Why Statues Weep, Edited by Wendy M.Grossman & Christopher C. French

This selection of articles from 21 years of The Skeptic magazine is a bracing tonic at a time when numbskull credulity seems to be winning the race against rationality.

Refreshing draughts of scepticism include: Joe Nickell's "very high degree of confidence" that the Turin Shroud is an image "analogous to brass rubbing" from a bas-relief; Alan Hunt's suggestion that sudden volatility in the Mary Celeste's cargo of 1,700 barrels of alcohol may have prompted the crew's mysterious departure; and David Hambling's assertion that the Nostradamus prediction ("In the city of York there will a great collapse... Two twin brothers torn apart by chaos"), widely quoted in 2001 was "cobbled together from different sources" and largely invented".

As for weeping statues, Wendy M Grossman explains how you can make one yourself.