Friday, June 15, 2012

Book Review: Haunted Air by Ossian Brown


I have been coveting Haunted Air for quite some time, but was never able to purchase it since it kept selling out and/or was too expensive. Well, I finally got my grubby little paws on it once it was back in stock on Amazon...and I'm glad I did, since it is on the verge of selling out again!

This creepy book is a collection of old Halloween photographs from circa 1875 - 1955, courtesy of Ossian Brown (artist, musician, composer). Each of the 200+ pages contains just one eerie black and white photograph showing people in handmade masks/costumes, wrapped in long shrouds, draped in Halloween finery, often among the company of grinning jack-o-lanterns or vintage Halloween decorations. The vintage Halloween photographs are both spooky and nostalgic. They succeed in evoking both the giddy happiness as well as the delicious frights of the season.

The indescribable photos are reason enough to drool over this book, but on top of the fantastically freaky photos Haunted Air also includes a short but sweet intro by the master of weird himself, David Lynch, as well as a hauntingly beautiful passage on Halloween by author Geoff Cox and a historical note on Halloween by Ossian Brown.

I spent a good half-hour just flipping through the book and was completely enthralled by the photos...I know I'll be looking through it again soon to take a closer look at the photographs and the subjects portrayed. I love imagining who these people were, what Halloween meant to them and just how in the world they came up with or made their costumes!

This is the perfect coffee table book for any Halloween hound (or for those that just want to freak their friends out). It is handsomely bound in soft black canvas and the pages within are thick and glossy. This is one book that will definitely be adorning my coffee table for months to come and will undoubtedly get me inspired to start planning this year's All Hallow's Eve festivities!

Buy it on Amazon!

1 comment:

  1. I adore everything about Halloween and love the old photographs with the cheap/homemade costumes. Something about them is so . . . wrong, but right at the same time.

    I'll have to look for this book (and avoid rhyming in the future).

    ReplyDelete

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