A native Texan who lived and worked in the Austin area for more than twenty years, Joshua Long is Assistant Professor of Social Sciences at Franklin College Switzerland in Lugano, Switzerland. --Book Jacket.

City of Weird conjures what we fear: death, darkness, ghosts. Hungry sea monsters and alien slime molds. Blood drinkers and game show hosts. Set in Portland, Oregon, these thirty stories blend imagination, literary writing, and pop culture into a cohesive weirdness that honors the city’s personality, its bookstores and bridges and solo volcano, as well as the tradition of sci-fi pulp magazines. Including such authors as Rene Denfeld, Justin Hocking, Leni Zumas, and Kevin Sampsell, editor Gigi Little has curated a collection that is quirky, chilling, often profound—and always perfectly weird.

Do you think you know the truth about what happens in Beach City? THINK AGAIN! Fans of Steven Universe know that Steven and the Crystal Gems are behind most of the strange occurrences that happen in their hometown of Beach City. But Ronaldo Fryman, the town's resident blogger and conspiracy theorist, has some other ideas. This book, created by show writers Ben Levin and Matt Burnett, is a companion to Ronaldo's blog of the same name, and includes his favorite theories and collected evidence. Is Ronaldo a raving, delusional madman or a brilliant, misunderstood visionary (or a little bit of both)? You be the judge!

An examination of Austin’s rapid economic and creative growth and local attitudes toward the Texas capitol’s transformation as an urban center. Austin, Texas, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, is experiencing one of the most dynamic periods in its history. Wedged between homogenizing growth and a long tradition of rebellious nonconformity, many Austinites feel that they are amid a battle for the city’s soul. From this struggle, a movement has emerged as a form of resistance to the rapid urban transformation brought about in recent years: “Keep Austin Weird” originated in 2000 as a grassroots expression of place attachment and anti-commercialization. Its popularity has led to its use as a rallying cry for local business, as a rhetorical tool by city governance, and now as the unofficial civic motto for a city experiencing rapid growth and transformation. By using “Keep Austin Weird” as a central focus, Joshua Long explores the links between sense of place, consumption patterns, sustainable development, and urban politics in Austin. Research on this phenomenon considers the strong influence of the “Creative Class” thesis on Smart Growth strategies, gentrification, income inequality, and social polarization made popular by the works of Richard Florida. This study is highly applicable to several emerging “Creative Cities,” but holds special significance for the city considered the greatest creative success story, Austin.

Do you think you know the truth about what happens in Beach City? THINK AGAIN! Fans of Steven Universe know that Steven and the Crystal Gems are behind most of the strange occurrences that happen in their hometown of Beach City. But Ronaldo Fryman, the town's resident blogger and conspiracy theorist, has some other ideas. This book, created by show writers Ben Levin and Matt Burnett, is a companion to Ronaldo's blog of the same name, and includes his favorite theories and collected evidence. Is Ronaldo a raving, delusional madman or a brilliant, misunderstood visionary (or a little bit of both)? You be the judge!

New Jersey is even WEIRDER than we thought! From the authors of Weird N.J.—with more than 125,000 copies sold—comes a second amazing collection of the wonderful weirdness that fills every inch of the Garden State. One of the bestselling books ever to hit New Jersey was Mark Sceurman and Mark Moran’s Weird N.J. The book was such a phenomenon that it began a whole series of Weird state books, each one a bestseller. But the Marks, as they are called, always knew that there were more, bizarre stories lurking in their own home state. So back they went, camera and notebook in hand, to travel the highways and byways of New Jersey to chronicle more weirdly bizarre stories. And what did they find? How about the pathway of a doctor’s office paved with tombstones? Or a pumpkin-shaped house? Then there’s the Hub Cap Tree, the Birdsville Church (yes, a church for birds), and the bowling ball pyramid that graces one proud resident’s front lawn. Fun too are the haunted houses to visit, the ghosts to chat with, and the cursed roads to travel down. It’s all part of the long, strange trip known as Weird N.J.