We seem to do a bit of `rare and old` in this group, but not enough `offbeat`.

What literary oddities do you have that you want to tell us about ?

Start with a mildly offbeat one:

A pickle for the knowing ones, or, Plain truths in a homespun dress

The author got rich in speculative trading (sending coal to Newcastle, where it arrived during a miners' strike, and warming-pans to Jamaica, where they found eager use as sugar-skimmers). Full of money and himself he set about becoming a celebrity. He bought a mansion which he decorated extravagantly and gave large parties, called himself Lord Dexter and set up shop as a philosopher. Pickle is his magnum opus.

For readers who had complained about the scanty punctuation in early editions he later added half a page of commas, full stops, exclamation points, semicolons and the like, with the injunction to "peper and solt it as they plese."

But he is far from the most attractive personality among notable eccentrics. He was a blowhard, a bully and a wife-beater, and on more than one occasion fired or caused to be fired a pistol at someone who had displeased him in an entirely non-violent way.

Message edited by its author, Dec 5, 2006, 8:33am.

I have an offbeat book in my collection entitled, "People of the Lie" by M. Scott Peck

My oddest is probably A Handbook on Hanging, which also likely has the longest title in my collection (A Handbook on Hanging, Being a short introduction to the fine art of Execution, and containing much useful information on Neck-breaking, Throttling, Strangling, Asphyxiation, Dcapitation and lectrocution; as well as Data and Wrinkles for Hangmen, an account of the late Mr. Berry's method of Killing and his working list of Drops; to which is added a Hangman's Ready Reckoner and certain other items of interest, by Charles Duff, New edition enlarged diligently compared and revised in accordance with the most recent Developments. All Very Proper to be read and Kept in Every Family. )

Message edited by its author, Dec 5, 2006, 10:20am.

How to survive on land and sea ... a survival guide from the U.S. Navy from WWII (pubilshed in '43).

Well, lets see what I've got that's a bit unusual -

New Radiant Readers: Book IV is an children's English schoolbook published for use in India in the 1960s

Sueños y sudores en la vida cotidiana is a book on labor conditions in low-wage work in Costa Rica

Several volumes of the the collected writings of B. R. Ambedkar

and

Sunshine and Shadow in New York, a somewhat sensationalized, journalistic account of social conditions in mid-nineteenth century New York.

Message edited by its author, Dec 5, 2006, 1:12pm.

Ambedkar - is that the Dalit leader who led a mass conversion from Hinduism to Buddhism ?

Nick

Nick -

That's the one. If you want to know more I would actually have to take the time to think about it.

Eric

You guys probably already know that tomorrow (today already, Mumbai time) is the 50th anniversary of Ambedkar's death. Trouble is expected.

Should we disqualify books that are deliberately weird and only pick those that manage it unintentionally, perhaps due to separation in time and space? Is there extra credit for rarity? If no to both those conditions, then how about Codex Seraphinianus, which rates its own Wikipedia page? Almost thirty of us have it.

Eric - no need, thanks - I was just checking we were both thinking of the same guy. Cheers.

MMcM -

I favour a free-floating concept of weirdness.

`Unintentionally weird` is more in keeping with the spirit of the thing.

`Deliberately weird` is a bit of a funny one.

I think if it`s just an affectation of weirdness, then we should exclude it, but if it`s just a question of a writer whose mind is wired up differently, that`s OK.

Rarity, I think, should not be a requirement - there`s nothing so weird as what passes for normal in this world. Same with books.

By all mean, tell us about this Codex thing, that would be cool.

I think my weirdest falls into the "unintentionally weird" category -- two different copies of The Peep of Day by Favell Lee Mortimer, a popular devotional text for young children in the nineteenth century. An excerpt:

How kind of God it was to give you a body! I hope that your body will not get hurt. Will your bones break? Yes, they would, if you were to fall down from a high place, or if a cart were to go over them. If you were to be very sick, your flesh would waste away, and you would have scarcely anything left but skin and bones. ... How easy it would be to hurt your poor little body. If it were to fall in the fire, it would be burned up. If hot water were to fall upon it, it would be scalded. If it were to fall into deep water, and not to be taken out very soon, it would be drowned. If a great knife were to run through your body, the blood would come out. If a great box were to fall on your head, your head would be crushed. If you were to fall out of the window, your neck would be broken. If you were not to eat some food for a few days, your little body would be very sick, your pulse and your breath would stop, and you would grow cold, and you would soon be dead. ... Kneel down and say to God, 'Pray, keep my poor little body from getting hurt.' God will hear you, and go on taking care of you.

I understand that some of Mrs. Mortimer's travel writings have been reprinted recently as a humor collection. Not her writings for children, however. Odd -- I couldn't even type out the paragraph above without giggling.

ipsographic, that is wonderful! It reads like the lyrics of "Brave Sir Robin", doesn't it. I especially liked the "great knife" and the "great box". Why, I wonder, is there no "great tree branch" or even a "great ravening wolf"...

My oddest (?) book is also my oldest: A Grammar of the Iberno-Celtic, or Irish Language. The Second Edition, with Additions. by Charles Vallancey, published in M,DCC,LXXXII (1782) in Dublin. (Sorry, I'm not having much luck with the touchstone for the title!)

