A great basic collection of all the "canonical" urban legends, by the man who created - or at least publicized - the modern concept of the urban legend. While pretty much everything here is up on the website (or in his other books), it's still worth getting if you prefer having a paper copy.

Though it would have been a very different book if written a few years later: while it does post-date many of the changes in the *dispersion* of urban legends that the Internet and other modern information technology has created, and effectively discusses those changes, it is not quite up to the mark in the changes in *research* that have occurred - there are quite a few legends in here, for example, that he concludes are purely apocryphal, that a simple google search will now bring up primary audiovisual sources for.

Interesting read. However, the one story in there about the newlyweds is not an urban legend. It is true true true! I even found the clip on YouTube. ( )

Once again, great collection of stories but the author does a lot of back-patting and self-promotion in referring to his other books. ( )