Customer Reviews

New Jersey Curiosities: Quirky Characters, Roadside Oddities & Other Offbeat Stuff

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Being a fan of Weird NJ for several years, I recently decided to try out other books that chornicle the strange, unusual and the funny stuff that can be found within our borders. I found this to be a very decent, relatively comprehensive guide to those weird roadside items of the book's title.

The author, Peter Genovese, is a writer for the Star Ledger, and runs a regular series about good places to grab lunch at, and has also written several other NJ based books about such things as diners, the jersey shore, and a previous book on weird stuff in NJ. He clearly has qualifications to write such a book, and it's obvious he enjoys Weird NJ, as many of the items referenced can be found in Weird NJ.

In fact, this book is really a cross between Genovese Munchmobile column and the Weird NJ Roadside Guide. This book really is not comparable to the Weird NJ book recently published by the Marks, in that they are two different books. The Weird NJ book is all about stories and myths, and although you can go out and visit some of the things referenced in the book, it isn't meant as a travel guide. This book is, and it functions quite well. It features many things not found in the Weird NJ Guide and really does deserve a spot on any weird NJ fans book shelf.

Some people like his first roadside guide better, while others found that book totally useless/. I can't compare the two books but I can say that this book is thoroughly enjoyable and worth the money.

Pluses: interesting trivia and factoids about NJ
minuses: pictures are B&W

A great read for fans of Weird NJ, regional history and the offbeat in general, Peter Genovese's book is both entertaining and informative. Unlike Weird NJ, you won't find much about ghost stories, UFO sightings and urban myths in "New Jersey Curiosities"; instead, the focus is on real, specific locations that have down-to-earth yet interesting histories.

One of the nice features of this book is that the curiosities are organized by region, so you can easily look up the oddities in your area. Genovese also includes specific directions to aid in sightseeing. One area of improvement would be to include more pictures, but other than that, it's a superb travel guide.

While this book was okay, I was kind of disappointed. It seems to just be rehashed articles from the author's previous two books, Roadside NJ and Jersey Diners, without all of the great pictures that originally accompanied them. I would recommend buying one of those books, which are still published by Rutgers University Press, rather than this one.

For anyone who likes the concept of Weird NJ but feel the folklore and reader letters are fiction, this is a great non-fiction book for you. It's about the many quirky things in the wacky garden state, broken down into three sections-- North Central and South. Besides summaries on Lucy the Elephant, and and the blind waiter diner in Hasbrouck Heights, the book also includes little known fun facts about the state, that we are home to the nation's only on-campus diner, and that the oldest log cabin in the country. And did you know the movie Jaws was based on a fatal Jersey shark attack? Well, then, read the book.

Great book to find awhole lot of stuff about New Jersey. Would highly reccomend it to any Jersey person. Great to remember the weird quirks of Nj.