Actually, the full title is: A Grammar of the Iberno-Celtic, or Irish Language. The Second Edition, with Additions. To which is prefixed an Essay on the Celtic Language; Shewing the Importance of the Iberno-Celtic or Irish Dialect, to Students in History, Antiquity, and the Greek and Roman Classics.

(I particularly enjoyed it when the author "shewed" the language's connection to Basque, Arabic, Showiah and Algonkin!)

If we were giving out awards for `Best Unintentionally Weird Book Owned`, then ipso. would win hands down !

Excellent stuff !

Seriously, I think that nothing can ever be weirder or more disturbing than that, Ipso! lol That's a prayer to keep kids up at night and give them nighmares. :}

Actually, it`s a bit concerning - what if the poor child prayed not be variously dismembered, brutalised and/or traumatised in the manner described, and then did indeed meet with some terrible accident ?

Surely they would then not only experience a terrible injury, but some sort of crisis of faith linked to the lack of implied divine protection ?

Apart from the text proving ruinously counter-productive, would the writer be liable for litigation ? There does seem to be a form of implicit contract there.

Maybe she would have been liable had this book been written today -- Mrs Mortimer was certainly a crazed person by our standards!

That excerpt above is my personal favorite, but it doesn't even touch on the terrible things that could happen to your mother and father ("I have heard of a little child whose father fell down from a high ladder, and was killed"), and what to expect on the Judgment Day ("One day God will burn up this world we live in"). Glad you all enjoyed it -- at least someone should.

Apparently, the same author wrote a book called Reading Without Tears (published anonymously), a title which I suspect could be misleading.

According to Wikipedia, she also wrote a number of books about people she had never met who lived in places she had never visited. She gleaned her information from other people`s books, but I feel she may have added her own unique twist to them, as evidence by the desription of her works as "vile and insulting prose".

I`ve encountered one or two lunatics on Library Thing, but this is the first that it was a writer and not a fellow LT user. The first of many, I hope.

Who`s going to take up `The Ipso Challenge` and come up with an even more startling piece of work ?

Lot's of people may have some Lewis Carroll in their collections, but one day at my Local Book Store (Book Revue, Huntington, NY) I ran across a thin blue book called Some Oxford Scandals: Seven Letters to the Editor by C.L. Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), published by the Lewis Carroll Society in 1978. According to it, "Of this book 200 copies only have been printed including 25 for presentation."
As I had the required $5, I of course bought it.

Thus proving, PressShift1, that "anything can be anywhere." Great acquisition!

Then there's Manifold Destiny: The One! The Only! Guide to Cooking on Your Car Engine! There are over forty road-tested recipes in this little gem.

Edited to add: This is not a rare book as there are five LT members who have catalogued it. However the IDEA is weird.

Message edited by its author, Dec 9, 2006, 3:05pm.

That IS a strange idea! What are the recipes like?

I think the earliest ones were recipes where you wrapped everything in aluminum foil and baked the food on the engine block much like you would in the coals of a campfire. A lot of the text concerns how to form the foil packets and where the best places inside the engine compartment are for different cars. The foods go from fish to stuffed cabbage to pork tenderloin and the cooking times are given in terms of miles you need to drive in order to cook the particular food. For instance, 'To Grandmother's House Road Turkey' requires 220 miles or 4 hours of interstate driving.

Well, you can't get more offbeat than The Story of Margarine by S. F. Riepma. It is indeed the story of margarine.

Message edited by its author, Dec 17, 2006, 9:40pm.

nasalhazel, I'll admit that might actually be pretty interesting. Margarine's discoverer is better known as the author of The principles of harmony and contrast of colors, which informed Neo-Impressionism. I remember cleaning up his Wikipedia entry on that point a year or two ago.

Lady, Be Loved! by Lelord Kordel, is chock full of gems too indelicate to reproduce here, but a look at some of the chapter titles may give you an idea:

Signs and Causes of Sex Stimulation
The "Frigid" Woman
Sex in the Menopause and Later Years
Menstruation - True and False
Discharges and Douching
The Menopause and Common Sense

Written in 1953, but light years ago in terms of attitude and expectation.

I can contribute a private press edition of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam in Welsh. (I don't read Welsh.)

Oak Mot by Crispin Glover



The interesting thing is that I don't believe he's being weird for weirdness (?) sake. I think he's a blast.

Message edited by its author, Dec 30, 2006, 9:16pm.

Artisan, I have a copy of the Kalevala in Latin (I don't read Latin. Or Finnish either.)

Message edited by its author, Dec 30, 2006, 11:13pm.

>27 said, I can contribute a private press edition of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam in Welsh. (I don't read Welsh.)

Somewhere or other (possibly at my father's house), I have a copy of Tailc Tréanmhór an Ri-Bhéar, purchased in Ireland a few years back. It's an Irish Gaelic translation of Monarch, The Big Bear of Tallac, a minor work published by the Canadian naturalist Ernest Thompson Seton in 1904. (The translation was published by Ireland's Oifig Díolta Foillseacháin Rialtais in 1931.)

That's actually what I collect, "offbeat." They're all found under a "wtf" tag in my collection.

Ideally, these are books relating to childrearing, teenagers, or women's health and sexuality; ideally, they are pre-1960; and ideally, what's written in them is bad advice, disastrous advice, or bizarre advice.

