Library of the Odd, the Obscure, and the Occult
In this month’s instalment of “Author(ized) Accounts of the Paranormal and Unexplained,” Chenise Puchailo, publisher of the anthology: Debut, will tell us the story of her encounter with a mysterious haunting at a small-town bakery…
Continue reading “Author Chenise Puchailo: Evening Patrol at the Bakery”
In this month’s instalment of “Author(ized) Accounts of the Paranormal and Unexplained,” Amber A. Logan, author of The Secret Garden of Yanagi Inn, will tell us the story of the library book that refused to be returned…
Continue reading “Author Amber Logan: Borrowing a Boo(k) from the Library”
In this month’s instalment of “Author(ized) Accounts of the Paranormal and Unexplained,” Terry Friedman, author of Bone Pendant Girls, will tell us the about the dark energy she’s sensed while visiting historical places…
Continue reading “Author Terry Friedman: Knock. Knock. Nobody’s There?”
In this month’s instalment of “Author(ized) Accounts of the Paranormal and Unexplained,” Tj O’Connor, author of New Sins for Old Scores, will tell us about how paranormal experiences have influenced his writing…
Continue reading “Author Tj O’Connor: How The “Boo” Put The “Who” In My Whodunnits”
Browse Awhile Books boasts enough ghosts that they could start their own book club. And from the sound of it, they would be a rowdy, chatty, and somewhat vindictive group. So, it would be just like your typical book club.
Built in 1872, Browse Awhile Books is located in Tipp City, Ohio. It’s found nestled in the Historic District among fifty antique and arts shops. The bookstore is 4000 square feet and houses over 150,000 books (Browse Awhile Books). But you’re not here to learn about the quaint area or to get tips on where to go if you want to go antiquing next weekend. You’re here to learn about the spirits haunting this building, so I’m going to jump right in!
Numerous paranormal investigation groups have explored this bookstore for their TV shows and YouTube channels. Haunted Collector, Doorways Investigation Group (DIG), My Ghost Story, and Paranormal Answers Research Team (PART) have all had their piece of the pie. I would take a dig at the hilarious acronyms that these groups choose, but I won’t, because that’s not the part I wish to play in this story. Instead, I’m going to talk a little bit about their alleged findings.
There have been countless paranormal incidences in this building over the years, including people being literally punched in the face (is it “literally” if no fist is actually involved?), poked, scratched, and yelled at. One woman was slapped in the face, and it was later discovered that she’d been trying to steal a book (Doorways Investigation Group). Books often fly off the shelves. The toys that are left out for children move, and people often see “shadows playing peek-a-boo” (Leslie, 2014, p. 94). Upon reading this, I suspected that a child is haunting the bookstore. According to Leslie (2014) who cited a source that is not available online (get your shit together, Toronto Star), the child’s ghost is named “Caleb”. An article in Huffpost comments on video footage filmed by Haunted Collector, reporting that it captures the voice of a child saying “No”. The link to the video is dead (there’s a pun here, I’m sure of it)—but if you have a live link, please put it in the comments!
You’d think that would be the end of it. A child can cause a lot of havoc, and it would be perfectly reasonable to assume that one ghost was biting, scratching, and overall exasperating staff and customers. But apparently there are at least fifteen ghosts currently residing in Browse Awhile Books. And many of them have names. Charlie, Sam, Virgil, James, Erika, Becky, Sue, Mike, and Ellen.
Brian & Josh of DIG speak with the ghost of Erika https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkrDStF81aU
The fact that the ghosts have communicated their names to paranormal investigators gives me pause. I’ve read stories about a lot of ghosts, and it’s rare that the investigators can pinpoint a name for the spirit. But this many spirits? How likely is it that they were able to name 10 out of 15 ghosts? Something’s rotten in the state of Ohio. Either there is a very strong medium living in Tipp City, some of the facts have gotten misconstrued somewhere along the way and these names are actually pet names for the ghosts, not “real” names… or someone’s lying. I’ll let you decide which is your truth.
It has been suggested that Caleb, along with many of the other ghosts, came to the bookstore attached to a book. This is very interesting to me, because that was a theory I postulated when looking into the haunting of Rivendell Books.
That said, if all the ghosts came to the bookstore attached to haunted books, then would that explain why a lot of bookstores are allegedly “haunted”? Or is there something about the nature of bookstores that makes people think they’re haunted? Is it the fact that books are becoming less and less common, they’re artifacts of the past, which makes people feel nostalgic and spooky? Or do bookstores just attract the spirits of bookworms? Or is there something about the location of Browse Awhile Books that makes the spirits that are inevitably attached to many books more powerful, more able to interact with our realm? Or is it possible that something is inexplicably, malevolently, magically drawing these haunted items into the heart of Tipp City? Hey, Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk–I have an idea for where you should set the next season of American Horror Story!
