Hello and welcome back to the Most Amazing Channel on the Internet. I am your host Rebecca
Felgate and today, by popular demand, I am bringing you the Top 10 Cursed books part
2. *what is the scariest book you have ever read?
I just listened to Salam’s lot on audiobook by Stephen King.
Comments section down below. Like & Share. 10 - Real life Death Notes
Death Note is a Japanese Manga series written by Tsugumi Ohba. The story is about a high
school student who comes across a mysterious note book, the death note. He soon finds that
he can use the notebook to kill people, by simply writing their names down. The series
was actually adapted into an American movie – its on Netflix. Anyway, a LOT of teenagers
have been inspired by the Manga series and the film and have started their own Death
Note books in real life. There have been countless incidents, for example in 2007 Pingtung County
in Taiwan saw a string of Death Note inspired issues. In 2015, a middle school student in
Pennsylvania was suspended for making his own Death Note book and writing the names
of 15 students in it. Some people say the story of Death Note stems back to some truth,
too, with legends circulating that in ancient Chinese civilisation, the yellow emperor had
a notebook of death.
I actually have to thank one of our subscribers for bringing this book to my attention – I
was reading the comments on the top 10 cursed books part one and one of our subscribers
highlighted this to me – thanks Kim Jana for the recommendations.
9 - The Book of the Sun of Gnosis This is a 13th Century Grimorie containing
Arabic magic spells and provides guidance for the afterlife. The book is all about demons
and jins and evil beings and despite being a highly influential text in the Arab and
Muslim worlds, it has long been banned in a lot of Islamic cultures for its subject
matter. The book allows the reader to communicate with spirits but that doesn’t always mean
good spirits….
8- The Cursed Babylonian Tablets Babylon was said to be an ancient city in
what is present day Iraq. The Babylonian Era ran from 1895 BCE to around 7 BCE, so hundreds
of years. Back in those days, books weren’t really a thing. Instead, people read from
inscriptions on tablets – so rocks, or stones. These tablets were often known to carry a
curse. A Babylonian king placed a curse on a set of clay tablets back in the 7th century
B.C.E – having his text inscribed with: Whosoever shall carry off this tablet, or
shall inscribe hisname on it, side by side with mine own, may Ashur and Belit overthrow
him in wrath and anger, and may they destroy his name and posterity in the land. It turns
out that actually, these tablet curses were pretty common. Because reading material was
hard to find, ancient people often tried to safeguard their property by claiming it was
cursed… basically…it was the ye olde way of making sure little twerps didn’t steal
your things.
7 The Babadook Book There was a time when the book from the 2014
Australian Horror movie, The Babadook, was fiction. The book in the movie is cursed and
or haunted as it is constantly delivered to Amelia and Oskar’s home. In the movie, the
book depicts the horrifying events that are about to befall the family in a creepy pop
up style. Now, movie lovers have gone one step further and demanded the illustrator
turn the fictional book into a reality. That’s right, you can buy the haunted book for yourself.
Following a successful crown funding campaign, Insight Editions was chosen to create a limited
run of 6,000 books. I think its a cool idea but I am not sure if I would want that in
my home!! If it’s in a word or its in a look, you can’t get rid of the babadook.
6 - Portrait of a Marriage – Curiosity Incorporated I was trying to do some research into lesser
known haunted books because I guess only the bigger stuff makes headlines – there MUST
be just like… you know… average ghosts haunting average books out there… and it
turns out I was write! I found a video by small up and coming youtuber curiosity Incorporated
and he is an antiques trader. He made a video called “Saga if the haunted book, who knew
books could be so creepy” in which he talks about how he bought a bunch of old books off
a dealer and as she left, she basically turned round to him and said one of them was haunted
so watch out! Wow. The book is called Portrait of a Marriage by Vita Sackville-West and Harold
Nicolson. It seems the spirit had an attraction to the book. The antiques dealer said – I
certainly wouldn’t want to be the guy who got stuck haunting this book…. So far, he
hasn’t mentioned any further weird goings on.
