# Abe Books presents - the Weird Book Room
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abe-books-presents-the-weird-book-room/508903
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [September 4, 2009, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abe-books-presents-the-weird-book-room/508903 "2009-09-04T20:27:58Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Ministre_de_l_au-dela)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2009, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abe-books-presents-the-weird-book-room/508903/1 "2009-09-04T20:27:58Z")
For those of you whose bookshelves were making too much sense - [The Weird Book Room](http://www.abebooks.com/books/Newsletters/090904-g00-weirdbX.shtml?cm_mmc=nl-_-nl-_-g00-weirdbX-_-h-online).
I think I need to get a copy of “How to Survive a Robot Uprising.”
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2009, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abe-books-presents-the-weird-book-room/508903/2 "2009-09-04T20:40:27Z")
I’ve seen **The Platypus of Doom** , and have brought it up on this Board before. And I’ve just been reading about the **Handbook of Hanging**
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### Author:  [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2009, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abe-books-presents-the-weird-book-room/508903/3 "2009-09-04T20:50:11Z")
A lot of these books have been nominated for that weird title contest. Interesting to see what they look like in person.
_The Bible Cure For Irritable Bowel Syndrome_? _The Haunted Vagina_? Bwah?
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### Author:  [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2009, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abe-books-presents-the-weird-book-room/508903/4 "2009-09-04T22:32:28Z")
Let’s put this over in the reading room in Cafe Society.
twickster, MPSIMS moderator
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### Author:  [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2009, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abe-books-presents-the-weird-book-room/508903/5 "2009-09-04T22:38:42Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> I’ve seen **The Platypus of Doom** , and have brought it up on this Board before.
Never heard of that, but I’ve read (and met the author of) [The Anteater of Death](http://www.amazon.com/Anteater-Death-Mystery-Betty-Webb/dp/1590585607).
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### Author:  [@mobo85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mobo85)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2009, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abe-books-presents-the-weird-book-room/508903/6 "2009-09-04T23:08:41Z")
I’m disappointed that they only put a portion of the title of _How To Good-Bye Depression If You Constrict Anus 100 Times Everyday: Malarkey? Or Effective Way?_. Apparently, the author (who is Japanese) intentionally used a computer program to translate it. The back cover blurb reads:
> [@](#):
>
> I think constricting anus 100 times and denting navel 100 times in succession everyday is effective to good-bye depression and take back youth. You can do so at a boring meeting or in a subway. I have known 70-year-old man who has practiced it for 20 years. As a result, he has good complexion and has grown 20 years younger. His eyes sparkle. He is full of vigor, happiness and joy. He has neither complained nor born a grudge under any circumstance. Furthermore, he can make \* \* three times in succession without drawing out.
>
> In addition, he also can have burned a strong beautiful fire within his abdomen. It can burn out the dirty stickiness of his body, release his immaterial fiber or third attention which has been confined to his stickiness. Then, he can shoot out his immaterial fiber or third attention to an object, concentrate on it and attain happy lucky feeling through the success of concentration.
>
> If you don’t know concentration which gives you peculiar pleasure, your life looks like a hell.
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2009, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abe-books-presents-the-weird-book-room/508903/7 "2009-09-05T01:29:18Z")
> [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](#):
>
> Never heard of that, but I’ve read (and met the author of) [The Anteater of Death](http://www.amazon.com/Anteater-Death-Mystery-Betty-Webb/dp/1590585607).
I went to a writers workshop as the author of The Platypus of Doom. Which is a pretty good book for its time. It’s four novelettes, BTW.
The Platypus of Doom
The Armadillo of Destruction
The Aardvark of Despair
The Clam of Catastrophe
Cover was a very good writer but not a commercial success with those wild anything-could-happen stories\*. He ran an sf bookstore for 30 years and wrote lots of novels in other peoples’ universes instead.
- One of Mapcases’s Laws reads: If you write a story in which Anything can happen, what Does happen had better be pretty damn special. It was inspired by The Platypus of Doom.
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### Author:  [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2009, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abe-books-presents-the-weird-book-room/508903/8 "2009-09-05T02:38:16Z")
_Rebellious Wives and Slacker Husbands: What’s Wrong with the Modern Home?_
You gotta love that this came out in _1943._ How many homes even _had_ a husband and a wife present in the middle of WW2?
Actually, since any such husbands were not in the service and their wives probably out doing defense work, I sorta see the Reverend’s point.
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### Author:  [@Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Ministre_de_l_au-dela)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2009, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abe-books-presents-the-weird-book-room/508903/9 "2009-09-05T13:17:56Z")
There isn’t enough time to put together the music for all the fantastic band names that are coming to mind…
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### Author:  [@The\_Scrivener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Scrivener)
#### Post date: [September 7, 2009, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abe-books-presents-the-weird-book-room/508903/10 "2009-09-07T04:23:35Z")
Thanks, **Le Ministre de l’au-delà** , for the biggest laugh I’ve had in _weeks_! I think I was having jags off and on for fifteen minutes… and I’m still laughing!