Books for the Urban Legends in Your Life

Local storyteller Jonathan Kruk shares the mysterious lore of the Hudson Valley, best known among them Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." 

This exciting volume and its author has been featured in the Travel Channel's "Mysteries at the Museum," and helped establish the galloping goblin's origin story.

The story of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman is one of America's best known fables, but what other stories does the Hudson Valley hold? Imps cause mischief on the Hudson River, a white lady haunts Raven Rock, Major Andre's ghost seeks redemption and real headless Hessians search for their severed skulls. These mysterious and spooky tales from the region's past that inspired Irving and continues to captivate the imagination to this day.

Mysterious creatures, strange happenings and ghost stories. Alabama has them all and more - despite its glorious depictions.

Alabama claims an abundance of fascinating mysteries and legends despite being known for its antebellum mansions and sunny beaches, . The White Thang is a Sasquatch-like creature that has terrorized Alabamians for generations. For a brief period in the 1980s, Needham gained national attention because of its “crying pecan tree.” In 1854, a farmer named Orion Williamson simply vanished in a field in Selma. From the aquatic beast known as the Coosa River Monster to the story of the Leprechaun of Mobile, these stories have evolved over generations. Author and ghost-story guru Alan Brown presents some of the strangest stories from this collective tradition.

New Orleans has a reputation as a home for creatures of the night. Popular books, movies and television shows have cemented the city's connection to vampires in public imagination.

Rumors swirled about the fate of the Casket Girls, a group of mysterious maidens traveling to the New World from France with peculiar casket-shaped boxes. A charismatic man who moved to the French Quarter in the early 1900s eerily resembled a European aristocrat of one hundred years prior bearing the same name. A pair of brothers terrorized the town with their desire to feed on living human blood during the Great Depression. Marita Woywod Crandle investigates the origins of these legends so intricately woven through New Orleans's rich history.

Find stories of magic and witches, sailors, pirates and shipwrecks and more in this book filled with folks with great stories and interesting lives.

Author and Marblehead Museum & Historical Society director Pam Peterson recounts the oral and written accounts that Marbleheaders have handed down over the past 400 years. Compiled with meticulous care, Marblehead Myths, Legends and Lore offers a diverse sampling of tales from one of New England's maritime treasures.

Beneath Milwaukee's calm façade, its ghastly past awaits.

The overbearing spirit of Frederick Pabst keeps persistent watch over the mansion that shares his name. The remains of the Newhall House Fire, the city's deadliest disaster, may lie beneath a new building, but those who lost their lives that night refuse to rest in peace. Even the suburbs hold their share of ghoulish secrets, including the furtive dwarves of Haunchyville, the fabled Bray Road Beast and the stubborn spirits lurking in Deacon West's house. Tour guide and founder of Gothic Milwaukee Anna Lardinois shares the spine-tingling tales of the Beer City's famous, and not so famous, specters and legends.