Category Archives: Book Review

Book Review: Behind the Bell by Dustin Diamond

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

How bitter can one celebrity be?  The 2009 “memoir,” Behind the Bell, attempts to answer that question.

I was originally planning on reviewing Behind the Bell last year.  I didn’t, for the obvious reason that Dustin Diamond passed away in April of 2021 and Diamond did not come across particularly well in the book.  At the time, I know that a lot of culture bloggers, myself included, felt a bit conflicted when Diamond died.  Several years ago, I was one of the contributors to a blog about Saved By The Bell: The College Years, in which we spent nearly every review trashing the character of Screech Powers and the performance of the actor who played him.  To be honest, if I had to do it again, I probably wouldn’t change a thing that I wrote because Screech was a terribly-written character on a show that was full of them and Dustin Diamond’s increasingly cartoonish performance in the role didn’t do anything to help matters.  But still, after he died, I did find myself thinking about all the crap that Diamond took over the years for playing the character and I realized that it wasn’t entirely fair.  With the scripts that were being written, I doubt any actor could have made Screech any less annoying of a character.

That said, it also doesn’t diminish the tragedy of a non-smoker dying of lung cancer at the age of 44 to admit that Dustin Diamond did some fairly shady things after his time on Saved By The Bell.  There was the sex tape.  There was the controversial fundraiser to save his house.  There was the stabbing incident in a Wisconsin bar and his subsequent arrest for violating the conditions of his parole.  But again, you have to ask yourself if any of that would have happened if Diamond hadn’t, at the age of 11, been cast on the television show that would both make him famous and also pretty much typecast him as everyone’s least favorite student at Bayside.

Yes, Dustin Diamond was only 11 years old when he was cast as an 8th grader in Good Morning, Miss Bliss, the show that would eventually become Saved By The Bell.  He was considerably younger than the rest of his castmates, which undoubtedly led to him becoming the show’s outsider.  Along with Dennis Haskins, he stuck with the franchise all way to the end, for ten years.  He was 21 when Saved By The Bell: The New Class ended.  At a time when most people were having their first legal drink, Diamond was trying to figure out what to do with his life now that his acting career was pretty much over.  One would have to be heartless to not have some sympathy for the kid.

Behind the Bell deals with Diamond’s time on Saved By The Bell and his attempts to figure out what to do with his life after the show ended.  Unfortunately, as I mentioned earlier, Diamond doesn’t come across particularly well in Behind the Bell.  If anything, it’s perhaps one of the most bitter showbiz memoirs ever written.

Of course, before I write anything else, I should point that Diamond himself claimed that he didn’t actually write the book.  In 2013, during an interview for Oprah: Where Are They Now?, Diamond said that the book was ghost written by a guy who interviewed him and who either exaggerated his answers or took things out of context.  That may be true.  There are a few obvious factual errors in the book, a big one being the claim that Elizabeth Berkley starred in Showgirls while also appearing in Saved By The Bell.  Everyone knows that the original Saved By The Bell had already ended its run before Showgirls even went into production.  At the same time, the book’s bitterness is so obsessive, so detailed, and so personal that it’s hard to believe that it could all just be the product of a ghost writer’s imagination.  Diamond may have told the truth about having a ghost writer but it’s hard to buy his claim that the entire book was just based on a few vague and general answers that Diamond provided in an interview.

The majority of the book’s bitterness is directed at his fellow castmates.  Mario Lopez is described as being a bully.  Tiffani-Amber Thiessen is portrayed as being a bitch.  (And yet, at one point, Diamond mentions that he briefly lived with Tiffani-Amber and her family while he was being stalked by a fan.)  Elizabeth Berkley and Lark Voorhies are both described as being vapid while Dennis Haskins is apparently difficult to work with.  Diamond insinuates that Ed Alonzo seduced Neil Patrick Harris while Harris was still underage.  Still, the book reserves most of its ire for Mark-Paul Gosselaar.  Interestingly enough, Gosselaar is never described as doing anything that bad and, if anything, he comes across as being rather level-headed for a teen idol.  And yet, Diamond insists on telling out that Mark-Paul was actually a “douchebag” who got all of the attention and didn’t want to hang out with “the Dust.”  Throughout the book, Mark-Paul is frequently referred to as being “the golden child,” as if Mark-Paul owed Diamond an apology for being the best-looking actor on a show that was all about appearance.

