I remember reading a very good book about an archaeologist a few years back, so it took a bit of Googling for me to discover what it was called. The name of the book is Shadowy Horses and it was written by Susanna Kearsley. The lead is an archaeologist named Verity Grey, who has a particular interest in the Scottish Borderlands and its dark legends. It's basically about this seemingly invincible Roman that just mysteriously vanished in the area when they went to fight the Northern tribes. The book does contain some romance, so watch out if that is not your thing, but I really enjoyed it and the attention to detail is incredible.

I have never really been afraid of spiders as they are everywhere where I grew up, so you could say that I am used to them. I say this because I can recommend a couple of novels that feature spiders, but I can't really call any of them scary. I would say that for somebody who is afraid of spiders or have a phobia about them, these books could potentially be scary to read, but use your own judgment.

The first one is Salticidae by Ryan C. Thomas, who is the same author that wrote The Summer I Died. It is basically about a mining company that unleashes all hell in the Congo when they try to mine a mountain where giant jumping spiders reside. These things can jump thousands of feet far and they quickly develop a taste for the humans that foolishly set them free. It's not just the people from the mining company that have to scramble for their lives either as there are a bunch of other characters in the Congo for various other reasons too. This gives the spiders plenty of targets to brutally feast on.

The other book is Spiderstalk by D. Nathan Hilliard, which looks like it is going to be some type of b-movie horror fest if you judge it by the cover. It is not, though, and while it does indeed feature giant spiders, the story is also quite intricate and well thought out. It is about a down on his luck man who ends up unconscious in hospital after a car wreck. When he wakes up, he discovers that his brother is missing along with his whole family and the only clue he has to finding them is a weird photo of a spider that they sent to his phone.

Lastly, there is a science fiction novel by Adrian Tchaikovsky that has an entire planet full of evolved spiders as part of its story. These spiders became uplifted after some meddling by human scientists, but now inhabit a planet that was initially terraformed for human life. When humans flee Earth to find a new home, they rediscover the planet that their ancestors prepared for them, but also find that the spiders are not going to be keen to give up their home. I liked this book as it is usually aliens invading Earth and not the other way round.

I really enjoyed that article too and found a few more books that are along similar lines.

The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls by Emilie Autumn: This one is about two women who are living centuries apart but both of them are accused of madness. One girl, Emillie, is a young musician who overdoses on antipsychotics. This attempted suicide lands her in a maximum-security psych ward, but Emillie claims that she had valid reasons for what she did. When Emillie tries to document her experiences in a secret diary, she discovers a letter from a woman who is also imprisoned in an insane asylum, but in Victorian England. The cool thing about the book is you never know what is real and what is not.

Lunar Caustic by Malcolm Lowry: This one is about a piano player called Bill Plantagenet who loses his band (and his mind) drinking in New York. He commits himself to a Psychiatric hospital for recovery, which is where he writes madness and sanity. I believe that the author himself suffered with alcoholism, which affected his mental health.

The Electric Kool-Aid Test by Tom Wolfe - This one is a bit of a stretch, but I really enjoyed reading about the 60s and what really went down. What drew me to it is the fact that the main character is Ken Kelsey, who you will know as the author of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. The writing style is a bit hard to read at times, but it's a fascinating book.

Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane: This one you could probably skip if you’ve already watched the movie starring Leonardo Di Caprio. It’s about a U.S Marshal sent to a Hospital for the Criminally Insane where he has to investigate something. Obviously, things turn out to be a little more complicated than that.
Hope my recommendations help!

A Scientific Romance by Ronald Wright, in which H.G Wells's time machine is real, and it's coming back....
The romance is all in the back story, but it's beautifully written and a great science fiction book that would make a brilliant film
It's out of print but worth searching for second-hand.

I actually read a book about dinosaurs very recently and while I haven't watched the television series that you are talking about, I think you might enjoy it. The book is called End of an Era and the author is Robert Sawyer. It's about this paleontologist who wants to know what really killed the dinosaurs and makes use of an experimental time travelling device to go found out. What the paleontologist and his partner who accompanies him did not expect was to find that there is a war going on! Despite going back to the Cretaceious period, the two humans discover that dinosaurs are not the only live on earth, but that Martians are also wreaking havoc. These Martians are actually using the dinosaurs as pawns, which I know sounds like b-movie schlock, but the story is actually very good.