HALLOWEEN-A HOLIDAY FILLED WITH FUN

Pagan Ritual to Party Night" by Nicholas Rogers, published by Oxford University Press, is history at its best. This compelling book draws on ancient and modern sources to show how this holiday evolved, and finally reached North America. Rogers is a professor of history at York University, and he draws on his extensive research to reveal how the Hollywood horror film industry and other factors have made this a major holiday.

"Death Makes a Holiday-A Cultural History of Halloween" by David J. Skal was published by Bloomsbury. Skal uses a marvelous mixture of anecdote and analysis to get at the root of the Halloween phenomena. He explains bobbing for apples, and tells how nuts and apples came to be associated with this event. He quotes extensively from literature with applicable poetry from Robert Burns, John Gay, and others. He shows that the stories of razor blades in apples and laxatives in candy are urban legends. Skal has written numerous other books, including "Hollywood Gothic."

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