The 100 Must-Read Books of 2025 Filter The Martians by David Baron In The Martians: The True Story of an Alien Craze That Captured Turn-of-the-Century America, science journalist and best-selling author David Baron offers a completely true look at America’s infatuation with aliens at the turn of the 20th century that feels like it could be science fiction. In researching this book, Baron writes, it was “often difficult to discern the truth, to separate insight from delusion, to identify who were the geniuses and who were the cranks.” Yet it didn’t stop him from trying. Using historical records, magazine articles, diaries, and letters from the time period, he chronicles the eccentric and overzealous scientists, astronomers, newspaper publishers, sci-fi authors, and propagandists who wanted humanity to believe there were little green men on the Red Planet. No one more so than Percival Lowell , a melancholic American businessman turned amateur astronomer who dedicated himself to finding signs of intelligent life on Mars —and possibly lost his mind in the process. The Martians is not only a captivating look at recent history, but also a poignant cautionary tale, offering hard-to-ignore parallels between the alien enthusiasts of the Gilded Age and the conspiracy theorists of today . —Shannon Carlin These are independent reviews of the products mentioned, but TIME receives a commission when purchases are made through affiliate links at no additional cost to the purchaser. Buy Now: The Martians on Bookshop | Amazon Advertisement Source: https://time.com/collections/the-100-must-read-books-of-2025/7329527/the-martians/