What's your favorite book that nobody else ever reads?

[Birdmonster]

You know. That book you buy everyone for a gift because you're sure they don't have it or that novel you love that even your most literate friends don't know about. Your diamond in the rough, if you will.

Mine is Towing Jehovah. Just a wonderful book about finding God dead and belly up in the middle of the Atlantic.

I'm also always surprised by how few people seem to know Handling Sin, but I actually had this recommended to me via the SDMB, so it doesn't really fit my OP. Probably my favorite book ever. No joke. Now, who was I supposed to thank for that...

[Birdmonster]

Yes. It was Thudlow Boink who gifted me that recommendation. I salute you sir. Thank you.

[Gala Matrix Fire]

I don't buy it for people, but I lend them my copy, then I keep having to find and buy a new copy, which is harder and harder to do:
Sam Patch; Ballad of a Jumping Man.
About a real American character who was famous for jumping off of bridges and buildings, and who had a tame black bear who sometimes jumped along with him.
The book is narrated by the bear, who is a real deep thinker.

[RealityChuck]

Originally Posted by Birdmonster

Mine is Towing Jehovah. Just a wonderful book about finding God dead and belly up in the middle of the Atlantic.

One of my favorites, too.

For me, I'd mention The Sot-Weed Factor by John Barth.

[AuntiePam]

Originally Posted by Birdmonster

Mine is Towing Jehovah. Just a wonderful book about finding God dead and belly up in the middle of the Atlantic.

That's in my TBR pile. I went on a Morrow binge last year after reading The Last Witchfinder, but haven't gotten to Jehovah yet. A little Morrow goes a long way.

One book I push on people is The Dollmaker by Harriett Arnow. At least two people bought the damn thing on my rec but neither of them have read it. I don't know if they have bad memories of the Jane Fonda movie version, or if the dialect turns them off. But nobody except me has read it, and it's my favoritest book in the whole world!

I've bought five or six (remaindered hardcover) copies of Crazy Love by David L. Martin for giving. It's a love story with an animal rights subplot. Far as I know, none of the people I gave the book to have read it.

[jackelope]

J. P. Donleavy's Wrong Information Is Being Given Out at Princeton: The Chronicle of One of the Strangest Stories Ever to Be Rumoured About Around New York.

[Birdmonster]

AuntiePam: There is nothing more frustrating than giving a book which will never be read. Send those people a paperweight next time. Heathens!

Anyway, I'm a Morrow fanatic and, if you liked Witchfinder, I feel very confident you'll enjoy Towing Jehovah and the two pseudo-sequels which are equally blasphemous and utterly wonderful.

[delphica]

I used to give Michael Chabon's first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, to everyone I knew on any gift-giving occasion. This was back when it was his only novel. Now that he is very popular, I feel that my work is done.

Another campaign I was on was for Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle. Then JK Rowling mentioned it as one of her favorite books, and it came back into print, and they made it into a movie, and heck, it didn't need me any more.

Another one I still like to push is Lawrence Block's Hitman. It's a great quirky book of interconnected short stories about a killer for hire. It's a wonderful example of a book that rises above its subject matter.

[Sonia Montdore]

My favorites are two slim novels by Nancy Mitford, The Pursuit of Love and its companion piece, Love in a Cold Climate. They are nowadays usually issued together in one volume. I love both novels and am always lending or giving them to friends, who usually aren't as caught up in the stories and characterizations as I am, to my immense disappointment.

[Birdmonster]

delphica: I'm hiring you as my PR man.

[Eve]

I don't know if no one reads them (not on this board!), but some of the favorites I keep around and have to reread every few years include Joan Crawford's My Way of Life, Henri Murger's Bohemians of the Latin Quarter, and of course the collected Variety Obituaries.

[Phantom Dennis]

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson is one of my favorite novels, and while I'm sure it's been enjoyed by many of the smart folks on this board, I've had a hell of a time getting any of my friends or family members to get beyond the first couple of chapters. Apparently they get lost ofter the first few equations.

It helps that I have a good background in science and history, and a degree in computer science. I can imagine many of Stephenson's "tangents" causing my eyes to glaze over if I didn't have the educational foundation to grasp most of the subjects covered in the book.

[vivalostwages]

Under the Skin by Michel Faber.
No one thinks of Greenland, can't recall author's name.

[LANmom]

Time is the Simplest Thing by Clifford D Simak

[Evil Captor]

"Far Tortuga" by Peter Mattheissen.