When Diamond (or his ghost writer) isn’t trashing the rest of the cast, he’s telling us about the 2.000 women that he claims to have had sex with while playing Screech.  Diamond even claims to have had an affair with one of the show’s executive producers, who was in her 30s at the time.  (Diamond would have been 14.)  The woman later died of cancer and, as such, was not available to respond to Diamond’s claims.  An entire chapter is devoted to getting laid at Disneyland or “the Dizz” as Diamond (or his ghost writer) calls it.  Diamond really should have insisted on a better ghost writer.

(He also should have insisted on better copyeditor and fact checker.  The book is full of formatting errors and, at one point, a paragraph appears twice.  Hopefully, a fact checker would have noticed that Elizabeth Berkley was no longer on Saved By The Bell when Showgirls went into production.)

And yet, there are moments in the book that are actually kind of sweet.  The middle section of the book described a typical week in the production of Saved By The Bell and, for once, Diamond stops bitching about his castmates and trying to impress the readers and instead, he just talks about a unique experience that only he and a few other people experienced.  For a few brief chapters, the book actually becomes an interesting read and you can briefly see who Diamond was when he wasn’t busy being bitter.  There’s a wistful nostalgia to this section of the book.  Unfortunately, it only last for a few chapters and then we’re back to accusations of drug abuse and a nauseating “open letter” to all the women who Diamond claimed to have had sex with over the years.

In the end, I guess the main lesson of not just Behind the Bell but also of Dustin Diamond’s life in general is that child actors need a strong support system around them.  Too many people will try to take advantage of them and the pressure to often be the sole provider for the family is too much weight to be put on any 11 year-old’s shoulders.  Diamond needed someone to look out for him and sadly, it appears that very few people were willing to do that.

Book Review: The Godfather by Mario Puzo

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

“The book,” it is often said, “is always better than the film.” But is that always true?

No, it’s not and, if you need proof, just read Mario Puzo’s The Godfather and then re-watch the movie. Or re-watch the movie and then read the book. Either way, you’ll be left with the conclusion that, while the novel did lay the foundation for what became the greatest movie ever made, the novel itself is still a bit …. off.

The Godfather was originally published in 1969 and, before I write anything else, it should be noted that Mario Puzo himself never claimed that the book was meant to be a great work of literature. Puzo had previously written three novels and one children’s book. One of those novels was a pulp paperback that he wrote under a pseudonym for a quick payday. The other two novels were both meant to be works of “serious literature” that examined the human condition. Puzo considered his second novel, The Fortunate Pilgrim, to be his best and most poetic work. The only problem is that, while the reviewers were respectful, hardly anyone read Puzo’s “serious” fiction. As such, The Godfather was Puzo’s attempt to write the most commercial book possible, a page-turner that would climb the best seller list and help Puzo pay off his gambling debts. The Godfather certainly did that, spending 67 weeks on the New York Times’s Best Seller List and selling over 9 million copies in two years. Producer Robert Evans was so sure that the novel would be a hit that he even paid for the film rights while the book was still in the galleys.

Reading the book, especially after watching the movie, can be an odd experience.  The film itself is largely faithful to the book. Just about everything that happens in the movie can be found in the book.  Michael, Sonny, Tom, Fredo, Vito, Kay, Barzini, Sollozzo …. they’re all here.  Usually, characters are more complex in the original book than they are in the subsequent film adaptation.  In this case, the opposite is true and reading Puzo’s somewhat leaden prose really does make you appreciate the depth and nuance that actors like Al Pacino, Marlon Brando, James Caan, Robert Duvall, and John Cazale brought to the characters.  (Perhaps the most extreme example is Kay Adams, who was written as a dull nonentity with none of the nervous likability than Diane Keaton brought to the role.)  To be honest, perhaps the only character who comes across more vividly in the book than in the film is Luca Brasi.  The book goes into the details of what Brasi did for the Don in the past and, as a result, it’s much easier to understand why everyone was so terrified of him.

But, as I said, all of the events that can be found in the movie can also be found in the book.  However, there’s also a lot of things in the book that we’re left out of the film and it’s easy to see why.  In the film, for instance, Johnny Fontane shows up in only two scenes.  Tom Hagen goes to Hollywood.  Jack Woltz ends up with a horse’s head in his bed.  And that’s it for the film industry.  (In the book, the horse’s head is just placed in Woltz’s room as opposed to his bed.  Francis Ford Coppola later admitted that he misread the passage where Woltz finds the head.)  In the book, however, the Hollywood scenes go on forever.  Large sections of the narrative are handed over to Johnny Fontane and his best friend as they party in Hollywood.  It gets frustrating.  You want to read about the Corleones but instead, you’re reading predictable Frank Sinatra fanfic.