Forget about one spooky book, all of the books in this Library are plagued by a pesky spirit
- 5 - Leeds Library Ghost
Leeds, Yorkshire, England. One of my favourite places. Yorkshire is steeped in ancient history
so you’ll regularly hear ghost stories coming from this area of the UK. The Leeds library
dates back to 1768, so is older than the USA! The ghost haunting the premises is said to
be the first ever librarian of the building – Vincent Sternberg. In 1844, the new Librarian,
James Macalister came face to face with the ghost of Sternberg as he worked late. The
ghost is said to linger most frequently around the old books and in 2012 researcher Jeremy
Dyson spent 12 hours in the library documenting the hauntings. He uploaded a really interesting
and revealing video to youtube that actually captures some of the ghostly goings on in
the building. Another investigator, Sean Reynolds, captured a ladder moving along a bookshelf
at the library.
4 - Necronomicon pop up Nightmare Book – featuring Cthulu.
Anyone who loves the Evil Dead franchise will know about the fictional Book of the Dead,
the Necronomicon. This book of the dead has actually long since mentioned in literature
– possibly first in 1924 in HP Lovecraft’s The Hound. Either way, Poposition Press have
taken it upon themselves to turn the Necronomicon into a truly terrifying pop up book. The book
has 5 pop up scenes including pull tabs and depict moments from the five original Evil
Dead stories - The Dunwich Horror, The Shadow Out of Time, The Call of Cthulhu, At The Mountains
of Madness and The Colour Out of Space. They may not actually be cursed like the source
material…. But I have to say the images will haunt my nightmares forever.
Muggles Beware at number 3 this Grimoire will get you.
In 2013 two hand written spiral bound spell books, or Grimoire’s, sold for 13 thousand,
865 dollars in Toronto via AbeBooks.com. A Grimoire is a witches spell book and in generally,
It is believed that the books must be burned after the death of the witch else they become
cursed. These Grimoire’s appear to have been written in the 1960s by a high priestess
of wicca called Adrastea Eirene, an American witch with English and Swedish ancestry. It
is not known whether or not the witch who wrote these books is alive or dead, but the
opening pages of both of the texts contained a warning that said: To those not of the craft
– the reading of this book is forbidden! Proceed no further or justice will exact a
swift and terrible retribution – and you will surely suffer at the hand of the craft….
So basically, no muggles allowed.
This depressing book led to a spate of suicides 2 The Sorrows of Young Werther
The sorrows of Young Werther is a best selling book written by a 25 year old – Wolfgang
Von Goethe. The book was published in Germany in 1774 and is a semi autobiographical tale
of a failed romance told via letters from a man named Werther to his friend Wilhelm.
When Werther finds out his love has married another man, he borrows two pistols and shoots
himself, although he botches it and it takes him a grueling 12 hours to die. The book led
to some of the first known examples of copycat suicides. Men would dress in the same clothing
as Goethe’s description of Werther and use a pistol to shoot themselves. Often the book
was found at the scene. After the books publication and the spate of copycat suicides, sociologists
began to suspect suicide may be culturally contagious.
At number one, this is the most interesting thing I learned today…… One author cursed
himself and everyone involved in its publication when he wrote this book because he is now
the target of a serious Iranian murder plot…. Salman Rushdie and the curse of The Satanic
Verses Salman Rushdie received a very very very intense
response from the muslim community for his fourth novel, the Satanic Verses. The book
In fact, the response was so intense that a Fatwa was ordered. For those of you that
don’t know what that is, it is basically a death order – the currently value of which
is thought to be 3 million dollars. Issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the former
supreme leader of Iran, Rushdie became the target of a Muslim murder order. It wasb;t
just him, either, the Iranian government demanded the death of the author AND “all those involved
in its publication.” While Rushdie wasn’t hit, Hotoshi Igarashi, the books Japanese
translator was stabbed to death in 1991. the Italian translator, Ettore Capriolo was also
stabbed in July 1991 but he survived. The Norwegian publisher, William Nygaard was shot
three times in 1993 but survived and it is thought the Fatawa was behind a deadly fire
at a hotel in Turkey in which 35 people died. Salaman Rushdie is still alive but he is still
under police protection as some Muslims still want to kill him. Fatwas can only be retracted
by the person that issued them, and Khomeini is dead.
So guys that was the top 10 cursed books you should never read part 2! I found this list
really interesting and I hope you did too. Comments from part 1
A lot of you told me that you are reading both the Catcher and the Rye and Fahrenheit
451! Hopefully you’ll stay sane – I’m just joking – with Fahrenheit it was just
one edition that caused all the issues, and with the Catcher and the Rye hopefully it
was just coincidence. DJI129 said: I’m reading Harry Potter and
the prisoner of akazaban? Good on you!
Imogen Cross said: I’m reading and writing my own book called two hearts one love?