True Tales of Ghostly Encounters

by Andy Honigman

FATE magazine has published thousands of ghost stories, true experiences of ordinary people who have had extraordinary encounters with the hereafter. Compiled and edited by Andrew Honigman, this collection features the best of these chilling, bizarre, and heartwarming tales. These detailed accounts of messages, gifts, blessings, and assistance from the spirit world provide remarkable proof of life after death.

Genres: Paranormal, Ghosts, Nonfiction, Ghost Stories

312 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2006

Reviews

[George Ilsley]

This is a compilation of very short tales compiled from FATE magazine. Many of these pieces are from the 1930s or 40s and that added to the appeal.

One quibble is the title, which refers to "ghostly" encounters. Many of these tales can be categorized as ESP, near death experiences, "feelings," or some other mysterious event or coincidence, but are not "ghostly". Of course that raises the question — what is a ghost and how do you know if you have encountered one?

There are so many tales here, including those involving children and pets, and the range of stories and the details involved, are all rather fascinating.

[Naomi]

Cloying, trite, offensive garbage like "My bestie visited me after she'd died to say she liked being dead rather than ending up using a wheelchair... even though she left behind a newborn baby." Oh, do fuck off.

[Lori]

I found this one by chance, browsing through the New Books section of my local library. It was a good one to stumble across because my daughter enjoys 'real life ghost stories' (if this is actually a thing) and this collection kept us entertained for a couple of weeks. Fate Magazine collected correspondence from their readers about supposed ghostly encounters these people had experienced in their life. Each story is a quick one or two page read. So, we were able to pick the book up when we had a spare moment and read one another the stories. Nothing to ghastly or gruesome here! Mainly eerie (and even sweet!) tales of spectres hanging around the house. These stories were suitable for my eleven-year-old daughter and they kept her intrigued. -- A fun book for readers who 'want to believe'.

[Heidi Wiechert]

I love first hand accounts of the paranormal, near death experiences, and other perplexing encounters. Occurring all across the country and at different times, one of these stories even took place at the hospital where I was born! Very fun and sometimes disturbing, True Tales of Ghostly Encounters will challenge your assumptions about reality and what is to come.

If you enjoyed this book, you should also try Mysteries and Monsters of the Sea which is another compilation of stories from Fate Magazine, by Marcus Griffin, or Meeting the Other Crowd by Edmund Lenihan.

[Dennis Phillips]

The great thing about the stories in this book is that they are practically all first person accounts of ghostly activity. Friends relate a few of the stories or relatives of the actual witness but the vast majority come straight from the horse's mouth so to speak. I always find that this type of book has much more credibility when the accounts given are either written by the actual witness or are directly told to the author who then adds his/her own research to the story. Most of these stories, told by the witnesses in their own words just ooze credibility and would make even most skeptics admit that these people believe that they saw something whether they did or not.

As is always the case however when an editor puts together a collection like this some stories are better than others. Of course some of the accounts are just more sensational than others but the different writing styles and abilities of the correspondents also come into play. Some of these stories are very well written and others less so but given the wide range of backgrounds represented by those who wrote these stories that should come as no surprise. The only real disappointment is that some of the stories are very short and give far too few details with some of the accounts being less than a page long but again given the nature of this book that is no surprise. In any compilation of stories like this one learns to take the good with the bad and that is certainly the case here because there are several very detailed stories that more than make up for those stories that leave something to be desired.

[Bigfatsheep]

Truly unremarkable tales of encounters with mundane happenstance. Or perhaps I'm not just distracted and often forgetful, but have actually had ghosts this whole time! It does deserve a few stars for getting me through some slow moments at work. It's also not really the book's fault I don't believe crazy people or am incredibly cynical.

[Marie]

Interesting and sometimes downright eerie, this compilation of ghost encounters fom every day people is great. Even the biggest sceptics will find themselves questioning the veracity of ghosts after reading some of the stories.

[Sarah]

I picked this up, and about 10 or 15 pages into it realize that I'd already read it, but I forgot most of the stories, so that was okay. I don't really believe this stuff, but I find it interesting. Some of the story seemed more credible than others.

[Sabrina Rutter]

I really enjoy reading these strange tales! This is yet another fun book to read from the files of Fate magazine!

[NONE]

This book will make you shit your pants! Read it at night.

[Christi]

Someone asked me to read this, it was better then I expected. Some of the stories are silly, others sweet. Some made you wonder, others made me laugh. All in all entertaining ancedotes.

[Mysticpaganwitch]

I loved it, the stories were short and sweet and I just floated from one little tale to another. Great stuff.