Tomes of Terror: Haunted Bookstores & Libraries

PREFACE

PREFACE: My Life-Long Love Affair with Books, Writing and Things That Go Bump in the Night

I have had a life-long love affair with books. I have also never grown out of the special thrill that comes with telling and listening to creepy tales of the eerie and uncanny. Although the way in which I have enjoyed and embraced books in all their many wonderful formats has changed multiple times over the decades, my passion for books — as well as my passion for eerie tales — has never wavered.

There is a box in my mother’s basement filled with a plethora of books of various shapes and sizes that had been read to me, which I had thumbed my way through, looking at the pictures, and had eventually learned to read for myself. While there isn’t any one particular memory of being read to when I was young that comes to me, I can definitely identify reading and book-related rituals from my childhood playing a significant role in me eventually defining myself as a “Book Nerd.”

One was those special Tuesdays, when the periodical and comic book deliveries arrived at the Mini Mart in Levack, Ontario. My mom, who worked there part-time, would come home with a weekly surprise for me: two or three different comic books. In the early days it was Gold Key and Harvey and

Charlton comics. Mixed in, occasionally, were creepy comic books like The House of Mystery, Tales from the Crypt, and Ghosts. I remember carefully turning those pages, frightened at the stories that were unfolding but unable to resist their special, creepy allure, particularly when hosts such as Cain or the Crypt Keeper beckoned me to keep reading.

Yet, even during the richest depths of my intense love for comic books, I branched out and learned to also love reading books. I began the journey through stories rich with mystery, such as Hardy Boys and Encyclopedia Brown and Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators, as well as so many stand-alone novels that captured my imagination. The sense of unknown in these tales drew me in. I also I recall loving various books about adventures in caves (I was fascinated with caves for the longest

time — and why not, they were dark and creepy places), and stories written by Lester Del Rey and other sci-fi writers about adventures on the moon and on Mars. Over the years, I accumulated a number of books on the paranormal and unexplained phenomenon, further strengthening that life-long passion of mine: stories that scared and frightened me.

I grew up in a small mid-northern Ontario town called Onaping Falls. With a population somewhere in the realm of 6,000, Onaping Falls didn’t have a bookstore. But it did have a library. One of the wonderful librarians who worked there seemed to have taken a liking to me — although I’m sure she was kind and generous of her time with any child who stepped through the door. She quickly learned my tastes in reading and picked up on my fascination with the paranormal, and eventually I would no sooner walk in the door and she would beam a smile and tell me about some new arrivals that she just

knew I had to have.

“A new book on Sasquatch arrived this week, Mark,” I remember her saying one time when I walked past the checkout desk. “I put it aside for you to have a look at.” I think it might have been Ann Slate and Alan Berry’s 1976 version of Bigfoot.

The United Church, another important edifice of my childhood, always held great bazaars, which were a wonderful spot to get comics and mass market paperbacks. One book I remember reading and re-reading was called Monsters Among Us: Journey to the Unexplained, by John Lee and Barbara Moore. Filled with tales about the strange and mysterious, including the Bermuda Triangle, Bigfoot, UFO spacemen, the Abominable Snowman, the Loch Ness Monster, and Easter Island. I was both captivated by the wondrous tales and terrified to turn out the lights at night.

My reading habits continued to migrate over the years and I always defined myself as a science-fiction reader, even though, for the most part, I was never into the “hard” sci-fi novels. My cup of tea, it seemed, was more akin to enjoying “weird fiction” or “Twilight Zone” styled tales — stories that lie just off centre from reality.

A love of writing that began while I spent the final days of my thirteenth year hammering away on my mom’s Underwood typewriter is a passion that continues to grow. By the time I was finishing high school, the only thing I knew I wanted to do for sure was to write. My parents, quite wise to the ways of the world, strongly advised that I would need to have a good job in order to support myself as a writer. Whenever there was a television program on about a writer it usually showed them as starving and eating nothing but Spam or Kraft Dinner, which Mom would point out to me. That was her way of reminding me that writers don’t make a lot of money.

I was too bull-headed, though, and continued to pursue writing. I studied English Language and Literature at University, only to realize that there weren’t many jobs suited for someone with my background — and that’s when I landed a part-time job at Coles, a Canadian mall bookstore chain. And, although I had been bitten by the book bug already, the experience of working in a bookstore (which had been like a fantastical dream that was too good to be true) drove that sickness to a whole new level.

I wasn’t just bitten by the book bug. I was bitten by a bookseller bug, too. Much like that wonderful librarian I remember who delighted in sharing the marvels of the new releases with patrons, I, too learned the special thrill of what it means to understand my favourite core customers enough to truly and intuitively feel out just the right book for them. There is something magical about placing the exact right book in the proper customer’s hands, and of the feeling you get when that customer returns to talk about the reading experience they have had.

Like so many librarians and so many booksellers before me, I also understand that bookstores and libraries aren’t just buildings used to store books. They are, of course, much more than the sum of their dusty old shelves. They are magical places, places where connections are made, where information and passions are shared. Bookstores and libraries are like shrines or temples to book lovers. We know that walking through the door is like stepping into a magical dimension where virtually anything can happen.

Tomes of Terror is, for me, the culmination of my greatest lifelong passions: my passion for writing, my passion for books and my passion for sharing creepy and eerie tales. I had a fun time exploring these worlds and these stories, and I hope that you have just as much fun reading them.

As I finish the first draft of the book, somewhat saddened that this part of the journey is almost over, I am already wondering what other eerie bookish delights I might next explore. But I am getting ahead of myself....

Right now, there are countless aisles for you and I to walk down together, marvelous bookish locales around the world to explore. Sure, some of the stories will be a bit frightening, some of them might cause a cold shiver of terror to run down your spine, still others might make you smile or laugh, and others, ever sad, might inspire a tear.

Come, let’s crack those covers together.