Visitors to Market Square Park can pause on their stroll through the downtown centerpiece for a palpable experience of its past. Houston's first four city halls laid their foundations here, and relics of the square's heritage remain embedded in the sidewalks of the park. Chalk up a chance sneeze on Milam Street to the final ghostly gasp of dust from Robert Boyce's sawpits. Step from Congress Street into La Carafe, Houston's oldest commercial building, for the kind of atmosphere that even deceased bartenders are reluctant to leave. From the phantom tailors above Treebeard's to the forgotten mysteries of the town's founding, Sandra Lord and Debe Branning resurrect the history humming through the four blocks surrounding Market Square Park.

No writer of Texas lore is better known than Frank X. Tolbert. He wrote of the Texas that he loved and shared enough for us to feel the same way.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "Son, we’re going to Hell." The navigator of the USS Houston confided these prophetic words to a young officer as he and his captain charted a course into U.S. naval legend. Renowned as FDR’s favorite warship, the cruiser USS Houston was a prize target trapped in the far Pacific after Pearl Harbor. Without hope of reinforcement, her crew faced a superior Japanese force ruthlessly committed to total conquest. It wasn’t a fair fight, but the men of the Houston would wage it to the death. Hornfischer brings to life the awesome terror of nighttime naval battles that turned decks into strobe-lit slaughterhouses, the deadly rain of fire from Japanese bombers, and the almost superhuman effort of the crew as they miraculously escaped disaster again and again–until their luck ran out during a daring action in Sunda Strait. There, hopelessly outnumbered, the Houston was finally sunk and its survivors taken prisoner. For more than three years their fate would be a mystery to families waiting at home. In the brutal privation of jungle POW camps dubiously immortalized in such films as The Bridge on the River Kwai, the war continued for the men of the Houston—a life-and-death struggle to survive forced labor, starvation, disease, and psychological torture. Here is the gritty, unvarnished story of the infamous Burma–Thailand Death Railway glamorized by Hollywood, but which in reality mercilessly reduced men to little more than animals, who fought back against their dehumanization with dignity, ingenuity, sabotage, will–power—and the undying faith that their country would prevail. Using journals and letters, rare historical documents, including testimony from postwar Japanese war crimes tribunals, and the eyewitness accounts of Houston’s survivors, James Hornfischer has crafted an account of human valor so riveting and awe-inspiring, it’s easy to forget that every single word is true. BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from James D. Hornfischer's Neptune's Inferno.

In this ghostly guide to the haunts of East Texas, you’ll find many strange tales... • The spirit of a young bride who etched her name in her bedroom window glass on her wedding day many years ago, and continues to visit that room to this day... • An old, creaking staircase where phantoms from a time long ago wander up and down during the wee hours of the night... • An Indian brave in full battle regalia who is said to appear at the site of a terrible East Texas massacre... You'll read about these spirits and many, many more – all from the Pineywoods region of the Lone Star State.

The author of Georgia’s Civil War ghost books proves that the Peach State’s phantoms come in many forms. Every portion of central Georgia is thoroughly haunted. Tobe, the ghost of Orna Villa in Oxford, had an appetite for biscuits. Angry spirits near Augusta drove a family from a beautiful old home. Paranormal entities in a home cobbled together from three old houses created a tapestry of supernatural events. People still seek advice from a fortuneteller dead half a century, and a long-deceased girl hitches a ride home on the same night each year. Author Jim Miles presents a ghost story from each of the fifty-one counties in this historic region. “Every county in Georgia has at least one ghost story, and author Jim Miles has gathered them into three books. . . . Miles traveled to all 159 counties, as well as two counties that ‘went extinct’ during the Great Depression. The completion of the books was a 10-year project for Miles . . . The stories span all of Georgia history, from one with its origins 2,000 years ago to the latest in ‘scientific ghost hunting.’” —Gainesville Times

"The indefatigable T. Lindsay Baker has now turned his enormous mental and physical energies to the subject and has brought to view - if not to life -eighty-six Texas ghost towns for the reader's pleasure. Baker lists three criteria for inclusion: tangible remains, public access, and statewide coverage. In each case Baker comments about the town's founding, its former significance, and the reasons for its decline. There are maps and instructions for reaching each site and numerous photographs showing the past and present status of each. The contemporary photos were taken, in most instances, by Baker himself, who proves as adept a photographer as he is researcher and writer....Baker has done his work thoroughly and well, within limits imposed by necessity. He obviously had fun in the process and it shows in his prose."---New Mexico Historical Review

From goat men to witch ladies and spooky little girls, dive into the haunted history of Plano, Texas. Plano's old homes and businesses are rife with haunted history. Explore eerie urban legends like the Goat Man, the Clown Threat, and Ranch 111, where devil worshipers performed their rituals. The Evaporating Apparition spooked the staff at the Art Centre Theatre, while the grumpy spirit of an old rancher stalks the Masonic Lodge. Some specters are harmless, such as the Giggling Ghost, a little girl in the Cox Building with a penchant for peanut butter and pranks. Other figures own a more sinister reputation. The Witch Lady of Plano was feared by city youth and monitored by the FBI. Mary Jacobs examines the ghostly fallout of Plano's darkest moments, from the smallpox epidemic to the gruesome Muncey family murders.