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Clint’s highly anticipated third book, Father-ish, gets to the heart of parenting: all those unexpected fails, awkward conversations, and well-intentioned little white lies. He chronicles all these things and more with stories like “The Time My Son Realized I Was Santa,” “I’ve Never Been to Hell, but I Have Been to a Little Girl’s Birthday Party,” and “How to Get the Sex Talk Very, Very Wrong.” And with each story you’ll see over and over again that there really aren’t any rules when it comes to parenting, and all you can do is try your best.
It’s a quarantine Halloween! Next week. And what better time to look at that famed indoorsy paranormal phenomenon: ~spectral visitors~. So let’s look at some books about ghosts:
Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places by Colin Dickey
Spooky history! Dickey’s book is here to look at the ghost stories of America and what they reveal about society. He travels to the House of Seven Gables in Salem, MA (been there, was not haunted by it), as well as asylums, battlefields, haunted hotels, and more. One particular point he examines is why are so many of our ghosts in America white? Read if you want some history, but also to be just a little bit scared.
Grave’s End: A True Ghost Story by Elaine Mercado
This is the only true “here’s a scary story about a possibly real haunting” book in this bunch. Mercado and her family moved into their Brooklyn, NY home in the 1980s and soon dealt with phantom voices, laughter, shadows, and some poltergeist-like behavior. Eventually they discovered “the tragic and heartbreaking secrets buried in the house at Grave’s End.”
I’m Looking Through You: Growing Up Haunted by Jennifer Finney Boylan
Gender rights activist and prolific author Boylan tells the story of growing up in a haunted house in the 1970s. Why do the ’70s feel like a more likely candidate for a haunting than most other decades? Boylan “launches a full investigation with the help of a group of earnest, if questionable, ghostbusters” into what it means to be haunted, as well as doing some thoughtful soul-searching (get it?) into the people we were vs. the people we become.
Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife by Mary Roach
The ever-curious Roach checks out things like people’s attempts to “see” the human soul, why ectoplasm was so popular, what a psychoacoustics expert does, and more. Are ghosts real?? I mean. Probably. But here we have SCIENCE to check it all out. All through the lens of Mary Roach and her extremely fun voice.
There Was a Woman: La Llorona from Folklore to Popular Culture by Domino Renée Pérez
La Llorona (“the Weeping Woman”) is a legend known throughout Mexico, Central, and South America. This looks at her story from ancient oral tradition to her appearance in contemporary material culture and “illuminates her many permutations as seductress, hag, demon, or pitiful woman.” I love examinations of stories that change across time!
Have an excellent weekend! You can find me on social media @itsalicetime and co-hosting the nonfiction For Real podcast with Kim here at Book Riot. Until next time, enjoy those facts, fellow nerds.