# Book(s) You read that you're pretty sure nobody else has read **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 2, 2012, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645 "2012-05-02T15:22:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2012, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645/1 "2012-05-02T15:22:08Z")
Obviously inspired by [this thread on movies](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=650159). I have a couple. In 1987 I went to Hungary for a week and got an English version of a book of short stories called [_ **God in the Wagon** _](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9600145-god-in-the-wagon). Ferenc Santa was a pretty big deal in Hungary, but not outside. After getting home from Hungary, I was inspired to read [_ **Boy on the Rooftop** _](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2031312.Boy_on_the_Rooftop), a first-hand account of the 1956 Hungarian uprising from a teenaged soldier rebel who escaped the country at the end of the quashing. What are yours? ---
**Author:** ![Lightray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightray/32/391_2.png) [@Lightray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightray)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2012, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645/2 "2012-05-02T15:37:27Z")
I’ve never met someone else who had read Somtow Sucharitkul’s [Inquest series](http://www.amazon.com/Utopia-Hunters-Somtow-Sucharitkul/dp/0553245260), unless it was someone whom I’d loaned the books to. Although I have met someone who’d read his work published as S.P. Somtow, they hadn’t read the Inquest books. ---
**Author:** ![PapSett](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecc23a/32.png) [@PapSett](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PapSett)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2012, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645/3 "2012-05-02T15:56:12Z")
I have 2 that I’m pretty sure no one else here has ever read. Onre is one of my favorite books, The Lady and Her Tiger bu Pat Derby. She and her then-husband were trainers for many of the wild animals from movies & TV in the 60’s and 70’s. Remember the Enco tiger? The Mercury cougar that laid on the sign and snarled? They were hers. They trained for Disney and on Daktari. WONDERFUL book for anyone that loves animals, you feel like you get to know thses wonderful creatures. The other is called Beem; it was written in Russia about a Gordon Setter, a true story. One of the most heartbreaking books I have ever read. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2012, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645/4 "2012-05-02T15:59:31Z")
J.P. McEvoy’s hilarious **Show Girl** (1928) and its equally funny sequel, **Show Girl in Hollywood** (1929). And on the subject of chorines, the delightful **Sorrows of a Show Girl** (1908). Yay for [bookfinder.com](http://bookfinder.com)! ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2012, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645/5 "2012-05-02T16:39:00Z")
“Our Pioneer Mother,” the autobiographical tale of my great-great-great grandmother, Anne Willden Johnson, who was a covered-wagon pioneer who crossed the US from New Orleans to Utah in the days of Brigham Young, published in 1931 ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2012, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645/6 "2012-05-02T17:18:07Z")
I have three. I’d tell you what they are, but there’s always a chance you’d read them. And then I’d have to figure out a way to edit an old post. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2012, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645/7 "2012-05-02T17:19:10Z")
Nobody I know or nobody here or just nobody? If it’s nobody I know, then [The Book of Ebenezer le Page](http://www.amazon.com/Book-Ebenezer-Review-Books-Classics/dp/1590172337) by G.B. Edwards, and am I ever surprised to see that it’s been reprinted. A cantankerous old fart who lived through the German occupation of the Channel Islands tells the story of his life. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2012, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645/8 "2012-05-02T17:20:50Z")
> [@Lightray](#): > > I’ve never met someone else who had read Somtow Sucharitkul’s [Inquest series](http://www.amazon.com/Utopia-Hunters-Somtow-Sucharitkul/dp/0553245260), unless it was someone whom I’d loaned the books to. > > Although I have met someone who’d read his work published as S.P. Somtow, they hadn’t read the Inquest books. I’ve read his _Mallworld_, but not the series you mention ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2012, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645/9 "2012-05-02T17:27:45Z")
[The Outsiders of Uskoken Castle.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Outsiders_of_Uskoken_Castle) I read the English translation in the mid-70’s. Although this was apparently quite a popular and influential novel in Germany, I never personally knew anybody else who actually read it in either language. ---