My favorite right now has to be Rehearsal for safety a book of safety plays. It's a 1939 book of plays about household safety intended for elementary-school children. It's in a library rebinding (which was misspelled) and in nearly every play a child is brutally maimed or injured - from getting nailed by a streetcar, to getting tetanus from an errant nail while putting on a school play, to a baby allowed access to a pot of boiling water with predictable results. I'm taking a children's lit class in the spring and the professor has become so entranced by the horrifying nature of this book that a few of us are actually going to put on a play or two.

I used to own A Bedroom Companion, a humorous book of Depression-era pornography, and then discovered that Dr. Seuss wasn't always a children's illustrator - if you take my meaning. I'll never look at cuckoo clocks quite the same way again. I don't have it anymore because I gave it to David Sedaris - it seemed to belong in his hands even more than mine, and he loves it.

Message edited by its author, Dec 31, 2006, 3:29am.

i use to work in a second hand bookstore - the wierdest thing i came across there was an Incredible little book which was a scientific study on how vegetarianism can prevent consumption.

it was gifted to someone i no longer have contact with, so i have no idea who has it now... but lordy, it was a special little book.

Flattened Fauna comes to mind... It's a book aout how to identify roadkill, and includes a scaled 4-1/2" road stripe for each silhouette for size comparison. I've used it 'in the field' with my Boy Scout Troop.

I have a 3-volume set from 1850 called Dogma et Rituel de la Haute Magie which is pretty unusual. Though not quite as odd as Wholehouselibrary's Flattened Fauna!

My wife wants me to mention that she has a book called How to Massage Your Cat, written by Alice Brock.

You may (or may not) have heard of her (Alice, not my wife). She's the "Alice" in Arlo Guthrie's song "Alice's Restaurant" (which I still play every Thanksgiving).

Do you and Alice still live in or near Stockbridge? I grew up near there and Alice's Restuarant (both the song and the actual place . . . wasn't it called something about the Alley?) were staples of my childhood.

Does Anyone Else Have Something Further to Add? by R.A. Lafferty.

You thought Phillip K. Dick was weird. Lafferty was weird without the drugs. There is a method to his madness, and I did enjoy Nine Hundred Grandmothers, but some of the stories in Does Anyone Else? are so far out that I feared for Lafferty's sanity.

The Family Wicca, which mysteriously turned up on my bookcase this afternoon, despite me having 'added' those shelves. It's fairly odd, definitely the weirdest book I've got, but nothing compared to those listed above.

I offer up Creative and sexual science: Or, Manhood, womanhood, and their mutual interrelations; love, its laws, power, etc. by Prof. O. S. Fowler, published sometime before 1885. Odd because it's a peek into Victorian era American ideas about love, marriage, and family; because it contains over 1,000 pages of pseudo-science on this topic; and, because Professor Fowler represents a somewhat fringe view, even for his time (I hope), of human relationships.

The complete title is:
CREATIVE AND SEXUAL SCIENCE: Or, Manhood, Womanhood, and their Mutual Interrelations; Love, its Laws, Power, Etc.; Selection, or Mutual Adaptation; Courtship, Married Life, and PERFECT CHILDREN; Their generation, endowment, paternity, maternity, bearing, nursing, and rearing; together with puberty, boyhood, girlhood, etc.; Sexual Impairments Restored, male vigor and female health and beauty perpetuated and augmented, etc., as taught by PHRENOLOGY and PHYSICLOGY {sic}. by PROF. O.S. FOWLER

After this title follows a 22 page table of contents, including the following gems:
On the subject of the Women's Rights movement
- 'Women's Rights' antagonize the Sexes, and hinder Offspring
- Loved Dependence better than Unloved Independence
On Cases in Which Dissimilarities Improve Love
- When Physical Dissimilarities are Best: Dummies, Dwarfs, etc.
On Mental Specialties of Races, Nations, and Families Transmitted
- All Jews Inherit Abraham's Mental Traits

The section entitled All Jews Inherit Abraham's Mental Traits, after proving that Jews inherit Abrahams traits by pointing out that Abraham was good at acquiring wealth, includes:
"Irishmen are irate, and perhaps were so named because their irritable, excitable, impulsive ancestors were so ireish. Englishmen are proud, persistent, and domineering; Germans plodding and honest; Frenchmen ambitious and ornate; Italians musical and impassioned; Spaniards proud and tyrannical; Austrians conservative and arbitrary; Russians patient and pious; Turks voluptuous and religious; Indians and Tartars fierce and cruel; Americans enterprising and sagacious; and thus of all other national specialties."

The section entitled 'Women's Rights' antagonize the Sexes, and hinder Offspring includes:
'One of them {women's rights advocates}, rich, masculine looking, consulting me, with several of her clique, on preventing conception, more characteristically of her sect than modestly, used these precise words: "I won't bear all the young ones my lustful husband chooses to chuck into me."'
along with 'It encourages abortions and preventions, both utterly accursed.' and 'Dissatisfied conjugal or unmarried grumblers are the chief agitators.'

The section entitled 'Cases in Which Dissimilarities Improve Love' includes busts of ideal types used to demonstrate who matches well with whom based on physical appearance, including 'Miss Chubby', 'Miss Slim', 'A Well Balanced Form', 'Miss Harmonious', etc. and include "Heavy lower jaws, which signify animal vigor, are adapted to light; but two with heavy jowles would create too animal offspring; and two thin ones, those too feeble physically to become accomplish {sic}, or enjoy much."

