Product Description

Here are Canada's haunted houses, ghosts and poltergeists, weird visions of the past and improbable visions of the future, and assurances that there is life after death. included are more than 175 accounts of such events and experiences told mainly by the witnessses themselves -- Canadians from all walks of life and all parts of the country.

Some of the stories are classics. Others are little known. About one-third of the accounts have never before appeared in print. This fascinating, scary book brings together the most notable stories from the archives of John Robert Columbo, Canada's "Mr. Mystery," who is known for his many paranormal collections, including Ghost Stories of Canada, Haunted Toronto, Ghost Stories of Ontario, and Strange But True. Whatever your views are about the supernatural and the paranormal -- skeptic, believer, middle-of-the-road -- this huge collection of stories filled with thrills and chills will cause you to wonder about the n ature of human life and the afterlife.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2121968 in Books
• Published on: 2008-09-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 512 pages

Review

"...it's possible to dip into this book at any point and find an interesting tale of someone's experience with the inexplicable."

"...it's possible to dip into this book at any point and find an interesting tale of someone's experience with the inexplicable."

"This is fun reading whether you believe in ghosts or not. All you need is an open mind and a flashlight to follow the ghostly trail."

"This is fun reading whether you believe in ghosts or not. All you need is an open mind and a flashlight to follow the ghostly trail."

About the Author

John Robert Columbo is a respected and prolific author, editor, TV host, and anthologist. He is a recipient of the Harbourfront International Literary Award, a Member of the Order of Canada, and a Fellow of the Northrop Frye Centre, Victoria College. He lives in Toronto.

Customer Reviews

Fascinating compilation of old and new source material
Unlike most writers in this field, Colombo reprints original sources. So, instead of reading an inept, distorted modern rehash of an historical haunting or ghostly encounter, you get the way the story was presented by journalists of the day. Not only is this uncommon good sense, these old newspaper reports make fascinating reading.

For more recent events, Colombo allows those who experienced strange things to speak for themselves, with a minimum of intrusion.

The methodology here is not unlike that used by William Corliss in his Sourcebook Project, which set an unbeatable standard for the reportage of anomalous phenomena. Although Colombo fails to organize his material with Corliss's scientific rigour (and, in fairness, some of the material is so bizarre as to resist categorization), his work nevertheless towers over that his competitors, and cannot be too highly recommended to anyone seriously interested in the supernatural. Incidentally, Colombo does not take sides on whether or not any of this is true: he's neither a truculent debunker nor a credulous believer--which is just how it should be.

A notable flaw: the book has no index.

More than 500 pages thick + More than 175 stories + most of them are one page long + No suspense + No emotion.
The author worked hard to collect a lot of ghost stories and it showed. The book size is greater than that of a pocket one with more than 500 pages. However, most of the tales are one page long. They read like an articles from a newspaper. That means they're brief and unemotional. There is no suspense. A few are curiosity provoking.
There are no photos either.