<![CDATA[Lily Dale: The True Story of the Town that Talks to the Dead]]>

false <![CDATA[Lily Dale: The True Story of the Town that Talks to the Dead]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172875747m/227324.jpg 227324 5 In Lily Dale, New York, the dead don't die. Instead, spirits flit among the elms and stroll along the streets, sometimes dressed in garb more common 120 years ago, when Lily Dale was founded and suffragette Susan B. Anthony was a frequent guest. According to Spiritualists who have ruled this Victorian hamlet for five generations, the dead don't go away and they stay anything but quiet. Every summer twenty thousand guests come to consult the town's mediums, who can hang out a shingle only after passing a test that confirms their connection to the spirit world. On the hot June day when reporter Christine Wicker comes to the world's oldest and largest Spiritualist community, she is determined to understand the secret forces -- human or otherwise -- that keep Lily Dale alive. She follows three visitors: a newly bereaved widow; a mother whose son killed himself; and a beautiful, happily married wife whose first visit to Lily Dale brings an ominous warning. Are the mediums cold-hearted charlatans, as Sinclair Lewis wrote of them? Or are they conduits for a hidden world that longs to bring peace and healing to the living, as psychologist William James and muckraker Upton Sinclair once hoped to prove? Investigating a movement that attracted millions of Americans in the 1800s and now barely survives, Wicker moves beyond the mediums' front parlors and into the lives that tourists never see. She follows the mediums to a place where what we know and how we know it is the greatest mystery of all. 220195 2003 Lily Dale: The True Story of the Town that Talks to the Dead total:180|5:16|4:57|3:73|2:30|1:4| 180 591 267 49 1 2 false false Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue Sep 11 11:55:25 -0700 2007 Tue Sep 11 12:02:32 -0700 2007
Lily Dale, the book: yet another disappointment in my continued efforts to research Spiritualism. The author spends far too mu...more...]]> 3 2 false false Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Thu Aug 23 08:57:20 -0700 2007 Thu Aug 23 09:02:05 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 1 false false Tue Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Jun 29 17:40:06 -0700 2008 Tue Jul 01 15:36:12 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 1 false false Sat Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2006 Wed Nov 21 04:52:08 -0800 2007 Wed Nov 21 04:53:53 -0800 2007 I'd read another book by the author last month Not In Kansas Anymore and enjoyed her writing style, as well as her open-minded skepticism.
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Lily Dale, in upstate New York, is one of the last bastions of Spiritualism - reaching its height of popularity around the turn of the...more...]]> 3 1 false false Tue Sep 22 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Sep 10 23:23:20 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 22 20:52:03 -0700 2009
This is ostensibly a history of Lily Dale, New York -- a community that has been ectoplasmic since the late 1800s. I made my way to the book being most interested in the Victorian/Gilded Age Spiritualist era, rather than the world of tod...more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2005 Thu Jul 23 19:20:34 -0700 2009 Thu Jul 23 20:48:02 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 1 false false Tue Feb 24 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Aug 05 09:36:05 -0700 2008 Thu Feb 26 05:26:10 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 1 false false Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2005 Tue Sep 18 10:17:46 -0700 2007 Tue Sep 18 10:19:03 -0700 2007
]]> 5 1 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2004 Sat Dec 01 18:02:44 -0800 2007 Sat Dec 01 18:11:46 -0800 2007 3 0 false false Fri Jul 10 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 06 19:53:50 -0700 2009 Fri Jul 10 13:24:09 -0700 2009 Not in Kansas Anymore but I enjoyed it. The few major flaws I noted were scattered storytelling, lack of in-depth explanations, reflections on town history, etc., such as mentioned by the below reviewer.

However. I do like Wicker's writing style. It...more...]]> 3 0 false false Fri Oct 03 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Oct 07 07:17:07 -0700 2009 Wed Oct 07 07:20:13 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Sat Jul 18 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Mar 22 17:02:57 -0700 2009 Sat Jul 18 13:51:40 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Apr 06 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Mar 31 14:36:07 -0700 2008 Sun Apr 06 11:47:49 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Mar 23 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Feb 09 17:47:31 -0800 2008 Sat Apr 05 11:25:37 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Sat Dec 08 13:46:27 -0800 2007 Sun Dec 16 05:56:24 -0800 2007 Lily Dale was written by Christine Wicker, religion reporter for the Dallas Morning News. She approached her literally outlandish subject with a natural skepticism and a hopeful receptiveness that did battle with one another from chapter to chapter.

Spiritualism has attracted millions of ...more...]]> 2 0 false false Tue Nov 03 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Oct 05 22:43:56 -0700 2009 Wed Nov 11 23:02:19 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2003 Sat Apr 18 10:23:56 -0700 2009 Sat Apr 18 10:28:36 -0700 2009 2 0 false false Thu Jan 08 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Dec 29 09:27:49 -0800 2008 Thu Jan 08 06:47:21 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Tue Jun 23 09:03:20 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 23 09:05:26 -0700 2009 2 0 false false Fri Jun 06 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue May 20 10:00:18 -0700 2008 Mon Jun 09 17:40:28 -0700 2008 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=227324