[AuntiePam]

Originally Posted by delphica

Another campaign I was on was for Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle. Then JK Rowling mentioned it as one of her favorite books, and it came back into print, and they made it into a movie, and heck, it didn't need me any more.

So you're responsible! Must have been you, because when I went looking for it (about three years ago?), it wasn't back in print yet. I found a nice HC though, cheap. Great book, with that intriguing first line: "I'm writing this sitting in the kitchen sink." (Or something like that.)

birdmonster, paperweights it is!

[Manda JO]

Flanders by Patricia Anthony. WWI epistolary novel. Never met anyone who read it except for the person who recommended it to me. Haven't convinced anyone else to read it to date.

[AuntiePam]

MandaJo, I'd read that. But it's out of print. There are some used copies at Amazon, but not from sellers I'd buy from. I'll see if my library can get it.

[Cunctator]

Originally Posted by Sonia Montdore

My favorites are two slim novels by Nancy Mitford, The Pursuit of Love and its companion piece, Love in a Cold Climate.

My copy of these is fairly well-thumbed too. One just loves them.

[Der Trihs]

Villains by Necessity by Eve Forward. It's set in a fantasy world where the forces of good have closed off the sources of supernatural evil, where "the good guys won", and this has created an imbalance which will eventually destroy the world. Then that universe, and, perhaps, all universes. It's up to a band of villains to save the world from destruction by the forces of good. Has one of my favorite quotes; at one point the villains need to complete a Heroic Task which just isn't within their power. They think and think - until one looks up and says "What are we thinking ?! We're villains ! We'll cheat !"

Wasp by Eric Frank Russell. An old ( 1957 ) sci fi novel about a single man dropped onto an enemy planet, who is supposed to use a combination of cleverness, training and superior Terran technology to destabilize the place. A very good one-man-against-everybody story.

A Logical Magician by Robert Weinberg. A modern mathematician is recruited by Merlin ( yes, the original ) to save the world from evil magic, but Merlin is captured by the bad guys before he can say a thing about how. He has given the hero the means to find other supernaturals, who according to Merlin are created by the collective belief of humanity; when enough people believed in Merlin, he appeared. There's lots of stuff about how the supernaturals have changed to blend into the modern world, and how certain of their vulnerabilities have changed mysteriously; such as iron no longer hurting fey, and crosses not bothering vampires. The hero has to figure out why, before he gets killed. Oh, and the reason why you don't see, say, Superman or the critter from Alien wandering around is because of modern disbelief and skepticism.

[Captain_C]

Small Gods by Terry Pratchett. No one should have to go through life without reading this.

[delphica]

Originally Posted by AuntiePam

So you're responsible! Must have been you, because when I went looking for it (about three years ago?), it wasn't back in print yet. I found a nice HC though, cheap. Great book, with that intriguing first line: "I'm writing this sitting in the kitchen sink." (Or something like that.)

birdmonster, paperweights it is!

It's just a gem of a book, isn't it? It's the kind of book where every time I reread it, I pick up on something new.

And I think The Dollmaker sounds right up my alley, I will definitely put that on my to read list.

[Dunderman]

Originally Posted by Captain_C

Small Gods by Terry Pratchett. No one should have to go through life without reading this.

That book can hardly be characterised as one that "nobody else ever reads". I agree that it is great, though.

The only other book mentioned in this thread that I have read is Time is a Simplest Thing, and I'm not sure I remember it correctly. Is it the one where psychics mind-travel to other planets and one of them gets an alien back home with him?

[Dung Beetle]

I don't know anyone IRL that reads. In the past, I have recommended A Simple Plan by Scott Smith, because it has a fascinating premise and it's easy to read. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is another that I consider easy to get "hooked" on. I don't think I've actually succeeded in getting anyone to read more than a page or two.

For audio books, I like I Know This Much is True, by Wally Lamb, read by George Guidall...and it's gotta be the audio version, because I really think Mr. Guidall's performance adds so much to it. I did get my mom to listen to some of it, but she was going through a lot of life changes at the time and she said she couldn't concentrate enough to keep up with the plot. Grrr!

[WordMan]

Hmmm - I have read Morrow before (Only Begotten Daughter) but not read Towing Jehovah - have to pick it up. Thanks Birdmonster - and Handling Sin looks like a winner, too...

Mine are pretty broad:

- Please Kill Me: an Oral History of Punk by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain. An incredibly readable, fascinating, well-researched and definitive look at the evolution of punk rock from the Velvets, through the Pistols, co-written by the guy who coined the use of the word punk in the sense that it has come be known for in music, Legs McNeil.

- Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, by Haruki Murakami - Murakami wrote Norwegian Wood, called the Catcher in the Rye of Japan, but getting him boxed-in in the 80's with young turk lit authors like Jay McInerny and Brett Easton Ellis. This book - along with another excellent book called A Wild Sheep Chase - separated Murakami from that group and put him on a path to where he is one of the most respected authors working today. This book is a surreal mystery - a fun page turner with hints of violence and sex, and also an inquiry into who we are as individuals. The lead character gets sucked into a scheme to rent his memory to store facts (kinda like the old Gibson story Johnny Mnemonic) and his story alternates with actions in shadow world that is much more the calm interior of the spirit. How do these worlds intersect? That would be telling. Murakami's stuff reads excellently in English...

- Liege Killer by Christopher Hinz - goes in an out of print. Strictly B-grade hard sci-fi, I have read it a few times and simply can't put it down when I do, in an almost guilty-pleasure sort of way. It is a few thousand years in the future, there was a war that rendered Earth uninhabitable, so survivors live in space stations orbiting it. Re-introduced into this situation is a paratwa, a genetically-bred assassin that is two humans that share one brain - use of paratwas was what led to the destruction of the Earth previously. How did it get here? How can it be stopped? Tons of plot holes, but it reads, to me like a move screenplay for a Terminator-type of sci-fi action flik. Big, dumb fun - but a lot of fun.

My $.02

[Malthus]

Originally Posted by delphica

Another one I still like to push is Lawrence Block's Hitman. It's a great quirky book of interconnected short stories about a killer for hire. It's a wonderful example of a book that rises above its subject matter.

Hitman is truly great. I love genre-busters.

Another truly great little book that I've never heard of anyone reading except me, but which I recommend continually: Zod Wallop Bt William Browning Spenser - it is sort of like Dr. Suess meets Philip K. Dick and Tolkien while on LSD ... and at the same time, packs an effective emotional punch.

http://www.amazon.com/Zod-Wallop-Wil...e=UTF8&s=books

[CalMeacham]

The Snouters by Harald Stumpke -- translated from a German original. Sature describes the adaptive radiation of a variety of lage-nosed rodents living on an isolated island and evolving to fit into all the available ecological niches, a la the finches on the Galapagos that Darwin described. Except that the forms these rodents take on and the survival strategies they use are often outrageously unlikely, yet described in scientific earnest, and given real-sounding taxonimical designations. It looks as if they made some of the Snouterrs resemble their scientific colleagues -- which sounds like a cute little in-joke until you read closely and discover that this variety traps its prey in its copious nasal mucous discharge, oer something. A real treat for Evolution nerds and Stephen Jay Gould fans:

http://www.amazon.com/Snouters-Form-...e=UTF8&s=books

And somebody eveidently wrote a sequel:

http://www.amazon.com/Snouters-Revis...e=UTF8&s=books

End Product: The First Taboo by Dan Sabbath. I have the only copy of this book I've ever seen or heard of. It's a book about -- well -- shit. More than you ever wanted to know about excrement, and its place in history. A truly perverse read. And I've had occasion to quote and cite it on this Board. (Which says something about this Board):

http://www.amazon.com/End-product-fi...e=UTF8&s=books




By the way, I've read Wasp by Russell, too. It's great, as is his novel Sinister Barrier, which has to be the ultimate paranoid novel. Both are available, and the NEFSA volume Entities has them both in one cover, with two other novels:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw...+Frank+Russell

[Dung Beetle]

Originally Posted by CalMeacham

End Product: The First Taboo by Dan Sabbath. I have the only copy of this book I've ever seen or heard of. It's a book about -- well -- shit. More than you ever wanted to know about excrement, and its place in history. A truly perverse read. And I've had occasion to quote and cite it on this Board. (Which says something about this Board):

http://www.amazon.com/End-product-fi...e=UTF8&s=books

Had to put in an inter-library loan request.

[Shoeless]

Originally Posted by Phantom Dennis

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson is one of my favorite novels, and while I'm sure it's been enjoyed by many of the smart folks on this board, I've had a hell of a time getting any of my friends or family members to get beyond the first couple of chapters. Apparently they get lost ofter the first few equations.

It helps that I have a good background in science and history, and a degree in computer science. I can imagine many of Stephenson's "tangents" causing my eyes to glaze over if I didn't have the educational foundation to grasp most of the subjects covered in the book.

Same here. In fact, I need to go buy another copy of the book because the first two I owned, I lent out to people who have not read it and not returned it. Argh!

