Did you know duck dander is hallucinogenic? Or that Katherine Hepburn had a phobia of dirty hair? Have you ever wondered about the Magickal Skull of Doom or contemplated the mysterious Transylvanian Tablets? The Book of the Bizarre is a veritable treasure trove of startling and strangerthanfiction trivia that spans history, continents, even worlds. Never before have so many truly frightful facts been gathered together in one place. Teeming with the strange, the shocking, and the downright fantastic, The Book of the Bizarre's thirteen chapters include: Something Wicked: Mysterious Objects & Haunted Homes, Tender Murderers and Malevolent Males: Killingly Good Tales of Terror, and Morbid Writers and Tortured Artists: From Edgar Allan Poe to Vincent Van Gogh. Terrifying topics range from Corpses on Campus to Strange Rock and Roll Stories to Medical Maladies, Conspiracy Theories, Superstitions, Hexes, and even UFO's. The Book of the Bizarre is designed for the depraved, outlandish enough for the eccentric, and freaky enough for even the hardest trivia nut.
Varla A. Ventura is the author of several books, including Enchanted Plants, Among the Mermaids, and The Book of the Bizarre. As a lover of all things strange, Varla’s interests extend into the weirdness and magic of the plant kingdom. With a deep fascination with folklore and medicinal plants, she has been studying herbalism and botany for more than thirty years. Her plant knowledge comes from a combination of experimentation, formal classes in botany, and working in the horticultural industry for fifteen years. She ran a retail nursery in Portland, Oregon, as well as in San Francisco, California, and operated her own landscaping business for more than ten years. She is also the botanical brain behind Rotten Botany, a website dedicated to unusual plants. When not writing, she can be found wandering around the Minnesota woods or tending her poison garden.