Halloween Picks

[Susan]

Not mine - but yours. I like to bring in Halloween with, well, usually movies. But this year i wanted some books as well. Preferably it would be fun to have a good Haunted/Ghost story book (based on actual hauntings, that is, not fiction) So many are listed on amazon I got frustrated. Or true unexplained mysteries. Any recommendations? I thought it would be fun to stray from fiction into fact...or at least as near fact as you can get with mysterious true stories :)  

Also - on the more humorous side, has anybody read this?

[JohnL]

>I like to bring in Halloween with, well, usually movies. But this year i wanted some
>books as well. Preferably it would be fun to have a good Haunted/Ghost story
>book (based on actual hauntings, that is, not fiction) So many are listed on
>amazon I got frustrated. Or true unexplained mysteries. Any recommendations?

I don't have a specific title, but a friend once loaned me a book detailing the adventures of a team investigating a place called The Borely Rectory in England. I don't see much listed on Amazon, but I did find this web site;

Borley Rectory

It lists the titles of some books you might be able to find at your library and there are some links to online copies of books.

The book I read wasn't exactly action-packed, since action-packed ghost stories only happen in movies, but it was very interesting and rather creepy. I could imagine myself there with them, hearing and seeing the things that they did.

If you want books that cover multiple subjects rather than an entire book devoted to one case, I can also recommend;

Haunted Houses by Richard Winer and Nancy Osborn (Barnes & Noble link)
(Amazon lists More Haunted Houses by Richard Winer)

Poltergeist by William G. Roll

Some of My Best Friends Are Ghosts by Hans Holzer

Earth's Secret Inhabitants by D. Scott Rogo and Jerome Clark

Monsters, Giants and little Men from Mars by Daniel Cohen

As all of these are quite old, you might be able to find them at the library.

[Scott]

Hans Holzer, now that is a name/author I haven't seen nor heard about in a while. He use to write alot on spirits and supernatural phenomenon.

[JohnL]

>Hans Holzer, now that is a name/author I haven't seen nor heard about in a
>while.

With the exception of the last one, which was bought at a flea market, all the books I listed were bought throught the school book club, back when I was in grade school.

[Mr_Vindictive]

Susan,

If you want a true book about strange happenings, please check out The Mothman Propecies.

The movie was decent but the book is all out amazing.  There are some things that happened in that small town that will give you chills.

[Susan]

Thanks for the recommendations. My library is well stocked so that will save me some moolah.

Skaboi - i was actually considering the mothman prophesies, mostly after seeing a docu on mysteries. The movie was ok, but i really get into all the "based on true story" stuff. I wasn't crazy about the Amityville HOrror book, however. I love scary movies but ever since i was a kid, hardly anything really scares me - which is probably why i'm on this perpetual quest to find a good horror book/movie. Now the candyman movie scared me, if they had a book sorta on that topic I could get into it. I read all up on the true stories of bloody mary on the net somewhere - there is this great site that has details on these type of urban legends. I forget where.

I thought maybe a few truer to life books would be the way to go. Fiction tends to stray and get hokey, trying overly hard to scare you. usually the stuff that scares me is imagery of standing in the dark, running your hand along a wall blindly looking for the lightswitch and that fear in the back of your mind that it might just touch another hand. Or that feeling you get once in a blue moon where you are standing in a room and have a very vivid sensation, as if you jumped into a cold swimming pool, that someone is in the room with you. I like stories that go more into primal fear.

Still wonder if the Zombie survival guide is amusing, unfortunately no exerpts were shown on amazon.



Post Edited (09-01-04 17:24)

[JohnL]

>there is this great site that has details on these type of urban legends. I forget
>where.

Are you thinking of Snopes?

[peter johnson]

The movies I enjoy for Halloween have always been "Curse of the Cat People" and "Five Million Years to Earth (Quatermass and The Pit)".  Even though "Cat" is set at Christmastime, there's just something very Halloweeny about it.  Kinda like "The Nightmare Before Christmas".
The "true hauntings" books I've read I've never really ever found as spooky as a well-written piece of fiction.  Probably because they have to take so many disclaimer/detours to "prove" that what they're writing is "real".
Scariest plain ol' ghost story I've ever read:  "Remembering Melody" by George R.R. Martin.  Don't know where it's anthologised.  Read it years ago in Twilight Zone magazine.
When was the last time you read good ol' Peter Straub's "Ghost Story"?  Does the job.
For ghostly narratives and weird tales, the best place I've found on the web is the Fortean Times website, www.forteantimes.com -- look in the Links section for direct access to their choice of ghost websites, plus they do their own stuff too.
peter johnson/denny crane

[JohnL]

>When was the last time you read good ol' Peter Straub's "Ghost Story"? Does
>the job.

Not for many years. I loaned it to someone and never got it back.

[Tilebreaker]

my friend has read the zombie guide and said it was worth reading.

[Tilebreaker]

As far as true ghost story books, I'd say hit the bookstore and pick up some books dedicated to the region you live. It's always spookier if it happend a few counties over.  A place I've found to have a decent selection of books like that is the bookstore in National Storyteller's center in Tn.  They're on the web.

books with a spooky folklore background, but are fiction.  I always enjoyed a guy named Manly Wade Wellman.  He's been around awhile so a few of his books are out of print (hit the library). He had a character named Silver John who basically roamed the Appl. Mountians bumping into supernatural events. The stories are filled with a fair amount of mountain myth. They're a good fun, slightly scary read, not too long, not too short.  There's a collection called "john the ballader" of short stories, which i'd reccomend to get your feet wet.

[dean]

hmmm... Someone gave me Mothman Prophecies the book a while ago, I never saw the movie, but didn't hear anything too good, so it has sat on my shelf for almost a few years.  But now I'm starting to reconsider!

[Susan]

Peter - I tried to read Ghost Story based on so many good reviews but i only got halfway throught it. I just couldn't figure out where it was going with these old men, and it started off completely different with a kidnapper and halfway through the book nothing scary was happening so i got frustrated and started another book..lol