In talking about John Adams, Fowler states
"President John Adams lived in the most poetic affection with his wife over half a century. His subjoined likeness shows why. He had all the signs of a vigorous sexuality, along with that harmonious evenness which would neither give nor take offence. He was so splendidly sexed that any and all women would love him; besides being talented, moral and most appreciative of the sex. He was best adapted to a woman rather tall, certainly not oval, but especially refined. A little irritability was his only fault.

O.
(sorry, my post is a wordy as Professor Fowler)

Message edited by its author, Feb 3, 2007, 5:16pm.

#39

Oh, that's wonderful! Thank you!

Wow - never knew that John Adams was "splendidly sexed." The things they leave out of history courses! :-) And Irishmen are so ireish. I love it.

I wish you'd start a "Creative and Sexual Science" topic and post more excerpts.

Editing: dratted ! I always mess up.

Message edited by its author, Feb 3, 2007, 5:34pm.

I suppose the ~proof~ is that there was a John Adams JUNIOR.....

Re >36

Let's set the record straight -- I don't know Alice. I have a sister named Alice, but Arlo Guthrie never wrote a song about her. I grew up in New Jersey, and moved to Texas almost 18 years ago. According to the bio on the dust jacket, Alice Brock was living in Provincetown, Mass in 1985.

WholeHouse: Sorry about that! I was reading too quickly and skipped over the "Not" in the "not my wife" sentence!

#41
You figure producing a son earns the "splendidly sexed" rating?? I'd require a bit more than that.

I guess your sister didn't have a restaurant, then? :-)

myshelves,

At the very least, it's circumstancial evidence thereof, although it's certainly not ~proof~.
I have 3 sons, and believe me, my first marriage (almost 25 years) didn't even HINT of being "splendidly sexed". As my current wife summarized it, it was like trying to feed a badger.

And, no, my sister Alice did not, and continues to DOES NOT own a restaurant. With all the money she's spent eating at one, though, she SHOULD. She's a pretty bad cook, I hear.

WholeHouseLibrary,

I was thinking of the phrase as referring to physical attributes, or possibly to prowess. (Shows how my mind works.) I looked it up, and the definition was highly sexed or oversexed. 5 kids in the days before reliable birth control is so far from proof that it isn't even a suggestion. :-) Some of my colonial ancestors lost count after 20.

I don't know much about wildlife. I did read The Honey Badger, but I hope that's not the sort you mean.

Sorry to hear that your sister let her bad cooking skills keep her from opening a restaurant. There are many who haven't been deterred by such a small detail, and I guess she could always have hired a cook if business got too slow, or complaints multiplied too fast. And with a brother in the hotel business. . . .

Message edited by its author, Feb 4, 2007, 12:58am.

Even without birth control the issue was more a question of mortality particularly of women doing the childbirth. I'm not sure where I read it but there was a study of all the bastards of the British Kings there was something like 900 since the Norman conquest.

jmnlman
Strategist's Personal Library
http://jmnlman.blogspot.com/

#46
900? That sounds high. It would average out to about 25 per king, wouldn't it? More when we eliminate those who died too young or weren't so inclined.

Looks like I doubled the number. Closer to 500 it looks like they're also counting children in wedlock. Which takes the average down to 10.

Supposedly this is based on some heraldry records. From a tourist pamphlet I picked up on a vacation in the UK.

Message edited by its author, Feb 4, 2007, 11:40am.

Not attacking you, just questioning whether the number you repeated in commenting on childbirth rates is plausible. If you cite it, you put it out there for discussion.

Editing: Just saw the revised #48. Are they counting Queens as well as Kings? AIR, Queen Anne could skew the statistics all by herself.

Message edited by its author, Feb 4, 2007, 11:51am.

That's fine. No problem. It got me to dig it out and it turned out I had doubled the number.

49: It's unclear. Here's what it says listed as a bullet as a "interesting fact".

"did you you know that the monarchs of England {and there successors} have had over 500 offspring? Both in and out of wedlock according to The Heraldry Society.

I think I purchased this thing from the Tower of London but it's been years.

Note: I assume by "successors" it means monarchs of the UK and not descendants that were not royalty since that would obviously be more than 500.

Message edited by its author, Feb 4, 2007, 12:17pm.

Monarchs would definitely include Queens. Try telling the incumbent otherwise. :-) Sounds like a reasonable number.

P. S. That's how I read
"successors."

Message edited by its author, Feb 4, 2007, 12:20pm.

Yup.:) Anyway to get us back on topic probably my strangest book is Manual of Guerilla Tactics. Specially Prepared and Based on Lessons from the spanish and Russian Campaigns published for the British government in WWII describing all sorts of dirty tricks. Also has brilliant commentary like when blowing up a home make sure the windows and doors are closed.

Message edited by its author, Feb 4, 2007, 12:22pm.

That sounds interesting. But maybe you shouldn't post too many excerpts, given the times. :-)

My mother had a booklet that had belonged to her cousin --- a phrasebook for use by US personnel who found themselves in Russia during WWII. (It disappeared during some household move, darn it.) It contained such conversation openers as "Help! I have been wounded in the privates."

particle size distributions in the gravity thickening of a softening plant sludge. I'll say no more about it.