When the book’s not getting bogged down on Fontane, it’s getting caught up with Lucy Mancini and her quest to find a man who is as well-endowed as the late Sonny Corleone.  Lucy was Sonny’s lover.  He was the only man who was large enough to satisfy her.  After Sonny’s death, Lucy is given a casino in Las Vegas.  It’s while in Vegas that Lucy meets Dr. Jules Segal, an abortionist who explains to Lucy that she can’t achieve sexual satisfaction because her vagina is too big.  Fortunately, he can help.  Or, as he puts it, “Baby, I’m going to build you a whole new thing down there, and then I’ll try it out personally.” Awwwwwww!

Anyway, for whatever reason, Francis Ford Coppola decided not to include any of this when he made his film version.  And it’s for the best.  When it comes to The Godfather as a book …. well, the movie’s great.  And the sequel’s even better!  The book really makes you appreciate what Coppola and his amazing cast and crew were able to accomplish.

Horror Novel Review: The Knife by R.L. Stine

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I thought I was done with reading R.L. Stine this October when I finished up Trapped but then I noticed that his 1991 YA novel, The Knife, was still sitting on my desk. Being a completest, I decided to go ahead and read it now, as opposed to leaving it for next year’s Horrorthon. Afterall, it was short and the title promised all sorts of grisly Fear Street fun. It’s not like a title would be misleading, right?

Well, there is indeed a knife in The Knife. It’s being wielded by a man who is chasing the book’s main character, Laurie, at the start of the story. And, later on, a bitchy nurse ends up getting a scalpel shoved in her throat and a scalpel is a type of knife so I guess the title isn’t completely misleading. That said, the book’s use of knives is actually a fairly minor detail. Stine could have just as easily called the book “The Teddy Bear” after the gift that Laurie tries to give to the boy at the center of the book’s plot.

Laurie is volunteering at Shadyside Hospital. She works in the Fear Wing, named after the Fear Family. She becomes attached to a patient named Toby. When Toby is discharged, Laurie is happy that he didn’t die but she is disturbed when Toby tells her that the woman taking him home is not his mother. Laurie decided to investigate Toby’s homelife on her own and, after doing a lot of stalking and basically repeatedly beaking the law, she stumbles across one of those huge crime rings that always seemed to popping up all over Shadyside.

It’s an okay book. If you’ve seen enough Lifetime films, you’ll be able to figure out what’s going on with Toby and his fake mother. And you’ll also figure out who murdered the nurse. There aren’t many surprises to be found but it’s a quick read and it’s kind of fun to watch Laurie try to balance getting a new boyfriend with cracking the case of an international crime ring. It’s like those weird episodes of Saved By The Bell where Lisa Turtle worked at her mom’s hospital. Technically, there are knives in the book so let’s give Stine credit for that.

And now, I think I’m done with reading about Fear Street for this month.

Book Review: If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B-Movie and many other books by Bruce Campbell

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Everyday, we should give thanks to Bruce Campbell is not a jerk.

Seriously, can you imagine how disappointing it would be to discover that Bruce Campbell — ASH!  GROOVY BRUCE! — was not a laidback, blue collar actor who appreciated his fans, had a sense of humor about his films, and who enjoyed ending the day with maybe a can of beer and a nicely rolled joint?  It would be awful!  Bruce Campbell going on and on about the method while telling people not to see his early films?  Unthinkable!  Bruce Campbell demanding a huge trailer and bad-mouthing his co-stars?  That’s not our Groovy Bruce!

No, Bruce Campbell is pretty likable and appears to be downright nice.  That’s a huge part of his appeal.  He’s an actor but he’s also a fan.  He’s talented but he’s also level-headed.  He loves his films but he doesn’t pretend that they were anything that they weren’t.  Other actors would hide the chin.  Bruce shows it off every chance he get.  He even named his first memoir after the chin!

