Customer Reviews

Weird Maryland: Your Travel Guide to Maryland's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This brought back many memories of my childhood when I grew up with some of the many urbans legends looked at in this entertaining volume! Inexplicably enduring figures as the Goat Man, the Bunny Man, and the Snallygaster are shown with such real life characters as Moll Dyer, persecuted as a witch and the notorious crime mistress Patty Cannon. One of the nice touches is the inclusion of current colorful characters in the state, such as horror show host Count Gore Devol and eccentric art entrepreneur Joe of Ocean Gallery in Ocean City. I won't go into any more detail because the sheer volume of surprises is worth many times the price! Initially, I was disappointed that precise locations of many of these wonders were not included but there are understandable reasons given for the omissions, but it can also be said that being easy to find would cheapen them. These wonderful secrets make me appreciate living in the Old Line State even more! There was so much more that could have been added that I could not give it a full five stars...but that is what future editions are for! I can't wait for the next one!

I couldn't have asked for a better book about the spooky side of MD. I couldn't put this book down! Between the large variety of well-written tales to the high quality photos, this is certainly worth the mere $14 asking price. It is great for residents of MD or even travelers stopping in MD for a while! A+++! Dare to pick up your copy today!

Being from Maryland, I loved reading about the 'weird' things there. Although I had heard about a lot of them all my life, I found the book contained many other stories from different areas that were very interesting. This book is a must for any Marylander's library if you like to read and know trivia about your state! I love it!

The book was a gift for my husband. He enjoyed it so much that he lent it to our 21 year old son and his fiancee. They had a great time reading about the topics. They searched for things they knew about the state and sure enough, those stories were in the book. They learned a lot about their home state.

One always hears about coffee table books, but many of them just lie on the table gathering dust and looking pretty. With its curious title, the black on black road map on the cover surrounding the familiar looking yet mysterious Agnus statue, this is a book that invites perusal, discussion, reminiscing, and fun. Black Aggie is a cemetery sculpture immortalized in legend. Some say that the creepy statue was erected by a cruel husband who had killed his wife. Legends tell of people struck blind who looked the statue in the eye. Other legends say that if you sat in the statue's lap it would crush you to death or stab you. Today the statue is in the courtyard of the Dolly Madison House near the White House. A block from the original Agnus statue sits the cover statue, a sculpture with its own haunting tales.

The book isn't organized chronologically or geographically, yet it flows smoothly from topic to topic. One flips the pages many times over, stopping randomly at a picture of interest, each time discovering a fascinating feature about the Free State. The chapters are self descriptive: Local Legends, Ancient and Unsolved Mysteries, Fabled People and Places, Bizarre Beasts, Local Heroes and Villains, Personalized Properties and Visionary Environments, Curious Collectibles, Roadside Oddities, Roads Less Traveled, Ghostly Happenings, Haunted Places, Cemetery Safari, and Abandoned in the Free State.

In a book full of curiosities, the chapter entitled Personalized Properties and Visionary Environments is one of my favorites. The chapter opens with the photo of a truck covered with doll parts, Barbies, and a large pink Flamingo. The owner has three other pieces of car art in his garage. The architecture includes the house of curves, an odd looking structure coated with spray on poly-stucco. Any Marylander will recognize Ocean City's Ocean Gallery; its outside walls are a jumble of garish signs, reflectors, fences, pipes, and "art". Continue turning the pages to see pictures of Miller's Castle, the Silver Spring house with siding made of crushed aluminum cans, the western Maryland Ark that's never progressed beyond a giant framework, the Chapel of Cheap Drinks, a spaceship house, and some of the weirdest vehicles you've ever seen.

The roadside oddities are also fun. There are stories and pictures of oddly shaped buildings and gigantic statues, many of them sitting outside businesses to draw customers. Notably missing is a building that used to be on Route One. It was shaped like a dog, and was a curiosity I passed many times on daily commutes to the University of Maryland.

