Name: Exhumed: An Evening with Aaron Mahnke
Start: 2026-08-19T19:00:00-05:00
End: 2026-08-19T20:30:00-05:00
Location: Anderson's Bookshop Naperville

If you have ever finished an episode of Lore and then made a point of turning on an extra light, this one is for you. On Wednesday, August 19, 2026 at 7 p.m., Aaron Mahnke comes to Anderson’s Bookshop at 123 W Jefferson Ave in downtown Naperville to talk about Exhumed: Unearthing the History of the American Vampire, his new book on the New England vampire panic of the 1890s.

Tickets are $35 and include a copy of the book. Pre-registration is required because space is limited, and this one is held inside the Naperville store itself rather than at an offsite venue, which means the room is smaller than the audience for a podcast with Mahnke’s reach. That is the whole appeal and also the reason not to wait on tickets.

The True Story Behind Exhumed

Exhumed came out on August 4, 2026, so it will have been on shelves about two weeks by the time Mahnke gets to Jefferson Avenue. It is the product of roughly a decade of research, and it is history rather than horror fiction, though the material does not need any help being unsettling.

The spine of the book is the New England vampire panic of the 1890s and, at its center, the exhumation of Mercy Brown in 1892. Mercy died of consumption at 19, as her mother and sister had before her. What her neighbors did next, and why intelligent people in nineteenth century America believed it would help, is the question Mahnke spends the book answering.

The wider story is about the collision of folklore and medicine at a moment when the two were not cleanly separated. Mahnke traces European folk belief crossing the Atlantic and then mutating in American soil, alongside the era’s real medical advances and its confident pseudoscience: methods of mummification, the strange social role of the executioner, and the long history of medicine made from corpses. It is a book about tuberculosis and grief as much as it is a book about vampires.

Why Aaron Mahnke Draws a Crowd

Mahnke is the creator and host of Lore, the award-winning podcast that helped define the entire genre of narrated folklore audio, and it has been adapted for television by Amazon Prime. His whole method is to take a piece of American strangeness, follow the documentary record back to where it started, and then explain what people actually believed and why.

That approach translates well to a bookstore stage, because the source material is inherently story-shaped. Anderson’s has not spelled out a signing or photo policy in its listing for this event, so treat your confirmation email as the authority on how the after-talk portion of the night will run.

What the $35 Ticket Includes

This is a straightforward single-tier event with no upgrade to think about:

A copy of Exhumed: Unearthing the History of the American Vampire, included in the price.
Admission to the talk at Anderson’s Bookshop Naperville on Wednesday, August 19, from 7 to 8:30 p.m.
Pre-registration is required. Space inside the store is limited, so there is no plan B at the door.
All ages, per the event listing, though the subject matter suits older teens and adults.

Who Should Go

The obvious audience is Lore listeners, and there are plenty of them in the western suburbs. The less obvious audience may enjoy it more: readers of narrative nonfiction and medical history, and local history buffs curious how the same anxieties played out in other American towns.

It also lands well on the calendar. An August talk about a vampire panic is the unofficial start of spooky season in Naperville, two months ahead of everyone else, in an air-conditioned bookstore instead of a corn maze.

Plan Your Wednesday Night Downtown

A midweek 7 p.m. start in downtown Naperville is very manageable if you leave a little margin for the walk from a garage.

Parking: the Van Buren Parking Facility at 43 W. Van Buren Ave. and the Central Parking Facility at 75 E. Chicago Ave. both put you within a few blocks of Jefferson. Posted downtown time limits run 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday, so an evening arrival is past them.
Dinner before the talk: Lou Malnati’s at 131 W Jefferson Ave is right next door to Anderson’s and open until 11 p.m. midweek. Quigley’s Irish Pub at 43 E Jefferson Ave keeps the same Wednesday hours. Empire Burgers & Brew at 48 W. Chicago Ave and Features Bar & Grill at 14 W. Chicago Ave are both a block off Jefferson.
Arrive by 6:30. Store events fill from the front, and seating in the shop is finite.
Walk it off after: the Naperville Riverwalk follows the West Branch of the DuPage River a block south of Jefferson. A dusk lap after 90 minutes of grave folklore is a very specific pleasure, best taken with company.

Anderson’s Bookshop has been part of downtown Naperville since 1875 and is still run by the fifth generation of the same family, which makes it the right venue for a book about what small American towns remember and what they would rather forget. Register in advance, since the $35 ticket includes your copy and the store cannot sell what it has no room to seat. Dates, times and pricing can change, so confirm with Anderson’s before you make the trip.