Customer Reviews

Weird U.S.: Your Travel Guide to America's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is a reasonably enjoyable and fun book for those with roadtripping impulses. There are some real weaknesses to this book however, and some of them have to do with the meaning of the word "weird." The editors claim that the focus of the book, most of which is "written" by semi-anonymous club correspondents, deals with spooky and mysterious places around the country that give adventurous folks the impulse to explore the unknown and confront the darker areas of the American soul. This is true for a good chunk of the book, especially in creepy chapters dealing with weird cemeteries and abandoned mental asylums. However, large parts of the book drift into the funny definition of "weird," merely displaying cheeky roadside tourist attractions.

This unfocused nature of the book is badly exacerbated by the contributing "authors" who have sent submissions to Sceurman and Moran describing these weird places. Many of these are message board submissions of wildly inconsistent quality. Some are well written but most aren't, especially those that damage the credibility of the whole enterprise with indirect stories about how they heard about legends and locations from friends of friends of friends. The production values of the book are amateurish with the selection of weak contributions from correspondents, poor editing and writing, and illustrations and photographs that sometimes don't even illustrate the locations whose text they accompany. There is a much better place for this type of information for the adventurous American roadtripper and explorer of mysterious places - the better developed and much more established website and book series created by the great Roadside America organization. [~doomsdayer520~]

Apparently, I must be somewhat weird, because this last Christmas, I was given four copies of this book by four different people. (And then, coincidentally, three of my friends got this book for their birthdays....)
This book is loaded with weird facts, legends, lore, people, photographs, ghost stories, haunted places, supernatural figures, terrifying ruins and tunnels and forests and abandoned buildings, tall tales, odd museums, and answerless mysteries.
I've travelled a lot around America, and I've come across a lot of strangeness that's not in this book--I always ask people, "What's the strangest thing you've ever seen?"--but what it is here is entertaining and unique, if occasionally doubtful. The book deals more with the East than with the West, and as a result of that a lot of cool stuff is never even mentioned that could be. There's only one or two items from New Mexico, and nothing at all on skinwalkers--the creepiest lore there is.
Some parts of the book are actually frightening though--like phantom clowns!--and would be even scarier if read during an actual visit to these places.
I recommend this book highly--it's very readable, though I wish it had maps or directions to the places it describes--and I will probably buy any sequels.

This book will give you the creeps, but I LOVE it. It is American folklore at its best. I liked reading the local legends and learning about the strange characters from all over the country. It was also nice to see how the authors kept an open mind, just telling the stories as the locals tell them. It was like reading the stories we told as kids around a campfire. We wanted to scare the heck out of each other. This book will give me good stories for my next camping trip.

I recently found this book at the local Barnes and Noble. I flipped through and found it very entertaining, and a fun read. But it's not worth the $20 so they priced it at. It's a good compilation, but like many other people said, it gives little or no direction as to where these locations are. For example, one roadide attraction in Florida was listed as 'on the highway just south of Jacksonville'. Not too helpful.
All in all, if you're interested in this book, either take it out of the library or find a comfortable seat at your local bookstore and give it a look-through. It just doesn't make sense to spend the money on this book when you can find much more detailed information (and TONS more listings) online...and for free.

If you buy this planning to go on a wierd US tour, you'll be disappointed, because the directions to each place aren't very well documented. If you want to visit any of these weird attractions, plan to make copious use of the Internet to search out better directions so that you don't get lost on the way.

The layout of this book is gorgeous, and while it may not be worth the original B&N price, the Amazon marketplace price makes it a steal. The pictures are just fabulous. I love the personal narrations by different authors, but some other reviewers have noted mistakes, so they need to be taken with a grain of salt.

