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 enlarge | Author: Will Storr
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  18 reviews
Sales Rank: 708355
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.3 x 0.9
ISBN: 0061132195
Dewey Decimal Number: 130
EAN: 9780061132193
ASIN: 0061132195
Publication Date: September 1, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Do You Believe In Ghosts? July 11, 2007
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
Will Storr, journalist, not only does not believe in ghosts, he's not even sure there is a God. So when the idea to research the paranormal occurs, he approaches the concept with more than the usual amount of skepticism. However, he gamely plunges on, interviewing the possessed, the ghost hunters, and the demonologists, relentlessly seeking answers as he investigates haunted places on both sides of the Atlantic. What he finds causes him not only to re-evaluate his position on things that go bump in the night, but his belief in what happens when we die and therefore his own agnosticism.
Written with a great deal of humor, Will Storr covers a wide variety of paranormal research, including not only ghosts but demons, possessions, and Satanic worship. He's tenacious in finding those who are famous (or infamous) in the world of paranormal research, including those who don't want to be interviewed. He doesn't shy away from the hard questions, and in pursuing the "truth", he discovers that some things simply cannot be explained, though he does spend a good deal of time trying to find scientific reasons for what's he's finding. A point in his favor is that he doesn't swallow everything he's fed without analyzing; his observance on the set of England's TV prgram "Most Haunted" is particularly revealing. However, as is often said in the paranormal investigations world, once everything has been analyzed carefully, what cannot be debunked becomes evidence, and Storr certainly sees some gripping substantiation that there is something else out there.
You don't have to believe in ghosts to enjoy this title. Storr has an engaging style that will definitely keep you entertained. A minor irritation for me was the fact that at times I felt as though I was left hanging without conclusion to the investigation, though probably Storr himself felt this way occasionally. Storr's about-face on his beliefs may indeed make you question your own, and in this case, that's a good thing. Recommended.
 nothing new -- but a fun read May 23, 2007
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
This book is entertaining and easy to read, but it will be informative only if you're really new to the whole paranormal/supernatural/occult thing. 95% of what Will Storr covers is old hat for people who've done a smidgen of reading about the topic. But it's OK cuz even if it's old hat, it's all fun. Will Storr is a lively writer. He has a flair for description, and is great at capturing peoples' appearance, personalities and quirks.
And Will Storr is earnest. He's open-minded. He's willing. One could say he's naive, yes. But Will Storr is also honest. Rather than draw a bunch of conclusions about what he experienced in his research, he just puts it out there for you.
What can we conclude from Will Storr Vs. The Supernatural then? Some people are faking, some of it is wishful thinking, some is definitely unexplainable weirdness, and some is probably some kind of physical phenomenon that we just don't have the science for yet. Yeah, I already knew that, but what the heck.
What baffles me more than the ghost stories, though, is Will Storr's literal-minded assumption that proof of the existence of ghosts would validate the Christian God of the Roman Catholic church, which he rejected in high school. Um. Did I miss something?
Also, it should be noted that Will Storr spends a lot of time talking about TV personalities from the UK, who mean absolutely nothing to US readers.
And remember: Never use a Ouija board.
Good and ghosty April 5, 2007
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
Journalist Will Storr wrote a piece for Loaded magazine about his experiences tagging along with a demonologist on a couple of errands--recording electronic voice phenomena (EVPs) in an allegedly haunted house in Baltimore, meeting with a suburban mother in New Jersey who is a habitual Ouija board user and may be possessed. Storr entered the project a skeptic, but he couldn't rationalize away everything he witnessed with the demon investigator. Will Storr vs. The Supernatural is the result of his decision to pursue the paranormal further. Storr's original article appears as the book's prologue. In subsequent chapters Storr details his further experiences: meetings with various groups of paranormal enthusiasts (such as the Scooby Doo-ishly named "Ghost Club"), a walk in the woods with a Druid, the few minutes he managed to stay in the most haunted room of Britain's most haunted house, an interview with a woman who, in her youth, was the central figure in a celebrated case of possession, an afternoon spent with the Vatican's chief exorcist. The stories Storr has to tell are at the least interesting. One, about an English pub said to be haunted by its former landlady, is downright chilling. And Storr's account in his last chapter of an alleged case of possession in Texas is horrifying--not because demons are on the loose but, alas, because humans are.
Happily, Storr never fully surrenders his skepticism. He isn't afraid to express doubts about the claims some of his interviewees make, if not in person then at least on the page, if not in bold type then subtly:
"'Hang on, he says, pausing with his duster and his can, 'I can hear sounds, like wooshing sounds.' His ear is cocked skywards. 'It's almost like windy conditions, even though it's not windy outside. Can you hear it?'
'Yes,' I say. 'Is it an aeroplane?'
'No, I don't think so,' he says. 'I heard it last night as well.'
We listen in silence as the aeroplane goes past."
Mostly, as in his report from the set of Britain's television series Most Haunted, Storr reports honestly on what he's observed and lets readers draw their own conclusions. He also considers possible scientific explanations for the ghostly phenomena he and others have observed, though in the end he finds that science in its current state cannot explain everything he's experienced. A fallen Catholic, he emerges from his research convinced that there is at least some kind of an afterlife awaiting us.
Storr's narrative is punctuated with some very nice bits of writing:
"I glance to my left through the window. There have been blizzards all down the eastern seaboard for the last three days. Fat whacks of snow cover the ground everywhere except the freeway. I pause for a second to watch the cars and trucks and monstrous articulated lorries bomb noisily through the night, all exhaust-steam and slipstream and white lights and red. And as I sit and look at the traffic, somewhere deep in my brain, a tiny alarm starts to sound. At this moment, I'm still barely aware of it. But I've just begun to sense that something isn't right."
Note that long fourth sentence in the example above, the repetition of the coordinating conjunction "and" slowing the reader after three short sentences in a row, the dactyls and rhyme after the comma. It's a sentence that begs to be reread.
Will Storr vs. The Supernatural is worth the read, because its subject matter is interesting and because Storr does a good job with it. Skeptics won't find his exploration of the paranormal convincing, I'm sure, but they should find it well-written, and possibly thought-provoking. I would only suggest that the author include in subsequent editions an index and some kind of documentation of sources and locations.
Debra Hamel -- author of Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in Ancient Greece (Yale University Press, 2003)
Storr & The Paranormal .... At Last Some Humor! February 20, 2007
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
I really enjoyed this book because Will Storr wrote it without taking the subject matter so seriously. He investigated many issues dealing with the paranormal, and played devil's advocate, skeptic or believer; he played both ends, and gave each a fair shot at explaining the supernatural. However along the way, among the interviews, heart-stopping moments of fear and paranormal investigations, he injected humor many time into the predicaments he placed himself in. He didn't do what so many of the believers and non-believers did which appeared in his story, which is... take themselves so SERIOUSLY! Well written, this book is a keeper. (Hint... best page in the book is #242; scariest is chapter 15, the entire thing).
 Open-minded and skeptical, the perfect combination... February 7, 2007
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
for an author writing on the subject of ghosts. This is a very refreshing and entertaining book. Scary and unpredictable, too. Everything is personally investigated and all of his subjects are treated with respect and just the right amount of humor. I really enjoyed it and wish all ghost books could be so original!
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