Program 732: Vampires of Eastern Europe; Supernatural Ireland; Haunted Europe

At a time of year when, according to some cultures, the worlds of the living and the dead come a little closer together, a historian joins us to explain how vampire stories arose from eastern European legends of the "un-dead." Then Irish writer Fintan O'Toole describes the role of the supernatural in Celtic traditions and in more recent Irish literature. And listeners describe eerie encounters they've experienced while traveling in Europe.

• Jacob Mikanowski, author of "Goodbye Eastern Europe: An Intimate History of a Divided Land" (Pantheon)
• Irish journalist Fintan O'Toole, author of "We Don't Know Ourselves" (Liveright)

• Jacob Mikanowski is the author of "Goodbye Eastern Europe."
• Fintan O'Toole has been called "Ireland's leading public intellectual" by his colleagues at the Irish Times. He teaches at Princeton University in New Jersey as a visiting lecturer in Irish Letters.
• Fintan is the author of "A History of Ireland in 100 Objects," and his latest title is "We Don't Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland."
• Caller Ann from Illinois e-mailed us one of the photos she took in Prague, where the unexplained images she mentions appeared. The first version is the photo, as she took it.
  In the second version, Ann outlines what she sees as two "ghost" images in it. She notes, "see a faint face on the one on the right." In the third version, Ann zooms in on the image.
• Rick offers a tour and map of Pere Lachaise Cemetery in his Paris audio tours.