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Strange: The Stories of the Mysterious and Bizarre
Did werewolves roam the countryside of 15th century France? What exactly is El Chupacabra, a creature who's name translates to "The Goat Sucker" in English? What phantoms and apparitions drift the halls of Borley Rectory, earning it the nickname, "The Most Haunted House in England"? Featuring maps, callouts and facts that locate these mysterious happenings, Strange is a groundbreaking book and the first of its kind. It explores some of the world's most famous occult phenomena and unnatural wonders.
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
40 people are currently reading
111 people want to read
About the author
Colin Wilson
403 books1,290 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
Colin Henry Wilson was born and raised in Leicester, England, U.K. He left school at 16, worked in factories and various occupations, and read in his spare time. When Wilson was 24, Gollancz published The Outsider (1956) which examines the role of the social 'outsider' in seminal works of various key literary and cultural figures. These include Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Ernest Hemingway, Hermann Hesse, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, William James, T. E. Lawrence, Vaslav Nijinsky and Vincent Van Gogh and Wilson discusses his perception of Social alienation in their work. The book was a best seller and helped popularize existentialism in Britain. Critical praise though, was short-lived and Wilson was soon widely criticized.
Wilson's works after The Outsider focused on positive aspects of human psychology, such as peak experiences and the narrowness of consciousness. He admired the humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow and corresponded with him. Wilson wrote The War Against Sleep: The Philosophy of Gurdjieff on the life, work and philosophy of G. I. Gurdjieff and an accessible introduction to the Greek-Armenian mystic in 1980. He argues throughout his work that the existentialist focus on defeat or nausea is only a partial representation of reality and that there is no particular reason for accepting it. Wilson views normal, everyday consciousness buffeted by the moment, as "blinkered" and argues that it should not be accepted as showing us the truth about reality. This blinkering has some evolutionary advantages in that it stops us from being completely immersed in wonder, or in the huge stream of events, and hence unable to act. However, to live properly we need to access more than this everyday consciousness. Wilson believes that our peak experiences of joy and meaningfulness are as real as our experiences of angst and, since we are more fully alive at these moments, they are more real. These experiences can be cultivated through concentration, paying attention, relaxation and certain types of work.
Colin Henry Wilson was born and raised in Leicester, England, U.K. He left school at 16, worked in factories and various occupations, and read in his spare time. When Wilson was 24, Gollancz published The Outsider (1956) which examines the role of the social 'outsider' in seminal works of various key literary and cultural figures. These include Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Ernest Hemingway, Hermann Hesse, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, William James, T. E. Lawrence, Vaslav Nijinsky and Vincent Van Gogh and Wilson discusses his perception of Social alienation in their work. The book was a best seller and helped popularize existentialism in Britain. Critical praise though, was short-lived and Wilson was soon widely criticized.
Wilson's works after The Outsider focused on positive aspects of human psychology, such as peak experiences and the narrowness of consciousness. He admired the humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow and corresponded with him. Wilson wrote The War Against Sleep: The Philosophy of Gurdjieff on the life, work and philosophy of G. I. Gurdjieff and an accessible introduction to the Greek-Armenian mystic in 1980. He argues throughout his work that the existentialist focus on defeat or nausea is only a partial representation of reality and that there is no particular reason for accepting it. Wilson views normal, everyday consciousness buffeted by the moment, as "blinkered" and argues that it should not be accepted as showing us the truth about reality. This blinkering has some evolutionary advantages in that it stops us from being completely immersed in wonder, or in the huge stream of events, and hence unable to act. However, to live properly we need to access more than this everyday consciousness. Wilson believes that our peak experiences of joy and meaningfulness are as real as our experiences of angst and, since we are more fully alive at these moments, they are more real. These experiences can be cultivated through concentration, paying attention, relaxation and certain types of work.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
April 16, 2019
When I was eleven or twelve, I had this book, Encyclopedia Horrifica: Terrifying Truth About Vampires, Ghosts, Monsters, and More, that I carried around everywhere. It was my bible. It is what I used to diagnose one of my classmates with lycanthropy. It's where i learned about aliens. It's where I learned about a million cool stores and stuff that I need to make it to before I die but haven't made it to yet.
Reading this gave me that same kind of feeling. It's got the same sort of setup, just with more words as it's geared toward adults rather than children, and the cover doesn't have one of those cool images where it looks different based on how it's situated in regards to your eyes, but it's the same feeling. So I had a lot of fun with it.
Reading this gave me that same kind of feeling. It's got the same sort of setup, just with more words as it's geared toward adults rather than children, and the cover doesn't have one of those cool images where it looks different based on how it's situated in regards to your eyes, but it's the same feeling. So I had a lot of fun with it.