[CalMeacham]

Well, of course, with a handle like Dung Beetle you had to....

[yanceylebeef]

Originally Posted by Birdmonster

Mine is Towing Jehovah. Just a wonderful book about finding God dead and belly up in the middle of the Atlantic.

I'd add to Towing Jehovah both Bible Stories for Adults and Only Begotten Daughter .

My non-Morrow books would have to include The Butcher Boy by Patrick McCabe and Charles Stross's first novel Singularity Sky . It's kind of uneven in places, but there is so much imagination there it's scary!

[FordPrefect]

In my circles, my favourite book Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan. My family won't read it because Sagan is an atheist. They will sit around at Christmas discussing the benefits of the Q-Ray bracelet*, but Satan might invade if they read a book by an author who doesn't believe in the same god as them.
Throw in Hero With a Thousand Faces as another fave

*After nearly ruining a weekend at a resort in November by raising a big stink their opposition to gay marriage I felt I should keep my mouth shut over the Q-Ray. It's just a fucking magnet and their $30, but it was still trying though.

[Labdad]

Originally Posted by jackelope

J. P. Donleavy's Wrong Information Is Being Given Out at Princeton: The Chronicle of One of the Strangest Stories Ever to Be Rumoured About Around New York.

I'm delighted to see another Donleavy fan on the board. When I read the OP, the first thing that came to my mind was The Unexpurgated Code: A Complete Manual of Survival and Manners. This may be the single funniest book I've ever read in my life.

It's a series of essays, some just a single line; other several pages, about all kinds of situations and the proper way to behave.

An example:

"Upon Coming Upon Two Citizens Engaged in a Fight
It is quite an enjoyable sight watching two suddenly infuriated guys really slam each other around, and you must take some pleasures where you find them. However good citizenship insists you do something. But first reconnoiter from behind an abutment and stay there if the antagonists are armed. If it is fists, advance closer and then you might, with appropriate sporting admonitions, make sure that fair play obtains. But on no account part the antagonists. Not only is there far too much peacemaking these days, but combatants will frequently turn in your direction and after beating the bejesus out of you, end up shaking hands and complimenting each other on the good job they did doing it."

[Elendil's Heir]

Two books which I turn to with great pleasure every few years, but which relatively few people I know have read (and, among Dopers, a mere handful), are:

George R.R. Martin's Tuf Voyaging - a wonderful collection of interrelated science-fiction short stories about the phlegmatic captain, owner and sole crewmember of a gigantic starship. Haviland Tuf goes from planet to planet, hiring himself - and his ship's awesome capabilities - out for ecological engineering. It's got funny, whipsmart dialogue, great insights into politics, environmentalism and overpopulation, a cloned and very testy T.Rex, and telepathic cats. Good Lord, what a great book! A masterpiece.

Gary Jennings's Aztec - Mel Gibson only wishes he could make a movie that captures a lost culture as well as this book. This huge page-turner follows the life of Mixtli, an Aztec peasant who rises to the top of Aztec society, and finds himself in the court of Moctecuzoma when the conquistadores arrive. Sex, warfare, architecture, commerce, sex, human sacrifice, exploration, romance, sex, more warfare, politics, intrigue, espionage and, oh yeah, some more sex and warfare. To say nothing of a trenchant critique of 16th C. Catholicism and the Inquisition. If you love historical fiction, you've gotta read this. Highly, highly recommended.

[koeeoaddi]

Originally Posted by Manda JO

Flanders by Patricia Anthony. WWI epistolary novel. Never met anyone who read it except for the person who recommended it to me. Haven't convinced anyone else to read it to date.

You're on. I just reserved it at the library.

I know folks have read my favorite book, I just haven't met any of 'em. Maybe the title makes it a hard sell, but I can't convince any of my near and dear to crack open A Soldier of the Great War by Mark Helprin. It's not just about life in the trenches, it's about an old coot professor emeritus of Aesthetics who tells his whole life story and it's as beautiful as it is brilliant.

Read it, dammit!

[Veuve_ClicquotNJ]

(waving to Eve) I have JC's "My Way of Life!"

My two obscure faves are Liz Renay's "My Face For the World to See" (John Waters thought the sequel should be titled "My Ass For the World To Kiss") and "A Guide To Elegance" - by Genevieve Antoine Dariaux. Miss Dariaux was a former directrice at Nina Ricci and as I learned a few weeks ago from an email inquiry I directed to Nina Ricci - still alive! Her book "Entertaining With Elegance" is great, too.

