Colin Dickey's essays explore facets of the world that we might overlook, take readers to uncharted spaces, and delve into bizarre corners of history. Part of the special delight of GHOSTLAND is its many informed asides, revealing Dickey's long hours of spading up obscure facts and quotes . The manner in which Parnell can move deftly from one subject to the next, for example between pages 160 and 161 there’s a transition from The Whicker Man to Robin Redbreast and Penda’s Fen is , to my mind, reminiscent of Peter Biskind at his best. In a world where nearly every moment of our lives is photographed, recorded, and documented, the gaps in the past still beckon us. Our country’s ghost stories are themselves the dreams (or nightmares) of a nation, the Freudian slips of whole communities: uncomfortable and unbidden expressions of things we’d assumed were long past and no longer important.

Not what I was expecting at all, but I found it totally riveting, and I am really pleased to have discovered it. In a quest to find that history of our country forgotten and ignored, I’ve interviewed ghost hunters and psychics, local historians and preservationists. Written with a thoughtful historical-critical lens that's still good-natured and approachable, this book helped me recapture that thrill I felt reading about ghosts as a kid. Dickey goes under the hood of some of America's most famous hauntings to examine what we really talk about when we talk about ghosts.

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Athenodorus, according to Pliny, was not in a hurry, and when confronted by the ghost “made a sign with his hand that he should wait a little, and threw his eyes again upon his papers. This is how ghost stories are born, after all: not from a complete story so much as from bits and pieces that don't quite add up, a kaleidoscope of menace and unease that coalesce in unpredictable ways. In conclusion I would argue that this book is exactly what it says it is: essays about famous American ghost stories and what those stories tell us about ourselves and our history.On one level a delightful ramble through the dark and esoteric influences on children of the 70s and 80s and their enduring legacy on those of us who remain inclined to the darker side of life. For example, the Winchester Mystery House that Dickey (and I) grew up near is a classic example of a ghost story which blends fact with fiction.