And it’s quite a good memoir too, If Chins Could Kill is,  Bruce discusses growing up.  He discusses the first films that he made with Sam Raimi.  The Coen Brothers make an appearance.  There’s stuff about Bubba Ho-Tep and Maniac Cop.  Really, it’s the definitive overview of the first part of Bruce Campbell’s amazing career and it’s a fun read.  Campbell has a sense of humor about both himself and his movies but, at the same time, he also has a deep love and appreciation for indie filmmakers.  It’s the humor that makes the book entertaining but it’s the love that will keep your reading.  And, after you finish the first memoir, move on to Campbell’s subsequent books — How To Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way, Hail to the Chin, and The Cool Side of My Pillow.  They’re all good books.  They’ll make you appreciate not only Bruce and the movies but also the art of writing about yourself without acting like a pompous jackass.  Bruce pulls it off and we’re all the better for it!

Book Review: Night of the Living Dead by John A. Russo

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

A few years ago, I found a slightly beat-up copy of John Russo’s novelization of Night of the Living Dead at Half-Price Books. Of course, I immediately purchased it. From my own knowledge of the making of George Romero’s classic horror movie, I knew that John Russo was the one who came up with an idea involving zombies which led to Romero writing a story outline for Night of the Living Dead which Russo then turned into the film’s screenplay.

I also knew that Romero and Russo had a falling out of sorts after the success of Night of the Living Dead. With the film in the public domain as the result of a screw-up on the part of the movie’s distributor, there was some controversy over who had the rights to the original’s story. That’s one reason why the titles of Romero’s subsequent zombie films (i.e., Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Land of the Dead, and the rest) were all about “the Dead” as opposed to “the Living Dead.” Russo’s subsequent zombie-themed work (i.e. Return of the Living Dead) featured the term “Living Dead” and was also sold as a sequel to the original Night of the Living Dead.

With all that in mind, I was curious to see what Russo’s novelization would be like. What extra information would the book contain about the characters? Would there be any extra details that were cut from the film? How about an alternate ending? It’s been known to happen. (Check out the novelization for Halloween if you want to see how much a novelization can differ from the film that inspired it.)

Well, it turns out that novelization of Night of the Living Dead is pretty much a straight recreation of the film. We do learn a bit more about just how bad a relationship Barbara has with her brother Johnny. And it’s firmly established that Ben was a truck driver before the dead came back to life. Otherwise, it’s pretty much just the movie in novel form. We don’t learn much about the characters that we didn’t already know. Harry is still stubborn and cowardly. Ben is still the designated hero who manages to get everyone killed through his own stubbornness. Barbara is still catatonic for most of the book. (I know some would complain about Barbara being so passive but her stunned disbelief is perhaps the most realistic part of the film and the novel. That’s how most of us would react to going through what she’s just been through.) Russo is a good writer and he does a good job capturing the tension in that little house. The final few chapters — which recreate the film’s downbeat ending — are particularly well-done. But there’s not much in the book that isn’t also in the movie.

One interesting thing about the novelization is that it was originally published in 1974, six years after the release of Night of the Living Dead. Was it written in an attempt to help establish that Russo and/or Romero owned the rights to the film? Or did it just take the publisher that long to realize that they’re might be a market for a novel based on the film? Who knows?

The book doesn’t add much to the overall story but I’m still glad I’ve got a copy, You can never have enough Night of the Living Dead memorabilia.

Book Review: The Rocklopedia Fakebandica by T. Mike Childs

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Have you ever asked yourself, “Who was the imaginary band that sang that song that doesn’t actually exist in that fictional movie that I watched back in 2004?”

Well, fear not! The Rocklopedia Fakebandica can answer all of your fake band questions. This is a reference books that is solely devoted to fictional bands from the movies and from television. It may not be complete (because it was published 2004 and I don’t there’s ever been an updated edition) but it’s still pretty damn entertaining. California Dreams? They’re in here. Zack Attack? They get an entry. Of course, Rex Manning gets a mention but so does Berko, the musician who encouraged Gina to sing her heart out on the roof of Empire Records! Stillwater, the band from Almost Famous and not the recent Matt Damon film, is represented, along with a listing of the bands that the members were in before coming together. Spinal Tap gets an entry, of course. So does 4Skore, the boy band that Hank Hill thought was “kind of like Doo Wop” on King of the Hill.

It’s a fun book, written in an enjoyably sarcastic manner. Most fake bands aren’t that good and T. Mike Childs has no fear of calling them out. Take that, Zack Attack!

Incidentally, this one of the many books in my collection that I originally found at Recycled Books of Denton, Texas. Be sure to support your used bookstores. This not a book that I would have found if I was just searching on Amazon. This is a book that I found because I went down to a used bookstore and I walked up and down the aisles, seeing what they had available. I saw it, I was intrigued by the title, I pulled it off shelf, I smiled as I skimmed through it, and I bought it and, in the years since, it’s provided me with a lot of entertainment. Support physical media. Support book stores. You’ll miss them if you don’t.

