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By Sharon Stockdale

"Age is something that doesn't matter, unless you are a cheese."
-- Billie Burke

Ghost stories are generally not my favorite, except for the old Topper movies. Remember them? Cary Grant and Constance Bennett were the fun-loving ghosts and Leo G. Carroll (and Roland Young) was the straight-as-an-arrow banker.

I was a regular viewer of the television series and saw the movies on DVD but I never knew there were books first. Thorne Smith wrote the first Topper book in 1926. In reading some reviews of his book, I concluded they were enjoyable, at least to those who reviewed them.

In fact, Smith is credited with creating "American ghost stories."

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