O.

If this were a competition, we'd have a winner!

I concede.

I can't top #55, but I'm particularly fond of A Diagnostic Manual of Eel Diseases Occurring Under Culture Conditions in Japan in my own collection, particularly for the illustrations.

Message edited by its author, Feb 13, 2007, 6:16pm.

#58> Fond, perhaps, but is it weird to you? I'd guess teratology would involve books far weirder (to me, at least) than eel diseases.

Well, I'm only an amateur teratologist. Most of my books on teratology and 'freaks' are fairly mainstream - things like A Cabinet of Medical Curiosities or Mutants. I guess On Monsters and Marvels by Ambroise Pare is a bit odd.

Actually, looking at it a different way and pictures of eel lesions aside, my weirdest books are the Hal Lindsey books - "yeah guys, the world will absolutely end any minute now, never mind that I've been saying so for decades" - and books like Turmoil in the Toybox about how He-Man actions figures will turn your kids into demon-worshipers.

I just bought mine, The Walk of Colonial Jack by John A. Krohn (1910), the story of a 9,000 mile walk around the border of the United States. (Research for an article I am writing.) Krohn walked across country, around the border, across country pushing a bicycle wheeled "trolleyette" for money and fame?

To quote Krohn"

Why did I push a wheelbarrow around the border of the United States?
To make money by selling my story.
But "the love of money is root of all evil."
Yes; still, most of us need the "root."

Some years ago I found a book at a used book store called "Losers, Weepers: An Anthology of Found Poems". Twelve hundred copies of the book were designed and printed by George Hitchcock (who was also the editor). My favorite selection in the book was contributed by Hitchcock, and it is excerpts from an "Egyptian, Syrian and North-African Hand-Book, A Simple Phrase-book in English and Arabic for the Use of the Armed Forces and Civilians". Hitchcock's "poem" is entitled "What to Say to the Pasha", and it links the phrases together in a beautiful and evocative way. The book was published in 1969, so pre-dates the current conflict.

Message edited by its author, Feb 17, 2007, 10:52am.

I just recently picked up a poetry book by Andre Farkas called Murders in the Welcome Cafe. From what I've gauged in the first chapter is it's a mystery epic poem.

Message edited by its author, Feb 25, 2007, 8:35pm.

Certainly it is wierd and odd in the sense of Who Would Have Thought...... is Beachcombing for Japanese Glass Floats by Amos L Wood from the Pacific Northwest which must be the dernier cri of the genre. Actually it is an excellent reference work including, for example, the manufacturers' trademarks for identification purposes. A reference librarian friend salivated when I showed it to her. Amazingly, the copy I have is the 3rd edition!

Certainly it is wierd and odd in the sense of Who Would Have Thought...... is Beachcombing for Japanese Glass Floats by Amos L Wood from the Pacific Northwest which must be the dernier cri of the genre. Actually it is an excellent reference work including, for example, the manufacturers' trademarks for identification purposes. A reference librarian friend salivated when I showed it to her. Amazingly, the copy I have is the 3rd edition!

Having started the thread, I find I haven`t actually suggested any books of my own - partly because I think Ipso.`s Favell lee Mortimer selection is pretty much unbeatable.

Here`s one that is not unintentionaly weird, but is also (I think), not affectedly weird, more the product of a mind that is wired up differently ( I mean that in a nice way, as I am a fan).

The book is Gordon Willis`s Kilroy Is Here. Last time I mentioned it on LT, the author was kind enough to e-mail me, and subsequently sent me a replacement for my battered old paperback copy, so he is clearly a good bloke.

Anyway, the book takes three parts - the first concerns a character who awakes to find an aspidestra growing out of his back, a situation that will eventually push him to the very fringes of society.

The next bit (my favourite part) involves the Kilroy of the title and his being employed by the psycopathic Felix Grunt. I am a bit concerned that I find this character strangely likeable. I especially like his comment on former employees - "The sharp edges you know. Got the wind up. Panic. Lacked the inner poise. Still, their heads came in handy."

In the last part Kilroy finds himself encased in concrete in the base of a statue along with Felicity, wife of Felix Grunt. They observe the world around them - "Day breaks starkly. People try to carry out their plans. In the evening imagination fires hope yet again. Day breaks. Felicity holds her memories like a bomb inside her."

It is a book that many in England would find incomprehensible, so I don`t know how it works "in American".

I have to say, the rest of you have come up with such a treasure trove of offbeat items, I almost hesitated to make this little offering, but I think it deserves a mention, if only because I am on a one-man crusade to prevent it`s being lost for all time.

I must say, I like LT a lot better when people do this sort of stuff. Keep up the good work !

I think The Art of Rhinoceros Horn Carving might be a bit recherche. :)

Cunt Coloring Book

O.o

A related tidbit for weird-book lovers, from the BBC website (and I'm going to attempt adding touchstones to the titles, just for the fun of it):

Trolley book wins odd title prize

A book titled The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification has been named as the oddest book title of the year.

The annual prize, awarded by industry magazine Bookseller, drew more than 5,500 internet voters to its website.

The shopping trolley book, by Julian Montague, picked up 1,866 votes.

Tattooed Mountain Women and Spoon Boxes of Dagestan came second, with Better Never To Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence in third place.

