Weird California: You Travel Guide to California's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets Paperback by Greg Bishop (Author), Joe Oesterle (Author), Mike Marinacci (Author), Mark Moran (Foreword), Mark Sceurman (Foreword) (Sterling)

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."