VCNJ~

[Meurglys]

Originally Posted by vivalostwages

No one thinks of Greenland, can't recall author's name.

It was John Griesemer - good book!

My favourite obscure rock'n'roll novel - Jambeaux by Laurence Gonzales.

[winterhawk11]

The obscure books I find myself going back to read over again are all old and most are likely long out of print:

House of Zeor and the rest of the Sime~Gen series by Jacqueline Lichtenberg and Jean Lorrah - Some of these are starting to come back into print again, and it's about time! Fantastic series by one of the original Star Trek convention organizers and uber-fans. It tells the story of a world where humanity has mutated into two sides, the Simes and the Gens. The Gens produce a substance that they don't need, but the Simes do--the only catch is, the Sime usually kills the Gen when he takes it. Some Simes, called "channels" can take the substance from the Gen and "transfer" it to a normal Sime, but most of Sime society (at least in the beginning) considers this "perversion" and aims to end the whole practice. It's a lot more complicated than that, but that's the gist of it. Highly recommended.

The Hero from Otherwhere, a YA book by Jay Williams (half of the duo who wrote the "Danny Dunn" series). I actually enjoyed it much more than the DD books (which I liked as a kid but haven't made the effort to revisit).

Change Song, a very obscure YA sci-fi book by Lee Hoffman. It's so obscure, in fact, that during my high school days I actually did a bad thing and stole it from the library after not being able to find it anywhere else (claiming I'd lost it and paying for it, of course). Considering it hadn't been checked out in like five years before I'd borrowed it, I didn't feel horrible about it, but I did feel bad. (Please don't anybody yell at me--I know it was wrong, I was 16, and I've never done it again in the 20+ years since.)

Tara Kane. I normally don't like "romance" type books, but this one is more in the genre of Gone With The Wind set in the Yukon Territory during the Gold Rush. It's also historically based. Lots of action and survival stuff to go with the mushy bits.

[Mouse_Maven]

Strange Creations by Donna Kossy. I think anyone who is interested in biology should read this book.

Originally Posted by Birdmonster

Mine is Towing Jehovah. Just a wonderful book about finding God dead and belly up in the middle of the Atlantic.

How could things be any worse! Jehovah! Jehovah! Jehovah! Ok, I'm done now.

[well he's back]

Love these kinds of threads - I find so many good books through them.

I've loved The Dollmaker for quite a while.

The book I'm always recommending is [/u]Kristin Lavransdatter[u] the wonderful trilogy of books about a woman in medieval Norway. Some people on this board have read it, but I've never found anyone else in real life.

I also used to recommend Lawrence Durrell's books quite often.

[Malthus]

Originally Posted by koeeoaddi

You're on. I just reserved it at the library.

I know folks have read my favorite book, I just haven't met any of 'em. Maybe the title makes it a hard sell, but I can't convince any of my near and dear to crack open A Soldier of the Great War by Mark Helprin. It's not just about life in the trenches, it's about an old coot professor emeritus of Aesthetics who tells his whole life story and it's as beautiful as it is brilliant.

Read it, dammit!

A great book, but as you say, not really obscure.

My favourites in the category of "great-books-others-have-read-but-I-can't-interest-RL-Friends-in" are:

- "Invisible Cities" by Calvino; and

- "The Man Who Was Thursday" by Chesterton.

Both are truly amazing.

[Der Trihs]

Originally Posted by WordMan

- Liege Killer by Christopher Hinz - goes in an out of print.

A fun book, which has two sequels, if you didn't know about them.

Originally Posted by Elendil's Heir

George R.R. Martin's Tuf Voyaging - a wonderful collection of interrelated science-fiction short stories about the phlegmatic captain, owner and sole crewmember of a gigantic starship. Haviland Tuf goes from planet to planet, hiring himself - and his ship's awesome capabilities - out for ecological engineering. It's got funny, whipsmart dialogue, great insights into politics, environmentalism and overpopulation, a cloned and very testy T.Rex, and telepathic cats. Good Lord, what a great book! A masterpiece.

Ooooh, one of my favorites. "Please accept my assurances that no personal animosity of any sort is intended towards any of you. Nonetheless, it appears, unfortunately, that I must now go forth and destroy your respective worlds. Perhaps you would like to draw straws, to determine where I might best start."

Originally Posted by winterhawk11

House of Zeor and the rest of the Sime~Gen series by Jacqueline Lichtenberg and Jean Lorrah - Some of these are starting to come back into print again, and it's about time! Fantastic series by one of the original Star Trek convention organizers and uber-fans.

