Waking up screaming from the American dream:

It's a strange country out there, and a hilarious one, when you know where to look. Bob Garfield sure does. For more than a decade, this journalist, humorist, and All Things Considered commentator has crisscrossed this country in a never-ending search for "bizarre Americana." His quest has taken him to forty-six states and hundreds of cities, towns, and rural backwaters, where he has encountered such oddities as earthworm ranchers, the Accountant Hall of Fame, the world's largest collection of potato chips shaped like famous faces, and the optimistic folks of Hamilton!, Ohio, who hoped that an exclamation point would help perk up their town's economy as well as its name. In these bitingly funny stories of not-so-ordinary people and places, Bob Garfield strikes at the core of the nation's psyche, revealing something poignant, endearing - and perhaps ultimately hopeful - about the American character.