<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: Haunted Holidays
Review: A beautiful, well written book! I enjoyed it a lot. It also contains good historic information.
Rating: 
Summary: A paranormal travel guide that tries to do too much
Review: For anyone on the lookout for ghosts in the U.S., HAUNTED HOLIDAYS serves a good introduction to some of the haunted sites across the country. It definitely favors the East Coast, but provides plenty of good leads. Because this book tries to cover so much territory within 224 pages, the regional stories are far from comprehensive in either quantity or details.This non-fiction book is divided into four sections, the first deals with humankind's belief in ghosts and a short history on spiritualism, the second delves more into the science and how to go about paranormal research, the third--being its bulk--narrates a wealth of American ghostlore, and the fourth provides appendices with information on further reading, paranormal organizations, tourist resources, credits, and an index. This volume is also loaded with black and white and color photos and art. The signatures of this trade paperback are sewn together, giving its binding more durability. In Williamsburg, Virginia, a tour guide notices a man dressed in 18th century fashion seated in a downstairs room at the Peyton Randolph, only to watch him disappear as she approached. In Chicago, "...Pedestrians walking past 2212 North Clark [site of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre], now a nursing home, have claimed to hear screams and moans ricocheting off the chain-link fence that surrounds the front yard of the building, sounds that may be the spectral echoes of gangland's most notorious killing...." The State Capitol building in Hawaii is suddenly besieged by unexplainable clouds of cigar smoke, in areas where the late Governor John Burns used to indulge in this pastime. At the end of each of the ghostlore chapters, the editor provides some valuable "Travel Tips," including practical geographical details, tourist info, street addresses for the haunted sites it covers, hotels with spirits of their own, and any supernatural tour companies that operate in the region. This comes in real handy, but it was released in 1999 so some contact info will go out of date without future revisions. With its slick paper stock and magazine-like layouts, this book has its good and bad points. Although there are a few photos that purport to be true spirit pictures, most are obviously works of art to help build its atmosphere. While its attractiveness is appreciated, these graphics also make reading the flow of text during long sittings difficult. Although the sidebars disturb the flow of reading, all of the stories are still clearly written. The magazine approach reflects periodical space limitations as well. It wants to pour four gallons worth of information into a one-ounce flask. Some of these regions have many more stories to tell; this book says little of the central and western states. Eight of its fourteen ghostlore chapters are dedicated to East Coast regions, overlooking considerable areas such as Alaska and the Northwest. To be fair, however, the intention of HAUNTED HOLIDAYS is to be a travel guide for people who want to see a ghost. If this is the reader's objective, then it serves as a good paranormal introduction to the regions it covers. It may disappoint people who are well-seasoned in this pursuit, but it can be entertaining for people who are just looking for armchair reading. For those are new to the subject and want to delve deeper, its appendices are invaluable.
Rating:
Summary: A must for anyone interested in "haunted" travel
Review: Haunted Holidays contains dozens of color photographs and some very interesting line art. The New England section includes information on, among other things, the Salem Witch Trials and haunted lighthouses. The section on Chicago concentrates on gangsters (e.g., John Dillinger), haunted cemeteries, etc. There are also chapters on the ghosts of New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Williamsburg, Va., Charleston, S.C., Savannah, Ga., New Orleans, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Hawaii; and an entire section is devoted to Civil War Ghosts. In addition to describing the various haunts, each section includes "Travel Tips" regarding the best time to visit, transportation, haunted restaurants and hotels, ghost tour groups, etc., all with street addresses, telephone numbers and e-mail addresses. I highly recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: A must for anyone interested in "haunted" travel
Review: Haunted Holidays contains dozens of color photographs and some very interesting line art. The New England section includes information on, among other things, the Salem Witch Trials and haunted lighthouses. The section on Chicago concentrates on gangsters (e.g., John Dillinger), haunted cemeteries, etc. There are also chapters on the ghosts of New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Williamsburg, Va., Charleston, S.C., Savannah, Ga., New Orleans, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Hawaii; and an entire section is devoted to Civil War Ghosts. In addition to describing the various haunts, each section includes "Travel Tips" regarding the best time to visit, transportation, haunted restaurants and hotels, ghost tour groups, etc., all with street addresses, telephone numbers and e-mail addresses. I highly recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: don't leave home without it.......
Review: I thought that this book was very well put together. It's packed with interesting facts and information and it has great colorful pictures that make it fun to just browse. Also the quailty of the paper/binding is really nice for a paperback book of this price. The book does try to cover a lot of territory in just over 200 pages, but it is basically just a travel guide after all. It includes maps and loging info and travel tips for each state which I thought was great. If you enjoy The Discovery Channel's "haunted" videos, you will also enjoy this book.
Rating:
Summary: Tuck this in your travel bag
Review: I'm an avid reader of anything dealing with true hauntings and I think this is a great guidebook for people who are interested in some haunted history. The book covers quite a few haunted areas throughout the states and is quick and concise with each haunting. The book also lists hotels that are haunted that you can stay in to complete your haunted vacation. Even if haunted vacations aren't your thing, the sites listed thoughout the book are mostly historic and have colorful and interesting histories.
<< 1 >>
|
