Ah, Ohio, so nice and normal. We have apple pie heroes like Hopalong Cassidy, Neil Armstrong, Thomas Edison, and Doris Day. Our state bird is the jaunty and ever popular cardinal, and our state flower is the carnation, found in the buttonholes of politicians and bridegrooms everywhere. We started America rolling by opening the country's first gas station, and we have a museum dedicated to America's music, rock and roll. Why, we're just so all-American normal, it can bring a tear to the eye. But there's something else we have a whole lot of, and that's...weirdness. Yes, the Buckeye State has lots and lots of strange people and unusual sites, and they burst forth from every page of this, the biggest, most bizarre collection of Ohio stories ever assembled: Weird Ohio.

Hauntings lurk and spirits linger in the heart of America Reader, beware! Turn these pages and enter the world of the paranormal, where ghosts and ghouls alike creep just out of sight. Author James A. Willis shines a light in the dark corners of Ohio and scares those spirits out of hiding in this thrilling collection. From ghostly soldiers that still haunt Fort Meigs to the eerie Franklin Castle, there’s no shortage of bone-chilling tales to keep you up at night. There’s even a carved tombstone of an infant at Cedar Hill cemetery, whose ghostly eyes keep watch over those wander too close. Around the campfire or tucked away on a dark and stormy night, this big book of ghost stories is a hauntingly good read.

Turn on a night light, lock your door, and close the window blinds . . . Join investigative reporter James Renner as he looks into 13 tales of mysterious, creepy, and unexplained events in the Buckeye State, including: - The giant, spark-emitting Loveland Frog - The bloodthirsty Melon Heads of Kirtland - The lumber-wielding Werewolf of Defiance - The Mothman of the Ohio River - The UFO that inspired "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" - and more!

The legendary tales of Central Ohio reach far beyond the region. Bigfoot-like creatures have been sighted in the state since the 1800s. Wright-Patterson Air Force Base was the headquarters for the military's investigations into UFO sightings in the mid-twentieth century. Some of Johnny Appleseed's earliest orchards were planted near present-day Steubenville, Mansfield and Lima, and a farm in Nova boasts the last tree planted by Appleseed. Join James A. Willis as he travels across Central Ohio and delves into the Buckeye State's stories of murderous villains, courageous heroes and even a few ghosts and monsters.

Ohio history can get pretty strange! Meet Ashtabula's famed Headless Chicken, who lived without his noggin for 38 days. Was Ohio really bombed by the Japanese in WWII? Introducing the inventor of disposable diapers . . . For anyone who enjoys history with a twist, here are 75 tales of the Buckeye State's most unusual people, places, and events.

A large, black, prehistoric serpent that makes its home in Lake Erie. A titanic hairy humanoid with glowing orange eyes who spies on any teenagers brave enough to park near its lovers' lane home. A giant owl the size of a tree so adept at camouflage it can practically disappear. A nocturnal race of tiny, melon-headed feral humans who roam the woods looking for victims to feast on. These are but some of the creatures of cryptozoology, folklore and urban legend that readers will meet in the pages of Monsters of Ohio, the first book of its kind to completely chronicle the state's population of mystery animals and the stories told about them. In addition to thirteen Buckeye State monsters-from infamous ones like The Lake Erie Monster, The Loveland Frogs and The Grassman, to lesser-known local legends like The Crosswick Monster, Bighoot and The Defiance Wolfman-the book also includes a parade of mysterious creatures that were only sighted once before disappearing...if, of course, they were ever really there at all. J.C. Raphael was born in Ashtabula, Ohio. He earned a bachelor's degree in English from Gannon University in Erie, Pennsylvania. He began freelance writing at age 17 with a film review of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein for The Plain Dealer, and has continued writing reviews of stuff ever since. He worked as a staff writer for a small suburban newspaper and as a writer and editor for a small, independent altweekly in Columbus, Ohio. He now works as a public library clerk and freelance writer. He lives in Mentor, Ohio.

"Devil in Ohio kept me up until 3 a.m. with the lights on–in a good way. It’s a haunting thriller for readers who like fear, humor, and heart in one package."—Meredith Goldstein, advice columnist and feature reporter for The Boston Globe, author of upcoming YA novel Chemistry Lessons. "Gripping, urgent and addictive, Devil in Ohio balances the dark exploration of cults with a compelling and often humorous take on teen social dynamics. This is the debut you won’t want to miss."—Aditi Khorana, author of critically acclaimed The Library of Fates and Mirror in the Sky When fifteen-year-old Jules Mathis comes home from school to find a strange girl sitting in her kitchen, her psychiatrist mother reveals that Mae is one of her patients at the hospital and will be staying with their family for a few days. But soon Mae is wearing Jules’s clothes, sleeping in her bedroom, edging her out of her position on the school paper, and flirting with Jules’s crush. And Mae has no intention of leaving. Then things get weird. Jules walks in on a half-dressed Mae, startled to see: a pentagram carved into Mae’s back. Jules pieces together clues and discovers that Mae is a survivor of the strange cult that’s embedded in a nearby town. And the cult will stop at nothing to get Mae back.

The Buckeye State has no shortage of strange, silly, goofy, quirky, eccentric, and just plain weird places, people, and things--if you know where to look. Discover the World's Largest Cuckoo Clock, the nation's only vacuum cleaner museum, Balto the Wonder Dog, the "bottomless" Blue Hole of Casalia, and lots more hard-to-believe stuff!

Discover the places in Indiana where tourists usually don't venture-- it's chock-full of oddball curiosities, ghostly places, local legends, crazy characters, cursed roads, and peculiar roadside attractions.

“Extraordinary...beautifully precise...[an] earnestly ambitious debut.” —The New York Times Book Review “A wild, angry, and devastating masterpiece of a book.” —NPR “[A] descendent of the Dickensian ‘social novel’ by way of Jonathan Franzen: epic fiction that lays bare contemporary culture clashes, showing us who we are and how we got here.” —O, The Oprah Magazine “A book that has stayed with me ever since I put it down.” —Seth Meyers, host of Late Night with Seth Meyers One sweltering night in 2013, four former high school classmates converge on their hometown in northeastern Ohio. There’s Bill Ashcraft, a passionate, drug-abusing young activist whose flailing ambitions have taken him from Cambodia to Zuccotti Park to post-BP New Orleans, and now back home with a mysterious package strapped to the undercarriage of his truck; Stacey Moore, a doctoral candidate reluctantly confronting her family and the mother of her best friend and first love, whose disappearance spurs the mystery at the heart of the novel; Dan Eaton, a shy veteran of three tours in Iraq, home for a dinner date with the high school sweetheart he’s tried desperately to forget; and the beautiful, fragile Tina Ross, whose rendezvous with the washed-up captain of the football team triggers the novel’s shocking climax. Set over the course of a single evening, Ohio toggles between the perspectives of these unforgettable characters as they unearth dark secrets, revisit old regrets and uncover—and compound—bitter betrayals. Before the evening is through, these narratives converge masterfully to reveal a mystery so dark and shocking it will take your breath away.