- The '' Necronomicon '' in H. P. Lovecraft 's books serves as a repository of recondite and evil knowledge in many of his works and the work of others. Despite the evident tongue-in-cheek origin of the book, supposedly written by the "Mad Arab Abdul al-Hazred," who was supposed to have died by being torn apart by an invisible being in an Arab marketplace in broad daylight, many have been led to believe that the book is real.
- The story of Phillip K. Dick 's '' The Man In The High Castle '' revolves around another mysterious and forbidden book, written by the title character (Hawthorne Abendsen), named ''The Grasshopper Lies Heavy''. Dick's book describes an Alternate History where the Axis Powers were victorious in World War II and the United States has been divided between Japan and Nazi Germany . The book-within-a-book is an alternate history itself, depicting a world in which the Allies won the war but which is nonetheless different to our own world in several important respects. Towards the end of the story, Abendsen admits to writing ''The Grasshopper Lies Heavy'' under the direction of the '' I Ching .''
- Guillaume Apollinaire 's short fiction "L'Hérésiarque" ("The Heresiarch" or "The Heretic") describes two heretical Christian gospels written by the Excommunicated Catholic Cardinal Benedetto Orfei. Orfei's Heresy is that the three figures of the Trinity -- the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit -- were incarnate in Jesus ' time, and were crucified alongside him. Orfei's first work is ''The True Gospel,'' describing the human life of God the Father, an embodiment of virtue about whom little is known. Orfei's second work describes the human life of God the Holy Spirit; the title of this work is not mentioned, but is referred to only as his 'second gospel.' In this 'gospel,' the Holy Spirit is a thief who willfully indulges in all manner of vice, including violating a sleeping virgin who then gives birth to Jesus Christ, or God the Son. Later, both the Holy Spirit and the Father are arrested as thieves and crucified, the latter unjustly. Orfei's heresy is intended to illustrate man's contradictory but coexistent aspects of Sinner and Martyr .
- Fictional books and authors figure prominently in several short stories by the Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges . A few of Borges's fictional creations include '' The Book Of Sand '', Herbert Quain (author of ''April March,'' ''The Secret Mirror,'' etc.), Ts'ui Pen (author of '' The Garden Of Forking Paths ''), Mir Bahadur Ali (author of '' The Approach To Al-Mu'tasim ''), as well as the imaginary '' Encyclopædia Britannica '' of the story " Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius ." Borges's most famous and beloved fictional book, however, is '' Don Quixote ''! This ''Don Quixote'' is written by the fictional Symbolist poet Pierre Menard in Borges's "Pierre Menard, Author of the ''Quixote.''" In this story, Menard undertakes an independent word-by-word and line-by-line recreation of Cervantes 's classic novel. The story itself takes the form of a review of Menard's work for a literary journal; though Menard's ''Quixote'' is still unfinished, the imaginary reviewer concludes that Menard's circumstances and the intervening history between Cervantes's 16th century Spain and Menard's fictional present produce a ''Quixote'' that is more pleasurable to read and deeply richer in meaning: though Menard's ''Quixote'' is identical on a word-for-word basis to Cervantes's original, Menard's is superior! This ironic conclusion is often read as a commentary on the nature of accurate translation, but more significantly as an illustration of the manner in which the meaning of a text is determined as much if not more by the reader than the author.
- In Chuck Palahniuk 's '' Lullaby '', the characters are searching for all the remaining copies of the book ''Poems and Rhymes Around the World'', which contains a poem that can kill anyone that it is hears it spoken or thought in their direction.
- The comedic courtroom drama '' My Cousin Vinny '' features a brief appearance by ''The Cologne Handbook''.
- The innersleeve notes to the album '' Secret Treaties '' by the band Blue Öyster Cult mention "Rossignol's curious, albeit simply titled book, the ''Origins of a World War'', spoke in terms of ''secret treaties'', drawn up between the Ambassadors from Plutonia and Desdinova the foreign minister. These treaties founded a secret science from the stars. Astronomy. The career of evil." This was probably written by producer Sandy Pearlman .
- The '' Encyclopedia Galactica '' in Isaac Asimov 's Foundation Series was created in Terminus at the beginning of the Foundation Era. It serves primarily as an introduction to a character, a place or a circumstance to be developed in each chapter. Each quotation contains a copyright disclaimer and cites Terminus as the place of publication.
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