I Heard It Through the Grapevine: Rumor in African-American Culture
This book divides into two basic parts. In Chapters 1 and 2 I discuss historical examples of “rumor” discourse and suggest whey many blacks have–for good reason–channeled beliefs about race relations into familiar formulae, ones developed as early as the time of the first contact between sub-Saharan Africans and European white. Then in Chapters 3-7 it explores the …
Urban Legend (ur/ben lej/end) n. a fictional story, circulated by word-of-mouth, that is perpetuated by the continual assertion of truth. All the rumors that have passed through office e-mail networks, the fantastic stories that have “happened to a friend” and the horrifying tales told around campfires are gathered here for the first time in one fascinating, …
Anyone who has ever filled in a form in triplicate, taken an aptitude test, or been rebuffed by a form letter will appreciate the urban folklore found in this collection. Urban people as a folk are bound together by their unhappy experiences in battling “the system,” whether that system is the machinery of government or the office where …
The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends and Their Meanings
The book that launched America’s urban legend obsession!The Vanishing Hitchhiker was Professor Brunvand’s first popular book on urban legends, and it remains a classic. The culmination of twenty years of collection and research, this book is a must-have for urban legend …
Journey across the State of Michigan, rich in history, to read over 40 tales of the strange, the unusual, and the haunted of centuries past. Discover the spectral cries of the lost souls under a bridge, spirits who haunt a Westland school, the beloved Civil War horse whose spirit lives on, a wrongly accused town witch, UFOs that …
WINNER of the 2013 Katharine Briggs Award This book uses the nineteenth-century legend of Spring-Heeled Jack to analyse and challenge current notions of Victorian popular cultures. Starting as oral rumours, this supposedly supernatural entity moved from rural folklore to metropolitan press sensation, co-existing in literary and theatrical forms before finally degenerating into a nursery lore bogeyman to frighten …
An anthology of the most chilling urban legends of all time collected by the maestro himself. Urban legends are those strange, but seemingly credible tales that always happen to a friend of a friend. For the first time, Professor Jan Harold Brunvand, “who has achieved almost legendary status” (Choice), has collected the creepiest, most terrifying urban legends, many …
It’s a tough job separating truth from urban legend, but the MythBusters are here to serve. For example, is it true that if you step in quicksand , you’ll be sucked down to your death? Only two men would be inventive – and adventurous – enough to try to find out: Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, the MythBusters. …
Jim Marrs can justifiably be considered the world’s leading conspiracy author, with multimillion bestsellers like Alien Agenda, Rule by Secrecy, and the book that Oliver Stone used as a basis for his JFK movie, Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy.Now Marrs has allied with the web’s most popular conspiracy forum to investigate everything from chemtrails to the Nazis’ …
The definitive word on the subject from the dean of urban legend studies. We all know those stories that are too bizarre to be true―roasted babies, vanishing hitchhikers, scuba divers in trees―but have you heard about the ice man or the bullet baby? This comprehensive and compellingly readable reference work will answer all your urban legend questions, offering …