"We are delighted to reward a brilliant piece of niche publishing again this year," said Joel Rickett, deputy editor of The Bookseller.

"For everyone who has ever seen an abandoned supermarket trolley and wondered how it got there, The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America is an indispensable guide."

"The book is a labour of love and apparently took the author six years to compile," he added.

Other runners-up include How Green Were the Nazis? and D Di Mascio of Coventry - An Ice Cream Company of Repute, With An Interesting and Varied Fleet of Ice Cream Vans.

The contest began in 1978 - previous winners include High Performance Stiffened Structures, Living with Crazy Buttocks and How To Avoid Huge Ships.

{Sidebar:}

SELECTION OF PAST WINNERS
The Joy of Chickens
American Bottom Archaeology
Versailles: The View From Sweden
Re-using Old Graves
Highlights in the History of Concrete
The Joy of Sex: Pocket Edition
Greek Rural Postmen and Their Cancellation Numbers

More on Mrs. Favell Lee Mortimer, with excerpts from her indeed misleadingly titled book "Reading Without Tears" can be found here: http://www.sitella.co.uk/sideline/divers...

Mine is probably How To Shit In The Woods: An Environmentally Sound Approach To A Lost Art - a hilarious but also indispensible guide for backcountry hikers and even Sunday drive impromptu poopers.

#70 Excellent contribution from the wonderfully named giveusadrink. Once again, I laughed out loud at the excesses of the madwoman Mortimer.

A new one for the genre.

I was intrigued to discover recently that San Jose State Univ has an annual bad writing competition, the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, named after English writer Lord Lytton.

Your intrepid bookseller has searched his stock and come up with this snappy extract from the great man`s prose -

"Young gentleman," said the earl, after eyeing with some attention the comely archer, "I am pleased that you bear the name of Nevile. Vouchsafe to inform me to what scion of our house we are this day indebted for the credit with which you have upborne its cognisance?"

I found that simply by opening one of his books, Last of The Barons at random. Who knows what undiscovered hidden gems may lie therein ? I vouchsafe there is page after page of this stuff, mayhap.

I notice (I worked in law enforcement in a small way for a time) that the worthy Lord switches from the florid to a policeman-like attention to detail ("after eyeing with some attention..."). There is, apparently a famous passage of his, describing strong winds blowing down a city street "except at irregular intervals". I seem to recall that Terry Pratchett uses a similar device at times, though the difference is, he knows it`s funny !

I may add the odd Lytton to the bubbling stew of lunacy and mediocrity we`ve already concocted, but if anyone knows any other good examples of his stuff, do feel free to vouchsafe it.

>73

It should be noted that Lord Lytton is widely known for writing the famous opening line: "It was a dark and stormy night...", which begins a particularly long and convoluted sentence.

The contest is to solicit new, comperable opening lines. The 2006 winners can be found here

O.

Message edited by its author, Apr 22, 2007, 12:40am.

>74

Wonderful contest, that.

My all-time favourite winner of the Bulwer-Lytton prize is still the one that was awarded in 1983, the first year of the contest:

The camel died quite suddenly on the second day, and Selena fretted sulkily and, buffing her already impeccable nails--not for the first time since the journey began--pondered snidely if this would dissolve into a vignette of minor inconveniences like all the other holidays spent with Basil.

--Gail Cain, San Francisco, California (1983 Winner)

From the "Lyttony" of grand prize winners:
http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/lyttony.htm

My weirdest is Criswell Predicts. From Now until the Year 2000. It's by The Amazing Criswell of course. One of his predictions declared, "I predict that your television set will come on one side of the wall and the figures will be laser-caused, tri-dimensional and walk out into the room, in natural color, breathing, living, with odors to match. You will enjoy the bracing air of the Northwest, the warm enchantment of the South Seas or the swill of the swamps." The book was written in 1968.

Pretty disappointing, that. I'd really enjoy having the 'swill of the swamps' in my living room. %-)

The closest we got was 'scratch-n-sniff'.

Os.

Message edited by its author, Jun 1, 2007, 12:09pm.

Weird?

How about "The Sensuous Turtle"? subtitled (the amorous adventures of a nude and stacked blonde with her jar of live chocolate-covered earthworms and three active terripins. Author is Nooky Green. published by Quasimoto Press, Ft. Wayne, Indiana. 1972.

122 pages of a woman using these terripins and earthrooms to achieve erotic bliss. she suspends two of the terripins from long rubber bands at the ceiling and begins to let them move while offering heer nipples to their little claws. "the storking of the tiny turtle's titillating toes caused Norma enhancement and approbation as she struggled to her second orgasm. The uncertainty of whether the toes would tangle in the teat, as it were, brought unknown expectations of tickling pain."

oh yeah.

Message edited by its author, Nov 12, 2007, 7:07am.

I have two kind of odd books in my foodie case. One is The Kikkoman Chronicles, a history of one company's secret to soy sauce success. The other is Bull Cook and Authentic Historical Recipes, because everyone needs to know how to corn beef from scratch, and because of the last appendix, entitled "In Case of a Hydrogen Bomb Attack You Must Know the Ways of the Wilderness to Survive".

This last includes such useful advice as "stock 5 one-pound cans of tobacco. This is your fortune. If there is any food or material available that you need, the tobacco will get it for you when money will not."