How many times have you ever driven by a spooky looking house and thought it was haunted?. Or if there's some story to it?. Or driven by an old graveyard and wondered the same thing?. Or perhaps, saw some incredibly decorated yard and wondered how that came about?. Heard a strange noise outdoors and asked yourself if it could possibly be some weird beast?. Well, here is the book for you because it covers all things said above, and quite a deal more, because this book actually shows you, and tells you, places of the sort. All in one incredibly fascinating book that you will be unable to put down. The book is put together by Mark Moran and Mark Sceurman, two guys who have traveled all through their home state of New Jersey and have chronicled all kinds of weird, spooky, eerie, or just plain strange things into their own magazine, Weird N.J. Now they have expanded their area and have given us a book that tells the tales of incredible stuff from all over the country. Steeped in rich folklore, the book is not just above all the weird goings on, but of Americana. And yes, they are all weird. Not just weird, but weirdness that can fit into all categories. I believe that some of the more human stuff, such as the roadside oddities and personal homes and stuff are more "weird", because they are intentional. All of the stories here are put together in different sections. "Local Legends", which I think you can pretty much figure out on your own. "Ancient Mysteries" features stories that includes stuff like weird rock foundations, or odd writing and inscriptions. Think Stonehenge. Only in America. The section "Fabled People And Places" deals with people with strange appearances or the places they come from. "Unexplained Phenomena" is pretty much what you always hear, which is basically happenings that are just not explainable. Given the title, you already knew that. "Bizarre Beasts" deals with the tales of those mysterious creatures that go bump in the night. "Local Heroes And Villains" is a more human section dealing with local people who are colorful, and/or just a little off. Who doesn't have those?. "Personalized Properties" is a section that showcases people's homes or land that are decorated in odd ways. Beer cans, junk, and so on. "Roadside Odyssey" shows us those weird little places that are always off the side of the road. "Roads Less Traveled" is a spooky section on those oh so dark and mysterious roads you always hear about in horror films and scary stories. Well, here they are. "Gateways To Hell" has places where people think leads them to...well, you know. I don't think there is any reason to explain what the chapter, "Haunted Places, Ghostly Tales" is about. "Cemetery Safari" is a section that shows graves, tombstones, etc., and some of the weird looks, designs, and inscriptions that are on some of them. And the final section, "Abandoned America", may just be one of the truly creepy. Those places of interest that have long been abandoned and forgotten. Left to rot and fall apart, and left to create some scary stories. This is probably one of the most fun and entertaining books that has crossed my path in a while. It's insanely interesting, fun, and has some incredible, out of this world pictures. So, get the book, cozy up, and enjoy. And oh, a word to the wise, maybe leaving a little light on at night would be a good idea.

Like in their previous collection WEIRD NJ,Sceurman and Moran have created a book filled with odd tales, urban legends, and mysterious sites, but instead of limiting the scope to NJ they have spread the "weirdness" around to encompass the entire US. Most of the stuff is nonsense but it still adds up to a fun read. This one is a bit more professionally put together than the previous book, but the bottom line is that if you are looking for any kind of actual investigation into these "weird" tales, you'll need to look elsewhere.

I agree with another reviewer that if you're looking for a book on weird places to visit, you can't find a better book than The New Roadside America. Weird U.S. probably has a 10th of the content of Roadside America, and without an index of locations, it's hard to figure out what's near where you are. You'd have to go through each entry in this book and read the location. That said, this is still a good book for information of the spookier places in America. Haunted houses, ghost towns, strange lights, it's all here. So this is more of a compilation of American mythology than a travel book. And it's great to, in the process, find directions to these very out-of-the-way places. Although I am a bit concerned that with the publication of a book like this, a lot more people will be visiting them, which could result in them being closed off from the public, knocked down, what have you. Just look at the first entry, Dudleytown.

Mark and Mark's book on the weird places of the United States sets out to accomplish something very special: to open our minds as a culture to some of the stranger places, people and history of the various states. Their fascination began with local sites in their native New Jersey (I recommend a subscription to Weird NJ magazine, published semi-annually to any fan of this stuff) and eventually spread to the surrounding environs and the entire country. This book is a populist book in the most grass-roots sense of the word: the authors' love of the dark corners of our nation as a country and as a people is an anthropologist's and folklorist's dream come true, something that very few would even care to do in our commercialized society. Reading the people's accounts of things and places that made them close their curtains as children cannot but give the mystery and horror fan a pleasant chill.

Another great tactic of the authors, carried over from the Weird NJ mag, is the use of the practically unadulterated original accounts printed exactly as they are submitted. Whether the writers of the passages and letters are Ph.Ds or young kids whose accounts are riddled with spelling and grammar errors, Mark and Mark print them as they are, so that the book has the feel of really being by and for the people.

I agree with some reviewers that perhaps the book should have been organized by state instead of by type of account (ghosts, UFOs, local heroes, etc.), as that would have probably made it more accessible to those interested in their local area, though this didn't occur to me as an issue until I saw it voiced below. The debate over whether bringing these places to light encourages vandalism or not is also big, but I will not speculate on it.

Weird US is a gem of a book, the kind of collection that you'd love to have when you're all sitting around the fire at a campout or driving in the dark country at night...in Anywhere, USA.

Don't forget to check out my own submissions to the book, one of Oxford House (under ghosts) and one on an Alien Enclosure (UFOs).

I gave these books to my nephews who love the ideas of oddities. It has been the hit of the family Christmas party!!!