutions, Louis Pasteur's breakthrough, the moon walk, Napolean, Hitler, and air travel.

Genres: Mythology

488 pages, Hardcover

First published October 25, 2003

Reviews

[Arlene]

Just started today.

[Meaningless]

Entertaining retelling of his life and ideas.

[Lord Bathcanoe of Snark]

Here is my own personal prophecy. No one with an ounce of common sense will ever believe any of this delusional bullshit.
Get out the tin foil hats!

[Tracey Allen at Carpe Librum]

I've always been fascinated by the predictions made by Nostradamus, and so I thought it was time to find out more. Born in 1503 and dying in 1566, it was interesting to learn he had been a doctor and had treated 100s of patients with the plague.

I always imagined Nostradamus saw visions of the future, however after reading John Hogue's book 'Nostradamus - A Life and Myth', I learned that he used many ancient and forbidden texts, conjuring tools, astrology and burned herbs in a meditative state to 'see into the future'. Nostradamus wrote his predictions in form of quatrains and printed an almanac for the year ahead that was widely read amongst the educated in France and across Europe.

This was a great read and I recommend it to anyone wanting to learn more about the life of Nostradamus. If you're hoping to read his all his quatrains though, you'll need to track down 'The Complete Prophecies' by John Hogue, which I might just have to do.