Book Review: Master of Murder by Christopher Pike

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

This is a weird book from Christopher Pike.

First published in 1992, Master of Murder tells the story of Marvin.  Marvin is 18 and he seems like just your average high school student.  He’s still in love with his ex-girlfriend, Shelly.  He’s haunted by the mysterious death of Harry, who was Marvin’s best friend but who was also dating Shelly at the same time that Marvin was.  Marvin also takes care of his younger sister because, as was typical of YA books like this, their parents aren’t in the picture.  Obviously, if there were parents in these books, the adults would always want to call the police or solve the mysteries themselves.  Pike’s response was usually to either kill them, divorce them, or turn them into drunks.

Anyway, back to Marvin.  In the year since Harry’s death, Marvin has been leading a secret life.  He writes YA novels!  In fact, they’re the most successful YA novels ever!  He’s published five of them, all about a dead girl named Ann.  (Wait a minute …. that’s also his sister’s name!  Ewwww and Agck!)  From what I know about the publishing industry, none of this seems plausible but we’ll just go with it.  I mean, of course, Marvin is a high school senior who secretly writes best sellers and who regularly gets explicit fan mail from his teenage readers.  That makes purrrr-fect sense, as my cat would put it.

Anyway, Shelly asks Marvin to help her figure out who was responsible for death of Harry.  She might even date him again if he helps her out!  Plus, Marvin is getting mysterious letters from someone who writes, “I know who you are!”  Could the two events be connected?  Of course, they are!  And yes, Shelly has a secret of her own.

There’s no supernatural or intergalactic monsters in this Christopher Pike novel.  Instead, it’s a straight-forward murder mystery.  To be honest, when compared to other Pike books, it’s kind of bland.  The most interesting way to read it is as a sort of wish fulfilment for Pike.  One gets the feeling that, at the time that he wrote this book, he wished he was Marvin, a teenager who gets to live like he’s Christopher Pike.  As I said, it’s a weird book, one that makes it look as if the only thing simpler than solving a murder is writing a best seller when you’re 18.  If only it were true, there would be a lot more bestsellers and a lot more prison overcrowding.  Oh well!

Book Review: Shock Value by Jason Zinoman

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In the 1970s, there were two cinematic revolutions that forever changed the face of American culture.  They both occurred at the same time.  Some of the same people were involved in both.  The difference is that the revolution led by Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and George Lucas is regularly celebrated as being a part of the Second Golden Age of Hollywood while the second revolution, the horror revolution, is often either ignore or only given the most condescending of phrase.

While Speilberg and Lucas were recreating the blockbuster, writers and directors like John Carpenter, George Romero, Wes Craven, and Dan O’Bannon were changing the way horror movies were made, marketed, and viewed.  Though many of them came from similar backgrounds as the storied “move brats,” they were rarely given the same critical respect.  Their accomplishments were often dismissed, even though they often made films that commented just as powerfully on the world of the 70s as Scorsese and Coppola did with films like Taxi Driver and Apocalypse Now.  Only a few directors, like Brian De Palma and William Friedkin, were allowed to live in both of the worlds of the horror visionaries and the movie brats.  And even De Palma struggled to convince the mainstream critics to take him and his films seriously while Friendkin himself only made one horror film in the 70s, albeit one of the most important films of all time.

First published in 2011, Jason Zinoman’s Shock Value pays tribute to those horror visionaries, finally giving them the credit that they and their films deserve.  The book tells the story of the generation of directors who made some of the best remembered films of the 70s.  John Carpenter, Wes Craven, Tobe Hooper, Brian De Plama, and many others move through the pages of this book, often working in the shadows of Hollywood and often finding themselves embraced by audiences even as they were screwed over by a film industry that wasn’t sure how to handle their unique outlooks and undeniable talents.  Perhaps the most talented of them is Dan O’Bannon, who emerges here as a tragic figure who, for all of his obvious ability, could never bring himself to play the Hollywood game.  Perhaps more than anyone, O’Bannon was responsible for the film that would eventually become Alien and yet, he received little of the credit that he deserved.

I probably use the term “must read” for too often but Shock Value is a must read for any lover of cinematic horror.

