When I tried to order a copy of the book for my kids, I discovered it had gone out of print. It read like a guidebook to an alternate universe. The deadpan explanation and matter-of-fact diagram are characteristic of the book’s tone: “Ghosts continue to follow the routes they used when alive, even if the house been rebuilt since that time.” Despite the pages devoted to exposing clever fakes and hoaxes, Usborne never tried to convince young readers that ghosts weren’t real. Many of my friends-a disproportionate number of whom are writers and artists-remember poring over the pages of Ghosts, entranced by its eerie factoids and illustrations, and then filing it safely back on the shelf, far from our childhood bedrooms.Ī few years ago one of the book’s charming info-graphics, “Why ghosts pass through walls,” circulated as a meme on social media. First published in 1977, Usborne’s The World of the Unknown: Ghosts was among the most treasured books (and anecdotally, the most stolen) in school libraries of the late 70s and 80s.
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