Earl Brechlin’s book, Wild! Weird! Wonderful! Maine, is amazing. Published by Islandport Press in Yarmouth, the book is filled with 300 wonderful stories about Maine people, places, events, and more, throughout our history. He even tells us about haunting ghosts.

Earl organized the book by regions in Maine, from the southern Maine coast to the western mountains to northern Maine. My favorite section was down east, particularly the story set in Lubec, where I have a family history.

You will be astonished by many of Earl’s stories, from Nazi spies to huge bridges, and awesome lighthouses to a lady buried in a casket of rum. I thought I knew a lot about Maine, but I learned a lot more from this book.

You will love the story of the Baptist minister who claimed he was able to extract lots of gold from the sea water in the ocean at Lubec. He claimed each cubic mile of sea water contained as much as $100 million in gold. But he had a diver depositing the same handful of gold every night. Eventually, after collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars from investors, this guy vanished.

I didn’t know how Earl could know so much about Maine, but at the end of the book, he tells us that he collected 550 suggestions from people all over Maine. He decided that was too many, so he only used 300 in this book. The good news is that he only needs 50 more for his next book!

Earl is one of my favorite authors who has written several books about Maine. He’s currently communications director for Friends of Acadia and a Maine guide. And boy, he did a great job guiding us through Maine in his new book!