Haunted Happenings

The World of Lore: Monstrous Creatures by Aaron Mahnke

They live in shadows--deep in the forest, late in the night, in the dark recesses of our minds. They're spoken of in stories and superstitions, relics of an unenlightened age, old wives' tales, passed down through generations. Yet no matter how wary and jaded we have become, as individuals or as a society, a part of us remains vulnerable to them: werewolves and wendigos, poltergeists and vampires, angry elves and vengeful spirits. In this illustrated volume, the host of the hit podcast Lore serves as a guide on a fascinating journey through the history of these terrifying creatures, exploring not only the legends but what they tell us about ourselves. Aaron Mahnke invites us to the desolate Pine Barrens of New Jersey, where the notorious winged, red-eyed Jersey Devil dwells. He delves into harrowing accounts of cannibalism--some officially documented, others the stuff of speculation . . . perhaps. He visits the dimly lit rooms where séances take place, the European villages where gremlins make mischief, even Key West, Florida, home of a haunted doll named Robert. In a world of "emotional vampires" and "zombie malls," the monsters of folklore have become both a part of our language and a part of our collective psyche. Whether these beasts and bogeymen are real or just a reflection of our primal fears, we know, on some level, that not every mystery has been explained and that the unknown still holds the power to strike fear deep in our hearts and souls. As Aaron Mahnke reminds us, sometimes the truth is even scarier than the lore.

Haunted by Leo Braudy

This book explores how fear has been shaped into images of monsters and monstrosity. From the Protestant Reformation to contemporary horror films and fiction, he explores four major types: the monster from nature (King Kong), the created monster (Frankenstein), the monster from within (Mr. Hyde), and the monster from the past (Dracula). Drawing upon deep historical and literary research, Braudy discusses the lasting presence of fearful imaginings in an age of scientific progress, viewing the detective genre as a rational riposte to the irrational world of the monstrous. Haunted is a compelling and incisive work by a writer at the height of his powers.

The Unidentified by Colin Dickey

In a world where rational, scientific explanations are more available than ever, belief in the unprovable and irrational--in fringe--is on the rise: from Atlantis to aliens, from Flat Earth to the Loch Ness monster, the list goes on. It seems the more our maps of the known world get filled in, the more we crave mysterious locations full of strange creatures. Enter Colin Dickey, Cultural Historian and Tour Guide of the Weird. With the same curiosity and insight that made Ghostland a hit with readers and critics, Colin looks at what all fringe beliefs have in common, explaining that today's Illuminati is yesterday's Flat Earth: the attempt to find meaning in a world stripped of wonder. Dickey visits the wacky sites of America's wildest fringe beliefs--from the famed Mount Shasta where the ancient race (or extra-terrestrials, or possibly both, depending on who you ask) called Lemurians are said to roam, to the museum containing the last remaining "evidence" of the great Kentucky Meat Shower--investigating how these theories come about, why they take hold, and why as Americans we keep inventing and re-inventing them decade after decade. The Unidentified is Colin Dickey at his best: curious, wry, brilliant in his analysis, yet eminently readable.

The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits by Rosemary Ellen Guiley

Featuring more than 500 A-to-Z entries, The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits is a mesmerizing compendium of worldwide paranormal activity. With explanations of strange phenomena from both folklore and modern scientific research, it examines famous hauntings, historical figures and events, and myths and legends surrounding ghosts and spirits in different cultures. This edition covers recent breakthroughs and incidences, new information about important myths, and current research into ghosts and other paranormal occurrences.

Chasing Ghosts by Marc Hartzman

A popular history of ghosts and haunted sites around the world, featuring photographs and black-and-white illustrations.

American Ghost by Hannah Nordhaus

In American Ghost, Hannah Nordhaus traces the life, death, and unsettled afterlife of her great-great-grandmother Julia, from her childhood in Germany to her years in the American West with her Jewish merchant husband. As she traces the strands of Julia's life, Nordhaus uncovers a larger tale of how a true-life story becomes a ghost story and how difficult it can sometimes be to separate history and myth.

The Encyclopedia of Witches, Witchcraft and Wicca by Rosemary Ellen Guiley

Long the stuff of legend, witches and witchcraft have been associated with every variety of evil and mischief. This encyclopedia aims to dispel such notions, with a comprehensive guide to witchcraft throughout history and around the world.

The In-Betweens by Mira Ptacin

A young writer travels to Maine to tell the unusual story of America's longest-running camp devoted to mysticism and the world beyond. They believed they would live forever. So begins Mira Ptacin's haunting account of the women of Camp Etna--an otherworldly community in the woods of Maine that has, since 1876, played host to generations of Spiritualists and mediums dedicated to preserving the links between the mortal realm and the afterlife. Beginning her narrative in 1848 with two sisters who claimed they could speak to the dead, Ptacin reveals how Spiritualism first blossomed into a national practice during the Civil War, yet continues--even thrives--to this very day. Immersing herself in this community and its practices--from ghost hunting to releasing trapped spirits to water witching--Ptacin sheds new light on our ongoing struggle with faith, uncertainty, and mortality. Blending memoir, ethnography, and investigative reportage, The In-Betweens offers a vital portrait of Camp Etna and its enduring hold on a modern culture that remains as starved for a deeper sense of connection and otherworldliness as ever.

