Book Summary and Reviews of 20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill

20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill

20th Century Ghosts

by Joe Hill

  • Critics' Consensus (3):
  • Readers' Rating (2):
  • Published:
  • Oct 2007, 336 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

Imogene is young and beautiful. She kisses like a movie star and knows everything about every film ever made. She's also dead and waiting in the Rosebud Theater for Alec Sheldon on an afternoon in 1945 . . . Arthur Roth is a lonely kid with big ideas and a gift for attracting abuse. It isn't easy to make friends when you're the only inflatable boy in town . . . Francis is unhappy. Francis was human once, but that was then. Now he's an eight-foot tall locust and everyone in Calliphora will tremble when they hear him sing . . . John Finney is locked in a basement that's stained with the blood of half a dozen other murdered children. In the cellar with him is an antique telephone, long since disconnected, but which rings at night with calls from the dead . . .The past isn't dead. It isn't even past . . .

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"This new edition of 20th Century Ghosts includes a previously unpublished story, and the collection should establish its author as a major player in 21st-century fantastic fiction." - Washington Post.

"[A]stounding. Though most of the stories have elements of horror, the overall mood of the collection is one of heartbreaking wonderment. Highly recommended for short story and horror fiction collections." - Library Journal.

"A collection of pleasantly creepy stories follows Hill's debut novel (Heart Shaped Box, 2007)." - Kirkus Reviews.

This information about 20th Century Ghosts was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Click here and be the first to review this book!

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Joe Hill Author Biography

Photo: J. Lassen

Joe Hill is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of novels (King Sorrow, The Fireman, NOS4A2, Horns, Heart-Shaped Box), fiction collections (Strange Weather, Full Throttle, 20th Century Ghosts), and a comic-book series (Locke & Key). Much of his work has been adapted for film and TV.

Link to Joe Hill's Website

Other books by Joe Hill at BookBrowse
  • Heart-Shaped Box jacket

5 more...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked 20th Century Ghosts, try these:

  • Hour of the Red God jacket

    Hour of the Red God

    by Richard Crompton

    Published 2014

    About this book

    The Maasai believe in two gods. Enkai Narok, the Black God, is benign. Enkai Nanyokie, the Red God, is the god of anger, vengeance, and death.

  • My First Coup d'Etat jacket

    My First Coup d'Etat

    by John Mahama

    Published 2013

    About this book

    My First Coup d'Etat chronicles the coming-of-age of John Dramani Mahama in Ghana during the dismal post-independence "lost decades" of Africa.

  • A Beautiful Place to Die jacket

    A Beautiful Place to Die

    by Malla Nunn

    Published 2009

    About this book

    A stunning and darkly romantic crime novel set in 1950s apartheid South Africa, featuring Detective Emmanuel Cooper -- a man caught up in a time and place where racial tensions and the raw hunger for power make life very dangerous indeed.

We have 5 read-alikes for 20th Century Ghosts, but non-members are limited to three results. Join free to see the complete list of recommendations.
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes

More Short Stories

Browse all Short Stories books

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
When No One Else Will
by Amanda Skenandore
1940s Chicago nurse risks everything at an illegal women’s clinic during a high-profile trial of courage and sisterhood.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket
    Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young
    by Zayd Ayers Dohrn
    Son of Weather Underground radicals recounts life on the run and decades of revolutionary struggle.
  • Book Jacket
    Look What You Made Me Do
    by John Lanchester
    A propulsive tale of intergenerational tension and revenge from the Booker Prize nominee.
  • Book Jacket
    The Jellyfish Problem
    by Tessa Yang
    A marine biologist rescues a Maine island menaced by a giant glowing jellyfish in this inventive debut.
Who Said...

Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Book
Trivia
  • Book Trivia

    Can you name the title?

    Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

Q S, S

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.