Review: Atlas of Paranormal Places marks all the haunts you need to explore

There comes a time when your knowledge of the paranormal in a given region starts to overflow its glass and you look elsewhere for something new to drink in.

I find myself in this state of perpetual thirst. That’s not to say I know everything about Canada. Far from it. But my keenness for what the rest of the world experiences out-salivates what we have here in the Great White North.

One book that recently caught my attention, with its unassuming purple cover and gold foil relief lines, was Evelyn Hollow’s Atlas of Paranormal Places: A Journey to the World’s Most Supernatural Places.

It quickly made my Christmas list. My wife and kids spotted it in our local bookshop and it sat under the tree until I opened it for Christmas 2024.

Atlases hold a special spot in my heart, like an elevation marker on a map. When I was eight, I was given an atlas by my aunt and uncle and I pored over it for hours, reading about human geography, trade, rocks and minerals, and marvelling at the world’s features.

I even picked one of the most obscure places an eight-year-old could find — N’Djamena, Chad — and wrote a story about an anthropomorphic cat named Ramcat who survived the hot sun and delivered justice to baddies. It was the 1980s, after all, and there was a toy line called Rambo: Force of Freedom. Clearly, I was exploring the depths of my imagination.

But that’s neither here nor there. It does show how much atlases shaped me growing up and explains my draw to Hollow’s Atlas of the Paranormal.

Hollow is a paranormal psychologist and TV host known for her work on the BBC shows Uncanny and The Battersea Poltergeist, which explains why Danny Robins, creator of Uncanny, wrote the foreword.

The Atlas of the Paranormal doesn’t dive overly deep. It dips a toe into the Twilight Zone of the supernatural ocean, but it’s enough to whet one’s appetite.

When I flipped to the contents page and saw most of the world represented with 38 landmarks in six chapters, I was immediately drawn in. There’s something for everyone.

The chapters cover haunted places, witchcraft, sacred sites, myths, strange nature and cryptids.

I’ve had the chance to visit Christ Church Parish Church in Barbados, where the infamous Chase Vault sits, so seeing it explained in a book published in the U.K. and sold in Canada was a bit spiriting. Add to that Čachtice Castle, Poveglia Island, Bhangarh Fort, the Hanging Coffins of Sagada, Aokigahara Forest, Skinwalker Ranch and Pendle Hill, to name a few.

One entry even prompted me to ask — rather awkwardly — my Bolivian-Canadian colleague about the practice of llama fetii being buried in the foundations of buildings. He chuckled at my candidness and said he’d have to ask his dad about it.

Each entry comes with coordinates, a description, a clean localized map by cartographer Martin Brown, and vivid photos from providers like Alamy, Getty and Shutterstock.

Each also comes with asides. I appreciated Hollow’s sardonicism in the sections dedicated to witchcraft, a not-so-subtle finger wag at our misogynistic history and the mistreatment of women. See Pendle Hill.

It’s truly an insightful collection of modern-day portolan charts, marking the parts of the world steeped in lurid details that flood our imaginations.

I would’ve loved a quire or two dedicated to a Canadian haunt or strange place — maybe the Frank Slide — but we’re so tight-lipped as a nation that we fail to stay afloat in the supernatural world. Canadians must live by the old saw, “Loose lips sink ships.”

Regardless, my suggestion is to pick this volume up for that family member or friend who has read all they can about Canada, the U.K. and the U.S., and give it to them this Christmas. It’s a refreshing thirst quencher.