So what do you think? It seems to me that the stories surrounding this haunting are vague and lack details. If you want to compare this to the story of the Rivendell Books hauntings, where they provided the names of witnesses who wouldn’t benefit financially from the bookstore becoming an internet sensation. While the videos provided by paranormal investigators are intriguing, I wouldn’t say that they’re trustworthy, given their origins. Browse Awhile Books apparently holds bookable tours where they tell tourists about the ghosts. This financial incentive makes anything that employees at this bookstore have to say about the spirits less reliable. They have something to gain from keeping up the charade. Again, I find it irritating that while there are apparently so many ghosts haunting this bookstore, I cannot substantiate any of these claims from primary sources. The online resources claiming this place is haunted come from lists of haunted bookstores and paranormal investigations. I want to find a blog created by someone who isn’t, as I said, financially benefiting from their stories.
So, if you’re out there, and you see a ghost, please post about it online, whether you see the ghost in a bookstore or in your shower! I want to read what you have to say!
In the summer of 2016, the bakery in Browse Awhile Books suffered a devastating fire, during which they lost over 40% of their inventory. After this fire, I’m curious to find out if the building is still haunted. Are some of the souls gone because of what happened to the books they were attached to? Or, is it possible that one of these stronger-than-usual spirits lit the fire in hopes to escape an eternity trapped in an over-crowded, evil bookstore?
Browse Awhile Books Storefront image taken from https://www.shelf-awareness.com/issue.html?issue=2780#m32947
Browse Awhile Books sign image taken from https://www.daytonlocal.com/listings/browse-awhile-books.asp
It’s been a while since I last posted, because I’ve been busy gallivanting across Canada for work. One of the places I went to was Halifax, which inspired this month’s blog post.
At the turn of the twentieth century, bookbinding was an art, not just an automated process to create generic, identical books to sell at dirt-cheap prices. Books were commissioned by bookbinders, who created masterpieces that were works of art. Some were even inlaid with precious stones and various fabrics and materials. These books took months, even sometimes years to create. With all the blood, sweat, and tears that went into making a book like this, it makes sense that the most infamous one of all of them might be cursed…
Continue reading “Cursed or Coincidence? The Great Omar Book”
Ambrose Bierce was an American short story writer and journalist at the turn of the century. According to Times Magazine, he’s most famous for his short story, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”. His book “The Devil’s Dictionary” was dubbed one of the “100 Greatest Masterpieces of American Literature”. He was said to have had a “morbid fascination with horror and death”. (Who here can relate?) (Time Magazine). A civil war veteran, Ambrose Bierce accomplished a lot in his 71 + years of life. But it’s his disappearance and presumed death that has had everyone speculating and theorizing over the last hundred years.
From 1883 to 1929, Andrew Carnegie, a Scottish businessman and philanthropist, gifted 2509 public and university libraries to cities around the world. In the US, the third oldest of these libraries that’s still in operation today is the Carnegie Library at Homestead in Pennsylvania. Opening in 1898, the Carnegie of Homestead features a library, a music hall, and an athletic centre. Many have already heard of Andrew Carnegie’s infamous generosity, but did you know that this generosity may have been fueled by guilt? Guilt that may have resulted in Andrew Carnegie choosing to haunt this library as a ghost? And it isn’t just claims of Andrew Carnegie haunting the Library at Homestead. There have been reports of many ghosts in this building, ghosts who just may be the spirits of those Andrew Carnegie indirectly killed.
Continue reading “Spirits on Strike: The Hauntings of Carnegie at Homestead”
Rivendell Books, a used, rare, and out-of-print book store in Barrie, Ontario is home to a history buff who spends his days and nights pacing the aisle that shelves books on WWI and WWII. He reads and obsesses about the Great War, often removing books from the shelves and sorting them into piles. But he isn’t an employee that needs to be given direction, and he isn’t a loyal, yet irritating customer. He’s a ghost.
Everyone has heard of Agatha Christie. She wrote during the golden age of detective fiction, and she’s been crowned as the Queen of the Cozy Mystery. She’s written at least 74 books, including “Murder on the Orient Express”, “And then there were none”, and “Death on the Nile”. But there’s one mystery that she didn’t write. Instead, she lived it.
On December 3, 1926, Agatha Christie went into her seven-year-old daughter Rosalind’s bedroom in their home in Berkshire, England, and she kissed her on the cheek goodnight. Then, she got into her car and drove away. She wouldn’t be discovered for another ten days. Not only did she go missing for ten days, but when she was found, she claimed to have absolutely no memory of where she’d been or what she’d done.
BibliOccult 