Haunted Toronto

by John Robert Colombo

Haunted Toronto is a book about the ghosts and spirits that haunt (or are said to haunt) houses and other places in Toronto.

Genres: Nonfiction, Canada, Paranormal

236 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1996

About the author

Also called “Canada’s Mr. Mystery”, Mr. Colombo lives in Toronto with his wife. In addition to writing and running a publishing company, Mr. Colombo has appeared on both television and radio.

Reviews

[Manybooks · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yes and sadly, my main, my very much frustrating and pretty much most reading joy destroying issue with John Robert Colombo's 1996 Haunted Toronto is not AT ALL that Colombo's extensive (and also kind of exhaustive) accounts and lists of reputedly "true" hauntings in and around the Metropolitan Toronto area (Ontario, Canada) are in any way overly creepy, are too violent, too frightening, are too emotionally intensive, but is instead that the ghost stories of Haunted Toronto have been (at least in my not so humble opinion) penned by Colombo in an absolutely ridiculously tedious, horribly dragging and thus totally not even remotely my reading interest retaining manner.

And indeed, after ploughing with ever increasing personal annoyance and boredom through over 230 pages of not thrills, chills and locating interesting bits of Canadian history, folklore and such, but for the most part encountering just yawn-inducting, utterly ridiculous information dropping and all rendered in a writing style that can only be described as sub-par at best and textually aggravating, I am so hugely annoyed and so massively frustrated that the only reason why my rating for Haunted Toronto is still two stars is that I do kind of appreciate (some of) the bibliographic information John Robert Colombo provides, but that regarding the collected ghost stories themselves and how they are shown and presented by Colombo, my rating for them is definitely and unfortunately just one star (and not to mention that Casa Loma is actually not considered to be haunted and neither are the University of Toronto's Hart House and Osgoode Hall, so why is John Robert Colombo prominently including and writing about them in Haunted Toronto).

Now some (also negative) reviewers of Haunted Toronto (which I read online but not on Goodreads) seem to consider that the textual tedium encountered therein comes mostly from the fact that much of Haunted Toronto (supposedly) comprises word-for-word reprints from John Robert Colombo's previously published books regarding Canadian based mysteries and ghost stories (such as for example Mysterious Canada and Mackenzie King's Ghost and Other Personal Accounts of Canadian Hauntings) and that Haunted Toronto therefore presents nothing new and is basically just rehashed. However, and even if the above might actually be true, since I have not read any other books penned by Colombo, I honestly do not consider the latter (the reprinting of previously published haunting and ghost details and accounts) to be the main culprit regarding I not at all enjoying Haunted Toronto, but that John Robert Colombo simply writes draggingly and uninterestingly and that I both totally stand by my low star rating for Haunted Toronto and would also not recommend Haunted Toronto for either young readers or for adults.

And just to say that I am also and of course now not all that keen on trying Colombo's other Canadian ghost story publications either, even though I do seem to have a goodly number of them on my Goodreads to-read list, but that yeah, after quickly and cursorily checking a number of John Robert Colombo's other books out on Open Library, no, they are generally not to my liking and that Colombo's generally writing style just does not really work for me at all and just makes me feel textually bored to proverbial tears.

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fascinating collection of all kinds of paranormal/supernatural stories in Toronto. As a Torontonian, I had particular interest in the stories of the locations I was familiar with but was curious about all the stories. It was also interesting to see the historical elements, like a TV séance, The Metrosaurus, The Mississauga Blob and likely the most famous of the local ghost stories with the UC ghost.

I really enjoyed reading this and learning more about the city. The entries ranged from curious to really scary, and although some locations no longer have reported activity there are many that are unsolved which can be scary in it of itself. Overall, a very engaging read.

Read for the Halloween Creature Feature Reading Extravaganza, for the dead/undead challenge.

[Monika · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having lived my whole life in  the GTA I'm familiar with some of these stories.

Others I haven't heard although I don't think a story that happened to someone once a long time ago and never again constitutes a ghost story so some of these I think should have been left out.

When I was about 3 or 4 my parents got a free piano from a church that was being torn down. In the following years we had visions, sudden smells, lighting issues, etc until my mom banished the "ghost". So I can relate to some these stories :)

Overall though there are some nice tidbits of Toronto's history. And I didn't know there was a police museum! I'll have to go check that out.