I really enjoyed the collection of stories put together by Brad Steiger in Real Ghosts, Restless Spirits & Haunted Places. Some critics claim a large share of the stories here were pulled from various Internet sites -- but what is wrong with that? The Internet is chock full of garbage, and Steiger has helped to distill those stories into a compilation of the best.

This is a rather large volume, so I appreciated that it is divided into many small, stand-alone chapters. This made for a very easy read with convenient stopping-off places.

My favorite chapter was the one about "Haunted Hotels, Motels & Inns," but I was a little disappointed to see that my favorite haunted hotel, The Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs, Ark., did not make the book. (The Crescent was the subject of the television show Ghost Hunters. I stayed in the Crescent before the TAPS team investigated and will swear on a stack of Bibles that the place is haunted. If you really want to experience the paranormal, spend a night on the third floor of the Crescent. Don't say I did not warn you.)

Some of the pictures included in this volume are very hokey, and you can certainly find them in other books and websites. In addition, I personally rule out any picture that purports to contain orbs (dust and insects) or ectoplasm (fake). With that said, some pictures are interesting and disturbing.

Sadly, there is a high number of typos in the book, which disturbs the flow of the reading.