Lily Dale by Christine Wicker

In Lily Dale, New York, the dead don't die. Instead, they flit among the elms and stroll along the streets. According to Spiritualists who have ruled this community for five generations, the spirits never go away -- and they stay anything but quiet. Every summer twenty-thousand guests come to consult the town's mediums in hopes of communicating with their dead relatives or catching a glimpse of the future. Weaving past and present, the living and the dead, award-winning journalist and bestselling author Christine Wicker investigates a religion that attracted millions of Americans since the 1800s. She reveals the longings for love and connection that draw the people to "the Dale," introducing us to a colorful cast of characters along the way -- including famous visitors such as Susan B. Anthony, Harry Houdini, and Mae West. Laugh out loud funny at times, this honest portrayal shows us that it ultimately doesn't matter what we believe; it is belief itself that can transform us all.

Basic Witches by Jaya Saxena & Jess Zimmerman

Tap into your inner sorceress and channel the dark arts with this magical lifestyle guide for everything from powering up a stylish talisman to banishing terrible tinder dates.

The Witches by Stacy Schiff

Pulitzer Prize winner Stacy Schiff, author of the #1 bestseller Cleopatra, provides an electrifying, fresh view of the Salem witch trials... Along with suffrage and Prohibition, the Salem witch trials represent one of the few moments when women played the central role in American history. Drawing masterfully on the archives, Stacy Schiff introduces us to the strains on a Puritan adolescent's life and to the authorities whose delicate agendas were at risk. She illuminates the demands of a rigorous faith, the vulnerability of settlements adrift from the mother country, perched -- at a politically tumultuous time -- on the edge of what a visitor termed a 'remote, rocky, barren, bushy, wild-woody wilderness.' With devastating clarity, the textures and tensions of a colonial life emerge; hidden patterns subtly, startlingly detach themselves from the darkness. Schiff brings early American anxieties to the fore to align them brilliantly with our own. In an era of religious provocations, crowdsourcing, and invisible enemies, this enthralling story makes more sense than ever. The Witches is Schiff's riveting account of a seminal episode, a primal American mystery unveiled -- in crackling detail and lyrical prose -- by one of our most acclaimed historians.

Devil in Massachusetts by Marion L. Starkey

This historical narrative of the Salem witch trials takes its dialogue from actual trial records but applies modern psychiatric knowledge to the witchcraft hysteria. Starkey's sense of drama also vividly recreates the atmosphere of pity and terror that fostered the evil and suffering of this human tragedy.

The Witch of Lime Street by David Jaher

In 1924 the wife of a Boston surgeon came to embody the raging national debate over Spiritualism, a movement devoted to communication with the dead. Reporters dubbed her the blonde Witch of Lime Street, but she was known to her followers simply as Margery. Her most vocal advocate was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who believed so thoroughly in Margery's powers that he urged her to enter a controversial contest, sponsored by Scientific American. Her supernatural gifts beguiled four of the judges. There was only one left to convince... the acclaimed escape artist, Harry Houdini. Jaher captures their electric public rivalry and the competition that brought them into each other's orbit.

The Apparitionists by Peter Manseau

In the early days of photography, in the death-strewn wake of the Civil War, one man seized Americas imagination. A "spirit photographer," William Mumler took portrait photographs that featured the ghostly presence of a lost loved one alongside the living subject. Mumler was a sensation: The affluent and influential came calling. Peter Manseau brilliantly captures a nation wracked with grief and hungry for proof of the existence of ghosts and for contact with their dead husbands and sons.

Ghost Hunters by Deborah Blum

What if a world-renowned professor of psychology at Harvard University, a doctor and scientist acclaimed as one of the leading intellects of the time, suddenly announced that he believed in ghosts? At the close of the nineteenth century, to great public and professional astonishment, William James-the great philosopher, a founder of the American Psychological Association and brother of Henry James-did just that and embarked on a determined, lifelong pursuit of scientific evidence to prove it.

Ghostland by Colin Dickey

Dickey, piqued by a house hunt in LA that revealed derelict foreclosures and "zombie houses", embarks on a journey across the continental United States to decode and unpack the American history repressed in our most famous haunted places. With boundless curiosity, Dickey conjures the dead by focusing on questions of the living--how do we deal with stories about ghosts, and how do we inhabit and move through spaces that have been deemed haunted? Paying attention not only to the true facts behind a ghost story, but also to the ways in which changes are made to those facts and why, Dickey paints a version of American history left out of the textbooks, one of things left undone and crimes left unsolved.

The Devil in the Shape of a Woman by Carol F. Karlsen

Confessing to "familiarity with the devils," Mary Johnson, a servant, was executed by Connecticut officials in 1648. A wealthy Boston widow, Ann Hibbens was hanged in 1656 for casting spells on her neighbors. The case of Ann Cole, who was "taken with very strange Fits," fueled an outbreak of witchcraft accusations in Hartford a generation before the notorious events at Salem.

Weird: New England by Joseph A. Citro

It may seem like clambakes, the Red Sox, and the Patriots define New England, but boy did the Pilgrims land in one very strange spot! These six states are filled with odd curiosities and bizarre legends, such as the elusive Vermont hum, the hibernating hill folk, hillside whale tales, and the Holy Land (yes, you read that right). Tongue-in-cheek and filled with dry wit, this is a journey you'll not soon forget.

Abandoned Asylums of Massachusetts by Tammy Rebello & L. F. Blanchard

This collection of photographs, history, and firsthand accounts gives readers a glimpse at the roots of mental health. These vignettes are born of the personal stories of those who worked at these facilities, those who were institutionalized, and their families. The authors took the time to listen to their stories and endeavored to understand their pasts and recognize how these events continue to influence the mental health industry today. Pictured throughout are the physical relics of the places—the now largely abandoned asylums—where these stories unfurled.