October 12, 2020
Libro que me ha encantado y digno de estar en cualquier hogar si te gustan los misterios
June 17, 2019
If I'm being honest, this was a fun read to get into right before going to sleep. The book comprises of stories that range from 2-8 pages long so they were fairly quick to get through. There were nights when I wanted to read more than one story at a time, but I didn't want to be too creeped out.
What I appreciated is that the authors never flat out said that they believed in the weirdness that they were writing. What they did instead was compile a pile of 'facts' and then ask you the question - is this real? It was nice to not feel like I was being manipulated to believe in one set thing. I was allowed to come up with my own conclusions.
Stories ranged from Strange Places, to Strange People, to The Occult, and Strange stories that revolved around Ancient History. I liked how it was organized, but this came to be a slight negative by the end. Once you finish the last page, that's it... you're done. No Afterword or anything. It would have been nice to get some sort of ending kind of like the Preface that was given.
There were definitely stuff that I didn't know about which intrigued me enough to go and do a little more research to get a bigger perspective. For the things I already knew about, it was nice to get some tidbits that I hadn't known about. All in all, this was an interesting, yet average read.
What I appreciated is that the authors never flat out said that they believed in the weirdness that they were writing. What they did instead was compile a pile of 'facts' and then ask you the question - is this real? It was nice to not feel like I was being manipulated to believe in one set thing. I was allowed to come up with my own conclusions.
Stories ranged from Strange Places, to Strange People, to The Occult, and Strange stories that revolved around Ancient History. I liked how it was organized, but this came to be a slight negative by the end. Once you finish the last page, that's it... you're done. No Afterword or anything. It would have been nice to get some sort of ending kind of like the Preface that was given.
There were definitely stuff that I didn't know about which intrigued me enough to go and do a little more research to get a bigger perspective. For the things I already knew about, it was nice to get some tidbits that I hadn't known about. All in all, this was an interesting, yet average read.
September 25, 2023
I read this one wondering how much of it was written by Colin Wilson and how much of it was written by his son Damon. I think it's heavily skewed in favour of the latter, but there are numerous references to the likes of Jung which leads me to believe that Wilson senior had a hand in it too. In any case, it's a surprisingly engaging work that takes a brief look at various randomly-selected mysteries throughout history. Some of the subjects are hackneyed, age-old and generic, like vampire and werewolves, but others are more promising; I particularly enjoyed reading about accounts of the Oak Island Money Pit, the Roanoke mystery, the Marie Celeste, and that sort of thing. Plenty of illustrations help to make this one a breezy read too.
November 8, 2019
I was tempted to abandon my rule that any book I finish deserves three stars, but the authors’ fawning incredulity delivered so many barely stifled laughs that it wouldn’t be fair to ignore the entertainment value of bypassing the obvious inference of mass peasant hysteria in favor of routine demon hijinks.
Beyond the chuckles, the book may also function as a starting point for more legitimate reading of history’s most intriguing tales, nature’s wonder and inexplicable mayhem.
The last section on monsters, werewolves, vampires, fairies and poltergeists: belly laughs 😂😂😂
Free advice: if you’re curious about Colin Wilson’s work, read ‘The Outsider’ instead.
Beyond the chuckles, the book may also function as a starting point for more legitimate reading of history’s most intriguing tales, nature’s wonder and inexplicable mayhem.
The last section on monsters, werewolves, vampires, fairies and poltergeists: belly laughs 😂😂😂
Free advice: if you’re curious about Colin Wilson’s work, read ‘The Outsider’ instead.
August 25, 2017
Lots of weird stuff here. I saw some of the stories I assumed I would, but was delighted by the stories I'd never heard of.
December 21, 2022
I read this as an ebook, I think it would have been better to read the hardcopy but still a fun book
September 16, 2016
This was a fascinating book to read. Some of the interesting cases he included were Jack the Ripper, the Curse of King Tut’s Tomb, UFO Abductions and Sightings, Witchcraft, Vampires, Zombies, and Werewolves, etc. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.
April 10, 2016
Great fun
The book is about all the regular and long known stories and legends.Not a reference book but a fun read
The book is about all the regular and long known stories and legends.Not a reference book but a fun read
July 1, 2016
I've read a lot of books like this but this one brought up things I have never heard of. If you like reading about strange stuff don't skip this book.
November 22, 2017
This volume feels like a hasty scavenging from other works. Good for an introduction, I suppose, for those unfamiliar with the topics. However it was confused at times. For example a graphic says revealed as hoax but the text does not. What the what? I noticed Henry VIII in index on two pages but appears on only one of these. The result at times is a little incoherent.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews