With eight months until Halloween, why am I reviewing “Haunted Places,” a beautiful coffee table book by Robert Grenville?
I spied it at Barnes and Noble, picked it up, and leafed through it. As a believer in heaven, hell, and demons, I often wonder if the unexplainable can be explained or witnessed.
Book chapters are about Castles & Forts, Cemeteries, Hotels & Public Places, Houses, Mansions & Palaces, Industry, Institutions, Religious Places, Towns, Cities, & Islands.
Photographs are detailed and convey places where a ghost or spirit might dwell.
"The strange cries heard at night in a dilapidated prison, the glimpse of a 'White Lady' floating through a graveyard, the face at the window in a room that has been locked for decades—stories of hauntings never cease to intrigue us," reads the publisher's description.
Although some buildings are abandoned, many are open for tour.
Vail Victorian Mansion in Independence, Missouri. Built between 1871 and 1881 by Colonel Vail and his wife Sophia, the mansion welcomes guests. Sophia, diagnosed with suspected stomach cancer, died of a morphine overdose. She is reported to haunt the mansion, as many visitors have seen a ghostly figure.
The famous Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California, several hotels such as Stanley Hotel, Estes Park, Colorado, the Palace of Versailles, France, and Sloth Furnace, Birmingham, Alabama, are all included in the book and can be visited.
I am fortunate to have visited many of the locations featured in the book, although I have never seen a spirit at any of them. Still, they are often unnerving.
Not only is this a fun read for anyone interested in the supernatural, but the photography is excellent, and the description is short.
I highly recommend this book, available on the Barnes and Noble website.
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