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The Best Ghost Stories Ever Told cover art

The Best Ghost Stories Ever Told

Written by: Stephen Brennan - editor
Narrated by: J. M. Badger,Imelda Pot
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Publisher's Summary

A big, brilliant, spooky collection of classic and contemporary ghost stories that will make you hesitate before turning off that light.

©2011 Stephen Vincent Brennan (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

What listeners say about The Best Ghost Stories Ever Told

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    4 out of 5 stars

Excellent book if you like ghost stories

#Audible1
This is an amazing book with lots of twists and different stories along with it. Love the Narrator of this book, makes it more intrigue to listen to more.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Fabulous Curating Job.. Subpar Performance

The selection of 'Ghost Narratives' in this compendium is impressive. Stephen Brennan collected short works from literary giants on the theme from England, The United States, France, and elsewhere to present an enjoyable foray into horror fiction. None of the stories are particularly chilling ("Best" is questionable); the topics explored are sometimes more 'Paranormal' than 'Postmortem' ("Ghost Stories" is debatable); and all of the included tales are from the nineteenth century ("Ever" is just nonsense).. but the collection contains stories to cater to any taste (Corollary: some of these stories you will personally find boring). Even if 'The Best Ghost Stories Ever Told' would be better titled "Passable Spooky Public Domain Tales".. it's worth a listen.

Unfortunately, the readers - J.M. Badger and (less strikingly) Imelda Pot - turn in below-average performances: noticeably "acting" rather than organically narrating the stories. For the most part, they read clearly and professionally, but take the listener out of the experience with poor accents and trying too hard (it's difficult to get lost in a story when you're constantly being reminded that someone is quite clearly reading to you).
Despite a handful of the 42 presentations being of the highest quality, there are - to be honest - better performances of many of these stories (in reading AND sound quality) on Librivox.

It's a good thing this collection was offered for Free with the 'Plus' program, because it only merits 4.5 stars out of 10 (points added for great variety). As presented, it's worth a download, but I wouldn't spend a Credit on it.

TO THE PRODUCERS: A Navigable Menu would be invaluable - Please include story titles with chapter headings.

Meanwhile, this link lists the Table Of Contents:
https://books.google.ca/books?id=Q-AtIoeCusIC&pg=PR5&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false

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Horrible

I listened to the first story that was just ok, the second story is just monotonous and just not intriguing at all. There is no pull to keep you wanting to keep listening .

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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terrible stories

I had to stop 6 or 7 chapters. it's just long and monotonous. I was hoping for actual ghost stories

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  • Michael Mayer
  • 2015-08-05

A very mixed review

Because this is a collection of stories that were written by different authors and read by different narrators, I found that I either truly enjoyed or truly hated each story. There was very little middle ground.

In the second half of the book, I gave each story no more than 10 minutes. If I liked it by that point, I listened to the rest. If it did not capture my attention by then, I jumped to the next story.

This made the second half much more pleasant than the first.

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41 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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  • Donnie
  • 2020-10-27

J. M. Badger was excellent! Be aware NO TOC!

I haven't listen to all the stories here but I have enjoyed the ones so far.

J. M. Badger does a fantastic job narrating and I could listen to him all day (sadly, a quick check on Audible shows this is the only book of ghost stories he's done). I did not really care for Imelda Pot and after listening to part of one story narrated by her, I skipped the rest of the stories she narrated. Nothing personal, but I guess for a ghost story I think a male voice is better (or perhaps the voice of an old woman, like a grandmother telling old, old stories). Imelda just sounds like an annoyed woman and I did not care to listen to her.

Frustratingly, a table of contents is not included - not embedded in the book (everything is just Chapter 1, Chapter 2, etc.) nor even on the book description page. The only way to view the table of contents is to go to Amazon and preview the Kindle book, and see them that way. That's really frustrating and I don't know why Audible doesn't fix this.

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19 people found this helpful

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    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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  • Kelly Garland
  • 2021-08-19

Listening is torture

This reader attempting any accent is not to be borne. Likewise, his simply reading in his own (Am Eng) accent is merely a degree better. I did not make it to the end of any of the first 6 stories.
Because this book is free thru Audible Plus, I do recommend attempting Chapt 4, Green Tea, just to hear his excruciating *German* accent.
I cannot tell you if any one of these ghost stories is scary, only that they each and every one were murdered by this narrator

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7 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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  • JanetFi
  • 2021-05-06

Slightly offensive in parts, not exciting

Might want to avoid if you're a POC, woman, or non-binary. Kinda offensive. The endings fizzled out.

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6 people found this helpful

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  • Jdmccarthy
  • 2018-07-30

Anthology of less thans....

Only a few good ghost stories...some others which really aren't ghost stories at all...and some of which just ramble on and on and then just abruptly end....

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3 people found this helpful

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  • Americana
  • 2016-03-09

Same ol', same ol'...

If you've heard one, you've heard 'em all...great classics that have been told a few too many times, already.

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    3 out of 5 stars
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  • RSparks
  • 2021-07-05

Not as Scary as it could be

The actors hired to read must think they are on stage rather than reading a ghost story because they project/yell most of the stories WITHOUT a horror nuance coloring their voices.

If you are like me and like reading/listening to audiobooks before bed, skip this one. It will only keep you awake and make you angry.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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  • CaitLynn SouthersWallace
  • 2021-04-09

amazing!

if you're a fan of turn of the century writing and ghost stories this is for you! I'll be it there are a couple stories I was banking on being in this collection I was expecting that didn't come up but im still really impressed with the array of authors, subjects, and humor!

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    3 out of 5 stars
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  • Kindle Customer
  • 2021-03-21

I don't care for a fake British accent

The selection of stories is very good, the readers are not. (your mileage may vary.)

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  • kikiwoods
  • 2021-09-25

Irritating

I guess these are all old stories? First one I remember from slumber parties. I gave a try to each one after and I kept skipping to the next story hoping to find one interesting. Didn't happen.

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