Seconded.

Not so much an obscure book, but an obscure author; Doris Piserchia . She stopped writing back in the early 80's but her stuff was excellent. Very imaginative. Some of her stuff includes :

Doomtime : Set in a far future Earth where the dominant life form are a pair of mountain-tall sentient trees that have extended their roots over much of the planet. They hate each other, and are constantly trying to destroy one another. They can temporarily ( or permanently ) absorb creatures into themselves, including people; this process lets them read people's minds, and is pleasurable enough to be addictive, which is one way they control people.

Spaceling : The protaganist is an orphan girl who is a mute, a person who can see the Rings, which are drifting rings of light that are interdimensional gates to those who can see them. Anything or anyone that passes through is transformed into a new form. She, however, secretly has abilities that others don't. She can see many more Rings than others can, her forms are different than normal people's forms, and she can command the Rings to move as she desires. She ends up having to discover her truly odd origins, and deal with multiple conspiracies that want to help/hurt/use her.

[Eve]

Originally Posted by Veuve_ClicquotNJ

"A Guide To Elegance" - by Genevieve Antoine Dariaux. Miss Dariaux was a former directrice at Nina Ricci and as I learned a few weeks ago from an email inquiry I directed to Nina Ricci - still alive! Her book "Entertaining With Elegance" is great, too.

I idolize her. Sometimes before I go out to lunch or to the theater, I think, "Now, what would Joan Crawford or Genevieve Antoine Dariaux think of this outfit? Do the shoes go with this belt? Shall I remove one accessory?"

[Ol'Gaffer]

Originally Posted by winterhawk11

The obscure books I find myself going back to read over again are all old and most are likely long out of print:

<snip>

The Hero from Otherwhere, a YA book by Jay Williams (half of the duo who wrote the "Danny Dunn" series). I actually enjoyed it much more than the DD books (which I liked as a kid but haven't made the effort to revisit).

<snip>

Holy crap. I loved that book when I was a kid. I used to have a completely battered paperbook copy somewhere but I don't think that I have even thought of that book in 20 years. Glad to know I wasn't the only one who liked it!!

[Annie-Xmas]

Calvin Trillon's Remembering Denny. Unlike anything else Trillon has written, and a hauntingly good read.

[E. Thorp]

Except for my wife, I have never met another fan of Penelope Fitzgerald's The Beginning of Spring. Anyone?

[Evil Captor]

Originally Posted by Der Trihs

Not so much an obscure book, but an obscure author; Doris Piserchia . She stopped writing back in the early 80's but her stuff was excellent. Very imaginative. .

Yes, she was great. I remember she wrote a really haunting and horrific short story called "We Are Idio" that would make a great radio play. One of those works you can't forget once you read it. I didn't like her longer works, but her short stories were just supercharged with emotion and power and originality.

[jackelope]

Originally Posted by Labdad

I'm delighted to see another Donleavy fan on the board. When I read the OP, the first thing that came to my mind was The Unexpurgated Code: A Complete Manual of Survival and Manners. This may be the single funniest book I've ever read in my life.

Holy cow, you mean I'm not the only person who's ever read this?

I found my copy in a Boulder used-book store in 1993; I've read it more times than I can count. My favorite chapter:

Upon Dying of Shame

[...] It will astonish you at how slow folk are to conclude that you have paid your debt to society. And they will spend years continuing to intimidate you with their fish eyed looks. Till sometimes you've just about had enough. It is time then to set up on your lawn a sign illuminated by night with two large lettered words on top and two very tiny lettered ones underneath.

FORGIVE ME
you fuckers

This plea really shakes the neighbours and especially the ones who crawl up close to read the small print.

OK, actually I have two favorite chapters. The other reads, in its entirety:

How to Prevent People from Detesting You

Don't try.

[Lazlo]

Okay, I'm looking for a copy of Towing Jehovah tomorrow.

[don't ask]

The book I have given away the most times is Point Last Seen by Hannah Nyala. a true account by a woman tracker of her career tracking while trying to escape an abusive partner.

After I read most books I give them away to people I think will enjoy them and tell them to pass them on. My boss borrowed this book and she then loaned it to a friend, who loaned it to a friend etc until someone lost track of it. Not knowing I didn't expect it back she bought a replacement copy which I in turn gave back to her to loan to the person who had asked for my copy.

Sometime later I found 6 copies of it remaindered for $1 so I bought all of them and they are gone now.