Do book reviews matter to you? Will you chose a book based upon them?
Review of my book - four stars out of four, "How to Talk with Spirits: Seances, Mediums, Ghost Hunts"
I've actually read a couple similar books in the past, but "How to Talk With Spirits" is my favorite thus far. It uses the terminology properly, but never feels condescending or confusing; it expresses strong beliefs and opinions but never tries to force them upon the reader, instead encouraging safe experimentation and making one's own judgements; it teaches without preaching.
Life after death is perhaps the greatest mystery of our lives.
Reincarnation, heaven and hell, ghosts living among us, any combination of
those, something we haven't even imagined or absolutely nothing at all, the
possibilities are endless. "How to Talk With Spirits" by June Ahern helps answer
those questions (and many more) the best way possible - by presenting the
reader with information, helping them find their own answers and frequently
reminding them to stay skeptical and not just believe anything, even the things
in this book, simply because they're widely believed.
"How to Talk With Spirits" is a nonfiction guide for exactly what
it sounds like - communicating with spirits. Spirits here typically include
both spirits and ghosts (the difference, June summarizes, is essentially that
ghosts are spirits that remain on Earth), but also includes the possibility of
picking up messages or signals from others who are alive. The pages are filled to the brim with information equivalent to similar books
double the length. Despite having so much information, the book doesn't ever
feel boring - this is an insightful guide, not a dry textbook.
Before the book really kicks off, we're given an introduction
that gives us a history of the author, June. In 1970, at 19 years old, she was
a passenger in a vehicle during a car crash that threw her through the
windshield. She sees a woman in white surrounded in light and actually died for
20 seconds. Ever since, she's been able to see and hear dead people and
identify things about people without ever having met them before. Since then
she's gone ghost hunting, led and been a part in seances and passed all sorts
of messages to the living.
Following the introduction, the book is broken into 12 chapters,
the first chapter being the longest. This chapter briefly covers a history of
ghosts and then answers a wide range of frequently asked questions. These
answers cover a wide spectrum of information, and while there is a bit of
repetition, it's only because this portion is made in a way that the reader can
read only the answers to questions they're interested in without missing
anything when skipping portions. From this point forward, chapters explain
about spirits and ghosts - both the good and the bad - as well as how to
communicate with the good and protect oneself from the bad from preparations to
best practices and creating the best, most likely situations for success. These
chapters also go into details about methods for speaking with spirits alone or
in different forms of seance, acting as a medium, going on ghost hunts and all
sorts of other tasty tidbits of knowledge concerning spirits. As she gives
information, June frequently references articles and books by other authors,
as well as her own interesting experiences and even a YouTube video of one of
her own ghost hunts. The last chapter is a simple ESP quiz she's created - just
a handful of simple questions that will make you think about what you've seen and
felt, then guides you with your results a bit.
I can't suggest it to anyone who has closed their minds to the possibility of an afterlife or being able to speak with the dead, but anyone the least bit curious or interested in the topic should give the book a read.
The book
definitely deserves 4 out of 4 stars.
