Mini Review--Atlas of Cursed Places by Olivier Carrer

 

Oliver Le Carrer brings us a fascinating history and armchair journey to the world's most dangerous and frightful places, complete with vintage maps and period illustrations in a handsome volume.

This alluring read includes 40 locations that are rife with disaster, chaos, paranormal activity, and death. The locations gathered here include the dangerous Strait of Messina, home of the mythical sea monsters Scylla and Charybdis; the coal town of Jharia, where the ground burns constantly with fire; Kasanka National Park in Zambia, where 8 million migrating bats darken the skies; the Nevada Triangle in the Sierra Nevada mountains, where hundreds of aircraft have disappeared; and Aokigahara Forest near Mount Fuji in Japan, the world's second most popular suicide location following the Golden Gate Bridge. 

 

 

 

 

How or when I came across this book is unknown, but I remember when I saw Atlas of Cursed Places by Olivier Le Carrer, I was intrigued! It's an atlas of select places around the world that are haunted or cursed and being a fan of haunted history, I was eager to learn about other places.

Granted, there was  LOT of places in this book that I never even heard of! Though there was the Bermuda Triangle mentioned in one chapter, which I of course heard of. Though the debunking of some of the disappearances was a bit of a letdown. I mean I was all for believing something truly bizarre happened and didn't need a plausible explanation to the disappearance itself.

The US locations were of interest as some were familiar, yet others were new. Like the Nevada Triangle, which is a smaller US version of the Bermuda one! Then of course there was Amity House, and The Forbidden Cemetery in Stull, Kansas which had me wondering if this was the location in the second season finale of Supernatural! It was near Lawrence, so it's very likely it was, though they might have named it something else.

Again, since this was another "odd" book that basically detailed a short history on certain locations in the world, there's not much I can really sum up. As I said, there was a TON of places in this book that I had never heard of. Within the US one, I knew maybe half of them, if that, so yeah, this book was a well of new knowledge for me. 

While it was enjoyable in some respect, I think the fact that everything was so new to me, it made it hard to follow the historical threads that were being linked to the place. I'm not much of a history buff, and what little I can recall was usually haunted history related! Lol. But yeah, this was still a rather fun and intriguing read!

Overall Rating 3.5/5 stars