Horror Novel Review: Trapped by R.L. Stine

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

All good things must come to an end and so must all bad things. The original Fear Street series concluded with Trapped, an enjoyably macabre and kind of grotesque take on The Breakfast Club.

You know how these things go. You’ve got five students and they’re all stuck in detention. Elaine is the smart girl who failed to turn in her homework. (They give you detention for that?) The principal hopes that the other detainees won’t be a bad influence on her. (Then don’t give her detention in the first place, you jerk!) Darlene is the girl who doesn’t take any crap from anyone. Jerry is the Brain, who was sent to detention because he refused to dissect a frog. (I remember an entire episode of Saved By The Bell that dealt with the same issue.) Max is a spray paint artist who uses the school as his canvas. And Bo? Well, Bo’s a good-looking rebel who likes to burn stuff.

Anyway, detention is kind of boring and, since no one wants to have a therapy session like they did n the Degrassi episode that was based on The Breakfast Club, the students decide to explore the tunnels that are underneath Shadyside High. It’s rumored that some kids died down there in the 60s! Stupid hippies! Though some are initially hesitant, all five of the students end up in the tunnels. And that’s where they get trapped!

And, listen, I can understand how this happens. I get lost in mazes too. I once spent hours lost in a hedge maze and it was not fun. (I later got revenge by building a similar hedge maze in the Sims and then setting it on fire. The resulting inferno killed all of my Sims but, fortunately, their ghosts stuck around to haunt the house.) But it’s not just the maze aspect that makes the tunnels difficult to escape. There’s also this red mist that, when it envelopes you, snaps your bones and folds you into a tiny cube and basically kills you in the worst, most painful way possible.

AGCK!

Seriously, that mist is so viscous and the deaths are so drawn out and the book ends on such a downbeat note, I had to remind myself that I was reading a book by R.L. Stine and not Christopher Pike. There’s not much humor to be found in Trapped. Unlike other Fear Street novels, it doesn’t end on a note of hope. Instead, there’s just death, violence, and pain. It makes sense, I guess. This was the final Fear Street book so Stine wasn’t obligated to try to get people to come back for the next one. He could be as morbid as he wanted to be and the end result is actually pretty good. That red mist is actually pretty scary!

I enjoyed Trapped. I’m glad I never explored any of the underground tunnels under my school. Who knows what might have been down there! Hmmm …. now, I’m tempted to find out….

Book Review: L.A. Exposed: Strange Myths and Curious Legends in the City of Angels by Paul Young

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Before I say anything about this book, I have to give out a shout out to Recycled Books of Denton, Texas.  Recycled Books is a huge used bookstore.  When I was going to college, I used to visit Recycled Books nearly everyday.  I loved the books.  I love the atmosphere.  I even loved the shag carpeting.  I’ve recently been trying to organize and read all of the books in my collection. As I’ve been going through them, I couldn’t help but notice just how many of them I purchased from Recycled Books!

And yes, L.A. Exposed is one of those books.

First published in 2002, L.A. Exposed is an enjoyably gossipy look at all of the legends and mysteries surrounding Los Angeles.  The book provides a nice mix of celebrity gossip, rock star decadence, and — most importantly — supernatural speculation.  I mean, yes, it was interesting to read about whether or not John Barrymore’re body was stolen from the morgue.  And I’m sure some people will automatically turn the chapter about whether or not Courtney Love had Kurt Cobain murdered.  There’s a lot about OJ Simpson and the corruption of the LAPD as well.  The deaths of Marilyn Monroe, Sam Cooke, and Bobby Fuller are all examined.  Was Charles Manson an FBI informant?  Read the book for yourself.

But, for me, the most interesting parts of the book were the sections dealing with haunted Hollywood, sea serpents, UFO sightings, Bigfoot spottings, cult activities, and the Lemurians.  Do you know who the Lemurians were?  They were like the people of Atlantis but, if you believe the legend, they were smart enough to sail for California before their continent sank.  And, according to some, they currently live inside a mountain near Los Angeles.  I imagine that’s a good way to avoid the IRS.

By this point, our regular readers should realize that I’m a natural skeptic.  I don’t believe in UFOs, ghosts, sea serpents, or Lemurians.  But they’re still a lot of fun to read about.  In fact, it’s even more fun when you don’t believe because you can enjoy the idea of Bigfoot without worrying actually meeting him.

Anyway, this is a fun book and good read.  Order a copy before your next California vacation.  And thank you, Recycled Books, for stocking it where I could easily find it, all those years ago!