The Keep: the first chapter

What’s your reaction to the sudden shift in perspective on page 12, where there’s a first-person interjection (“…how I’m supposed to get him in and out of all these memories in a smooth way so nobody notices all the coming and going I don’t know”) into the third person narrative about Danny and Howie? How about when it becomes clear that this is a story about a story on page 18?

Thanks for reading Spook with me!

Thanks for reading Spook with me during the month of October!

To wrap up, did you find that the book influenced your beliefs in an afterlife or lack thereof?

Why is discussion and research about the existence of an afterlife important, or isn’t it?  

If you’ve read other books by Mary Roach, how did this one hold up to the others? Would you recommend it to friends? Why or why not?

If you are interested in more on this subject, try:

Ghost Hunters: William James and the search for scientific proof of life after death by Deborah Blum

Ghosts Caught on Film: photographs of the paranormal? by Melvyn J. Willin and Ghosts Caught on Film 2 by Jim Eaton

Occult America: the secret history of how mysticism shaped our nation by Mitch Horowitz

Possessions: the history and uses of haunting in the Hudson Valley by Judith Richardson

The Perfect Medium: photography and the occult by Yale University Press

Spook: on the author…

Mary Roach is quite a present figure in Spook; how does her narration add to or detract from the book? Why do you think she chose to write the book based on her own experience? Is there such a thing as being too skeptical? What do you think of her use of humor?