Wednesday, August 8, 2018

Over the Counter #430

What book caught my eye this week as it passed over the library counter and under my scanner? Ghostly photos this week....

The Apparitionists: A Tale of Phantoms, Fraud, Photography, and the Man Who Captured Lincoln's Ghost Hardcover by Peter Manseau.

From Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt:

"A story of faith and fraud in post-Civil War America, told through the lens of a photographer who claimed he could capture images of the dead

In the early days of photography, in the death-strewn wake of the Civil War, one man seized America's imagination. A "spirit photographer," William Mumler took portrait photographs that featured the ghostly presence of a lost loved one alongside the living subject. Mumler was a sensation: The affluent and influential came calling, including Mary Todd Lincoln, who arrived at his studio in disguise amidst rumors of seances in the White House.

Peter Manseau brilliantly captures a nation wracked with grief and hungry for proof of the existence of ghosts and for contact with their dead husbands and sons. It took a circus-like trial of Mumler on fraud charges, starring P. T. Barnum for the prosecution, to expose a fault line of doubt and manipulation. And even then, the judge sided with the defense-nobody ever solved the mystery of his spirit photography. This forgotten puzzle offers a vivid snapshot of America at a crossroads inits history, a nation in thrall to new technology while clinging desperately to belief."

(Over the Counter is a regular feature at A Bookworm's World. I've sadly come the realization that I cannot physically read every book that catches my interest as it crosses over my counter at the library. But... I can mention them and maybe one of them will catch your eye as well. See if your local library has them on their shelves!)

1 comment:

I found the best Seattle SEO top services company said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.