Weird Maryland is a book for the long haul. Full of fabulous photographs, interesting stories, and quirky personalities, it chronicles the people, things, and places of Maryland you'll not find bound together anywhere else. Matt Lake's Weird Maryland is a fun joyous book seasoned with a twinge of nostalgia and a little bit of melancholy for that which has passed and will never be again.

Gave this as a gift to a very close friend. She loved it. Has lots of interesting little known facts about Maryland.

As a lifelong resident of the Washington, DC area, I thought I knew how weird the state of Maryland was, but this volume has been a real eye opener! Maryland, my friends, turns out to be one of the weirder places in the known universe. Case in point: Our very own Count Gore De Vol launched his award winning horror host program , Creature Feature, from the hallowed halls Channel 20, a UHF television station that beamed its signal from Bethesda, Maryland to horror movie fans located in and around DC Metro for more than a decade. You'll find Count Gore's superbly crafted and cannily concise biography opposite a full-page color photo of Count Gore (with a gorgeous blonde on his lap) on Page 100! I'm very proud to say that this enthralling account of Count Gore's fabulous and flamboyant rise to horror host fame was written by none other than Creature Feature's own High Priestess of Weirdness, LadyBoneYard, also known as Donna Mucha! Kudos to LadyB for a truly magnificent article! Of course, you'll find other weird folks lurking in these pages, some more renowned than others. For instance, we all know of Count Gore De Vol, but have you ever heard of the Snallygaster? Or the Goat Man? If you haven't, you'd better watch out, because they stalk Maryland's back roads, just waiting for naïve travelers. Also included is information about the region's infamous Bunnyman, a hatchet-wielding maniac whose authenticity I can vouch for, having myself encountered that particular nut-job way back in the seventies. And then there's that demon-possessed kid who William Peter Blatty made famous in his novel, The Exorcist, which was followed by the blockbuster movie that scared the bejeezus out of all of us. Yep, Maryland's got its share of weird folks and bizarre creatures, but there are also a number of haunted houses, haunted cemeteries and my personal favorite Maryland locale, the abandoned and horrifically haunted Glenn Dale Hospital, a former mental asylum filled with miles of corridors that used to be home to patients who were rumored to have been tortured, experimented upon and murdered. I've been there, and it's a truly harrowing experience, I can tell you. On the lighter side, you'll meet strange denizens of the state who drive cars shaped like spaceships and other unusual objects, find odd, whimsical museums that cater to unusual tastes, see photos of tiny houses built for little people and a tavern with a shark's head sticking right out of the front façade. It's no wonder that Baltimore was home to Edgar Alan Poe, because even the Baltimore bar district is said to be haunted (and believe me, I've seen some strange things there after about 2AM!). And the very best thing about Maryland, I'm sure you'll agree, is that Count Gore De Vol is our own local hero--and to prove it, he's been given another full-page frontispiece photo that heads up the chapter entitled, "Local Heroes and Villains"! This book is packed with enjoyable weirdness and bizarre information, and you certainly don't have to be a Marylander to enjoy it. I know you'll want your own copy, because--listen to this!--if you click on the graphic, you will be offered the opportunity to purchase a copy of this gorgeous, oversized, hardback volume--personally inscribed to you from Count Gore De Vol himself! You can't get a Count Gore De Vol signed volume of Weird Maryland anywhere else, and when the Creature Feature bookshelves have run out of books, you won't be able to get one at all! Be sure to click on the cover and order your copy NOW!

I was very disappointed in the book. Even though it was entertaining I was disappointed to see that you never mentioned any location within Calvert County, Maryland. How is this for weird:

Many years ago, someone was murdered in the kitchen of a home on Hance Road in Huntingtown, Maryland. The residence was once called "Tauney Place". Today, on the anniversary of the murder, a blood stain appears at the site of the crime. Many paranormal experts visit the house to witness the phenomenon every year.

I believe this was worthy of a page. It was even on the internet. I found your book to be incomplete.

Ray (Saint Leonard, Md.)

The books portrays several weird things in southern Maryland that are both weird, true and interesting. the book is a sure conversation piece for out of town guests!

The book is great if you like to read about the legends and myths of the states. I really enjoyed this book and have purchased another "weird" book off amazon.