• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Strange Stories, Amazing Facts (Reader's Digest Book)

MrRING

MrRING

Android Futureman
Joined
Aug 7, 2002
Messages
6,053
How many fortean fans out there had their interest in the strange from this Readrer's Digest tome, printed in the 70's?

In particular, I was always haunted by images of faces appearing in the floor of a Spanish house, the deep sea diver whose head and hands were cut off, and the coverage of Springheeled Jack.
 
I still have my copy, mr R.I.N.G. It didn't start me off on an interest in things Fortean, merely augmented it. I liked the story about the faces of the dead sailors appearing in the sea.

Carole
 
Oh yes. my copy is under my old bed at my mums house, together with the readers digest book "unexplained" and, as everyone does, the "unexplained" partwork.

i think they were my mums but she kept them in the bathroom for some light toilet reading. I think i took them into my room after being told of for spending to long in the bathroom.
 
I've got it somewhere, too, complete with the cover with Kirlian photography and stuff on the front. It gave the most concise history of the Money Pit I've read to date, had that gruesome tract on O-Kee-Pa the Mandan Indian initiation ceremony (as displayed in "A Man called Horse") and a marvellous compendium of Groucho (!) sayings. And I slept with the light on for a bit when I read the Belmez faces account. In fact, I heard about lots of Fort stuff first time through the book (got it for Xmas aged 11 or so).

Wish I could find it. Every time I opened it I'd find something new, despite being sure I'd read it from cover to cover. Great stuff!

Stu
 
Yep, I had this book. The main reason I remember it was that the section on UFOs was in completely the wrong chapter, but for some reason the proofreader didn't pick it up. :confused:
As Fortean books go, I didn't think it was that good - more of a cobbled-together collection of stuff. However, there were some good and thought-provoking parts. Six out of ten.

Big Bill Robinson
 
Ah yes, one of the two books that initiated my interest in Fortean subjects. A quick scurry to my bookshelf and here it is, along with the other Reader's Digest tome that also contributed...

Books1.jpg
 
That takes me back. 1970s, occasional visits to my step grandparents. They had a copy of "Folklore Myths and Legends of Britain" (as shown in CALGACUS03's picture) and I read it avidly. I was somewhere around 10 or 12 years old, I think. I have not thought about that book for over 40 years and I recognised it immediately.
 
I have the Folklore book, with gaffer tape down the spine, the rest of the book is fine.
 
I have a copy in my library. It was my mother's which she gave me. I devoured it page after page, again and again. Those damned Belmez faces scared the shit out of me. We had many a tiled floor in the house we lived in and I fully expected to see them staring back at me after reading about them. They were the stuff of nightmares.
 
Last edited:
I have the Folklore book, with gaffer tape down the spine, the rest of the book is fine.
Click to expand...

Lol, the photo that I included in my post above is actually of a book that I recently bought off the internet. I still have the original one that my parents bought all those years ago; it now looks like:

Books2.jpg

Leafed through and read to the point of destruction.
 
Never read it, I'm ashamed to say.

But like others here, I had my interest piqued by the Unexplained - all 13 volumes of it! Reading that played a huge part in my mid-teens. It came along with a raft of other things like the Horizon two-parter on UFOs and The Mysterious World of Arthur C Clarke that showed me a strange world out there. A lot of that has been debunked, explained and / or poo-pooed. A shame really. The World needs a bit of magic and mystery.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top