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Weird California
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| List Price: | $19.95 |
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Product Description
THE WEIRD SERIES
What’s weird around here? That’s a question Mark Moran and Mark Sceurman have enjoyed asking for years—and their offbeat sense of curiosity led them to create the best-selling phenomenon, Weird N.J. But why should they stop at New Jersey when there’s so much that’s peculiar, odd, and utterly nutty across the whole U.S.? So the two Marks—along with several other writers with a taste for the strange—have focused on some key locales, giving each of them the full “New Jersey” treatment. Spanning the breadth of the country, from New York to California, these are travel guides of a sort, but to the kind of places voyagers will never find on their everyday maps. Instead, they’re chock-full of local legends, crazy characters, cursed roads, and bizarre roadside attractions. So come along and join the fun: Some of what’s out there is disturbing, some hilarious, but all of it is unforgettably…weird.
Praise for WEIRD N.J.:
“They are the chroniclers of the creepy, bards of the bizarre…From abandoned asylums to colorful real-life characters past and present, to folk stories of ghosts, monsters, and aliens, Mr. Sceurman and Mr. Moran have created a journal of New Jersey’s unwritten history.”—The New York Times.
“Enough with the head-severing mobsters of Jersey. The state is packed with far more evil than TV could ever invent—from satanic Klan rallies to time-traveling tree farmers. And Weird N.J. has the pictures to prove it.”—Rolling Stone.
“Mark Sceurman and Mark Moran see their native state as others do not. For them, it is a demented Disneyland of worldly, and otherworldly, delights.”—The Boston Globe.
“If it’s the offbeat, paranormal or downright weird that you crave…there could be no better place”—USA Today.
Praise for Weird U.S.
“Weird U.S. is delicious armchair reading. Who can resist an ax-wielding man in a bunny suit, a home shaped like a giant shoe, cannibal albino villages, midget colonies, passages to hell or close relations of Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster?”—San Francisco Chronicle.
“Weird U.S. is a marvelous work of entertainment and the basis for a truly unique vacation.”—Library Journal.
“Kudos to Mark Moran and Mark Sceurman…This is the book by which future explorers will chart their road trips in pursuit of the meaning of this nation.”—New York Press.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #221205 in Books
- Published on: 2006-03-02
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Hardcover
- 304 pages
Editorial Reviews
Review
"'Makes me scared to stay' Los Angeles Times"
Customer Reviews
Entertaining, but lacking important key info.
Photos, illustrations and stories are great. But I found the overall book lacking in one key area: Maps to show you where these places are located. Or even where some of the cities are located. Very fun book but but I felt I wanted more info. with greater detail.
A VERY GOOD READ, BUT NOT MUCH NEW INFORMATION
As a native Californian, with a long-time interest in the unusual, I welcomed the publication of this book with great enthusiasm. And for the naive, it will amuse indeed. But for a long time buff of the "weird and unusual," especially in my home state of California, I find very little information that hasn't been covered in previous works.
Some chapters, like Personalized Properties, were even a waist of space for the most part. And living in Los Angeles, some of the omissions seemed large. For instance, what about the WOLF/DOG WOMAN OF WATTS, that frightened almost all of South Los Angeles for weeks, myself included as a young child, in the early 1960s? Paul Young's "L.A. Exposed" lightly touched upon it, but I would really like someone to do more research on that phenomenon. Or CHARMAN of Ventura County's Camp Comfort County Park. Scary stuff! What about the strange happenings in the Los Angeles Community of Tujunga, that have included UFO and Bigfoot sightings over the years? Then there's the apelike ZOOBIES in the Small San Diego County Community of Alpine, and along the U.S./Mexican border, who's footprints even Border Patrol Officers have reported. And absolutely nothing on the MYSTERY CAT sightings that have been reported throughout the state. But I could go on-and-on.
The point being, a very good concept, and I always look for the subject of the strange and unusual, especially when it concerns the state of California; but they could have dug so much deeper, and left room for new material. Still, a good effort. However, I'd strongly recommend one of the authors 1988 classics, if you can still find it; Mike Marinacci's "Mysterious California."
Strange Days
The book is definitely a good source of 'Americana' at its finest and is extremely entertaining. While some excerpts go on in detail of exactly where to find things, others are hazy if not incorrect. A little fact checking is needed. All said, purchasers will not be disappointed.