Hmm... let's see.

I have Sanskrit: the Microwave Method, although I still don't know the details of what the Microwave method might be.

Then there's the pair of Irish Gaelic hymnbooks I picked up second hand years ago.

I have a book written entirely in Inuit, in Inuit syllabary, but don't know how to read it, as I've never made the effort to learn either the syllabary or the Inuit language among my language projects. It's apparently a biography of a famous person, and was told that it was one o the first books to be published in an Inuit language. I can't be assured of that one though.

Will You Be Alive in 1965? by Gordon Collier, printed 1954. It's a collection of prophecies from several different people of that time. Some prophecies are very specific and some very general. The tone of the book is that right now (1954, that is) is a time of great change and the opening of a new age. And plunked in among the prophecies is Alfred Tennyson's poem, "Sir Galahad." There's no explanation of why the poem is included. It's just there.

Mine would be White Trash Cooking by Ernst Mickler.

Here's a sample recipe for Potato Chip Sandwich:

2 slices of bread
mayonnaise
potato chips

Spread the mayo generously across the bread. Pile the potato
chips on to one of the slices as high as you can. Then top it with the other slice and mash down until all the potato chips are crushed. Pardie Tickette says "Wash it down with a Pepsi, it's some good!"

Other "must tries' include Mock Cooter Soup,
Our Lord's Scripture Cake, Tutti's Fruited Porkettes. and Uncle Willie's Swamp Cabbage Stew.

> 82

You're not alone with the White Trash Cooking... I've seen another copy, although I don't own it. It's a classic. I liked the Roadkill recipes myself.

Mental fascination; being the first manual in the nature of a supplement or sequel to "The secret of mental magic,"

My grandmother at various points in her life, was married to a Theosophist, a freemason and a seeker of some other weird sect. We had all sort of weird bunkum around the house, and this is one of those books. Beautifully typeset.

How to Good-Bye Depression: If You Constrict Anus 100 Times Everyday. Malarkey? or Effective Way? Don't be fooled by the title, this is not a balanced look at the efficacy of anal constriction. Nishigaki is very much an anal constriction partisan.

Illustrated Encyclopedia of Sex Hubba-hubba! Well, not really. This is a 1949 edition filled with some of the oddest most-unilluminating metaphorical illustrations commited to paper.

>84 I think you win.

>84
I'm trying to figure out how one could be 'fooled by the title' of How to Good-Bye Depression: If You Constrict Anus 100 Times Everyday. Malarkey? or Effective Way?.

Os.

It's certainly not the oddest listed here, but a nice addition has to be How To Fight A Bull by Barnaby Conrad. Had I a larger freezer, perhaps I would practice more. Chapters include 'The Cape' and 'How to Kill a Bull'. Apparently (according to the jacket notes) one in nine able-bodied tourists to Spain try their hand at the sport.

Message edited by its author, Jul 3, 2007, 10:49pm.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13011/130...

Here's the Online Text of Favell Lee Mortimer's "Far Off".

This book makes H.P. Lovecraft seem open minded about non-European races of people.

84>

Could "Mental Magic" be the origins of The Secret?

Message edited by its author, Jul 13, 2007, 3:05am.

Ok, I've got a couple new ones...

The Captain Kid Book & Judge Annual, several issues from 1922 bound together. A friend found this and gave it to me; it's kind of beat up, water damaged, covers coming off. It seems to be a magazine about and aimed mostly at college-aged people.

A play called The Belle of Amherst, which is based on the life of Emily Dickinson.

The Gita in graphic novel/comic book form.

A couple-decades-old cookbook called Light Eating for Survival. It's this vegan, raw food cookbook I found in my parents' house. I don't think it belonged to my parents; they had an acquaintance staying with them for about six months, about twenty-five years ago, and he left a bunch of books with them, which he never reclaimed. I think it was his.

Volume 1 of a very early 20th century 10 volume Irish literature anthology.

A full-leather-bound Works of William Hogarth, undated, from the mid-1800s.

I just got a copy of Baby, Make Me Breakfast. A small board book with pictures to show your toddler how to make breakfast for mommy when she's hungover. Everything a toddler needs to know to prepare grapefruit, toast and jam, coffee, and aspirin with a glass of water. From Lisa Brown's Baby Be of Use series.

Os.

The touchstones for this thread are hilarious.

the wierdest book that I've most recently aquired is Easy to Make Maidens and Cocktails: A Mixing, Swingers Bar Guide edited by L. Peterson and J. Ostheimer. The illustrations are priceless; almost every 'maiden' has one boob hanging out in an odd position and a singles ad with something like, "motorcycles and mugs part time...drinks anything with anybody...communicates by snapping fingers and rotating navel". My favorite is, "Loves Wine Cooler and Yogurt-Does little theatre work and protest marches. Owns a seabag and 34 lbs of mascara, will drink after hours if you're after hers."

My two are "Son of Curried Eggs", which is a sketch comedy collection, with sketches by some British greats- but the book is entirely obscure, it was hidden in the corner of a used book shop. Another great weird addition I have is Grimm's complete fairy tales. My uncle picked it up at a bus stop and gave to me- it's enormously old, and I haven't been able to find the exact edition anywhere online.

Oh yeah, and for some odd reason, I have something called The Adrian Mole Songbook, with sheet music (and illustrations) set to Adrian Mole text.

