Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places

I read this as I love Caitlin Doughty's videos and books and she recommended it on her channel. There was lots of interesting information in the book as well as some good analysis of certain stories, but most of the analysis came across as kind of forced. I also don't know if organising the stories by type of building or place worked for me. I would have liked them to be organized by type of story or part of American history that they referenced. I struggled to connect with the idea that houses seem haunted because of strange parts of the architecture or that hotels seem haunted because they're not quite like home. It didn't really hold my focus very well and was kind of hard to get through, but I did learn some interesting facts.

... Dickey attempts to negotiate the differences between ???official??? history and ???hidden??? history: the difference between history has it is taught in schools and other orthodox learning institutions, versus the history that one hears via word-of-mouth in the form of folktales, urban legends, and especially ghost stories. After all, there are plenty of details that official historical accounts like to hide, things that make people uncomfortable to even think about. And yet, that frisson of discomfort is one of the things that makes ghost stories so popular ??? and, therefore, extremely useful in keeping those otherwise uncomfortable, difficult-to-confront historical stories alive...

Full review here: http://wp.me/p21txV-wJ