A recent acquisition: Animals of the Ocean, In Particular The Giant Squid. A brief description can be found here.

Of course, it's easier to be wierd on purpose.

Os.

I found this old paperback. 1973, I think. It's called Pissing in the Snow. It's a collection of short folktales from the Ozarks from around the 1930s collected by this one folklorist. These particular stories couldn't be published when they were collected because of their "bawdy" nature. Some of them are quite rough, but almost all are hilarious. It lives in our bathroom, where it belongs. ha

I collect rare editions of what I like to call "The Big Three" (John Dryden, Alexander Pope, and Jonathan Swift.) But here's where it gets "offbeat":

I recently bought a 5 vol. set of Dryden's plays at a rare book store. In the front cover was a name plate which read: MAURICE FIRUSKI, HIS BOOK.

Thinking that maybe I had purchased the book of a Dryden collector or scholar, I googled the name, thinking that perhaps this person was/still is a professor of some sort who had written papers on the subject, etc.

What I found instead astounded me. So much so, that I began a Wikipedia article on it. Just go to Wikipedia.org and search for MAURICE FIRUSKI if you want to read it.

Anyway, now I am on a hunt for books from his collection, which bear his simple (yet eloquent) little name plate. So far, my search has proven fruitless, but the idea is still on the back burner of my mind, just kind of stewing. I always check rare books I buy to see if they bear the name plate, haha.

Is this an obsession? or does it sound like mere eccentricity?

>97

Go to www.abebooks.com, open the Advanced Search page, enter Maurice Firuski into the Keywords field, and look at page 2 of the results.

OH MY GOD!! Hahaha!!

That is so cool!

I wish I could afford them! :)

>96

The title is indeed Pissing in the Snow. I haven't added it to my library yet but, it's one of my favorite bathroom books. Hey! That gives me an idea for a topic. Probably already done but I'll have a look.

The oddest book to cross my path, but is not part of my personal collection thank goodness, was an instruction book on self-fellatio including a daily exercise routine. I remember the first line of the book was something like "Once you have mastered the techniques outlined in this book, you will never want to go back." lol

Anal constriction is extremely therapeutic in eliminating depression. Of course, it goes without saying that such acts coiuld result in mortal diseases unless you commit them alone.

Not a book I`ve got but one I saw in my local library the orther day - Hammer and Tickle claims to be tell the story of Communism through looking at `Communist humour`. I was going to say I can`t imagine anyone finding that interesting or amusing, but in fact earlier today, I noticed someone had actually borrowed it. Words fail me.

When I was in Finland during May of 2006, I saw a book for children, translated into English (you could buy it in Finnish as well), based on the Kalevala. Only the characters were dogs. I think it was called the Dogs' Kalevala or some such thing. When I returned to the States, I got the book interlibrary loan and thought it was cute.

Oh...probably the oddest book that I own is simply called "Guide to Tenrikyo." It's basically a photo guide to the town of Tenri, Japan, which is the center of the world according to the religion which is based there. This religion is based upon the teachings of a woman, Miki Nakayama, who is considered the earthly body of God by that religion. The religion itself was founded in 1838. Tenri the town was founded in 1954.

The book has a quite flimsy cover and black and white pictures. There is no author. The photo captions are in English, thank heaven. I imagine that the book was published by theTenrikyo foundation.

I bought the book online many years ago.

Not so much 'Weird' as 'Bizarre' is a volume which was not a book as such but a bound collection of photographic postcards of antique dog collars from a castle in England where dog breeding had been practiced for centuries. The collars were for hunting and attack dogs and were designed, in many cases, to protect the dog's neck from fatal injury. I also believe that dog fighting was a popular activity for gamblers in those times and for those with a taste for blood sports. Each collar was specially made. I do not know if multiple copies were made, but they were notably artistic.

OK, we've had this in the shop a couple of times and it always gets bought as a rude present: Tissue Cleansing through Bowel Management by Bernard Jensen....need I say more?

I've got a copy of the book on dog collars mentioned above somewhere in my collection..

I'll try and dig out some more from the recesses of my memory as we have a tendency to buy titles that elicit the WTF response.

We've got Pinocchio in Faroese! And a lengthy report on the fishing industry in the Faroes also in Faroese but we did manage to give away the copy of the Faroese tax legislation..lol!

Did I mention The History of Farting?

sorry, touchstone not working

Message edited by its author, Sep 10, 2009, 6:05pm.

There's a History of Farting?
I thought it would be all too fleeting to be recorded!

Shadrach S. Stevens' Speculations. Sallie Sparkle's Serio-Comic Story. A story written only using words which begin with the letter ess. It actually sustains a plot, of sorts, and goes on for about 26 pages. Inherited it from my grandfather, it's from the late 1800s.

Two off-beat items:

The first a Manga (comic-book) Earthquake preparedness manual from Japan that was distributed to schoolkids as part of their emergency training. (Manga - New Living with Earthquake Readiness (?)) Actually very interesting, you can learn a lot just looking at the pictures.

And a copy of "Handbook for Quartermaster's mates in the Royal Canadian Navy" from the 1940's. Title is from memory, the book is currently in storage.

Baseball for British Youth by Eric E. Whitehead. This book took me on an investigation of baseball in England, which was quite interesting in and of itself.