**Author:** ![Ellen\_Cherry](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellen_cherry/32/3600_2.png) [@Ellen\_Cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellen_Cherry)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2012, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645/10 "2012-05-02T17:45:51Z")
I’m certain _somebody_’s read it, but I haven’t run across anyone, ever, who read [Richard Amour](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Armour)’s autobiographical _Drug Store Days: My Youth Among the Pills and Potions_. I have, or had, an autographed copy I bought at a used book sale. It’s a darling little work about an adolescent toiling away in his dad’s pharmacy. Mainly I remember how he spoke of cranking out suppositories in a little machine they had there in the store, then rushing to deliver them on his bicycle before they melted in the California heat. He also had an unhealthy obsession with the cigar cutter, which looked like a little guillotine; he kept obsessing over wanting to put his fingertip in it and letting fly. :eek: Funny stuff. I just learned, after reading the above-linked Wikipedia article that Amour was an academic and prolific author who once appeared on _You Bet Your Life_ with Groucho Marx. He out-witted Marx at his own game of “say the secret word” — > [@Wikipedia](#): > > In this particular case, Armour caught the host in a semantic trap, by immediately stating, “The secret word.” He then demanded his $100. After a very brief moment of confusion the band broke out with a short medley indicating that the secret word had been said. Announcer and assistant George Fenneman then arrived on camera and turned to Armour, “From the C.O. over here that we will allow you to do what you just did. But nobody else better try this. That’s what they said.” Armour replied, “Thank you, very much.” And Fenneman left the frame and responded, “You’re welcome,” quickly caught himself, and almost cut himself off stating, “I had nothing to do with it.” Normally when the secret word is said, Groucho immediately hands over cash. He did not hand over the cash and it’s unclear if they paid Armour the bonus even after Armour and his partner won the game. ---
**Author:** ![Springtime\_for\_Spacers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Springtime\_for\_Spacers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Springtime_for_Spacers)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2012, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645/11 "2012-05-02T17:55:16Z")
> [@AuntiePam](#): > > Nobody I know or nobody here or just nobody? If it’s nobody I know, then [The Book of Ebenezer le Page](http://www.amazon.com/Book-Ebenezer-Review-Books-Classics/dp/1590172337) by G.B. Edwards, and am I ever surprised to see that it’s been reprinted. A cantankerous old fart who lived through the German occupation of the Channel Islands tells the story of his life. Me! Me, I’ve read it. One of those odd ficitional books that purports to be autobiography, and in fact there are parallels between the author’s life and that of his character. The major difference is that the author left (and probably regarded himself as exiled) and the character only ever went as far as Jersey. There’s a [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Ebenezer_Le_Page) page 😉 ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2012, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645/12 "2012-05-02T18:04:17Z")
Judging from the number of librarians I’ve mentioned it to, as well as having mentioned it here before, I am apparently the only person ever who read the children’s book about the little earth boy who was befriended by a little moon boy, and went to the moon to learn about their moonish ways, including that their scientists were studying the _speed of dark_. Also, a few of W. B. Yeats’s plays. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2012, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645/13 "2012-05-02T18:05:30Z")
**[The Ultimatum to Mankind](http://www.amazon.com/The-ultimatum-mankind-unprecedented-revolution/dp/0965524418)** by Zeev Dickman. Just plain awful book. Self-published, of course, it’s about an alien race who tells us (in unending lectures) about why humans took the wrong path at the agricultural revolution. The dialog reads like mid-term exam questions, the aliens explain and explain and explain. Biggest howler – the aliens complain that humans are far too bloodthirsty, so the play to kill 90% of the human race. The only reason I read it was because I was reviewing it for a magazine. **[The Curse of Clifton](http://greatbutforgotten.blogspot.com/2008/02/mrs-eden-southworth-curse-of-clifton.html)** by Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth. Southworth was America’s most successful 19th century writer; the book isn’t awful, though the plotting is silly today. **[Staroamer’s Fate](http://www.amazon.com/Staroamers-Fate-Chuck-Rothman/dp/0445201029)**, of course. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2012, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645/14 "2012-05-02T18:09:23Z")
Did anybody else read a whole series of kiddie books about two boys who travel by space ship to a mushroom planet? They were on the shelf in my Catholic elementary school’s library, but I was the only one there who actually signed them out. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2012, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645/15 "2012-05-02T18:13:51Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > J.P. McEvoy’s hilarious **Show Girl** (1928) and its equally funny sequel, **Show Girl in Hollywood** (1929). Here’s one for the coincidence file. Literally yesterday I realized I had the Gold Medal softcover version of Show Girl from 1929. I had it misfiled as a Modern Age Gold Seal book so I didn’t realize what it was. If any of you are wondering how I could have a paperback from 1929, a decade before Pocket Books introduced them in America, the concept of selling inexpensive editions of books without the expense of producing the hardcovers has been around since the 19th century. If you’ve ever found a dime novel in a used book store you know what I mean. Those had a flimsy, thin paper cover, which tore off at first use. A number of firms experimented with producing them with a stronger cover to make them more appealing, in various formats, and Gold Medal was a pioneer, using a very odd 6 1/2" x 9 1/2" format. I sorta collect these pioneers, mostly by picking them up whenever I stumble across them. I don’t actually read them; most are too fragile to handle anyway. I might read this one now on Eve’s recommendation. It’s a modern version of the epistolary novel, including reproduced “radiograms” for that up-to-the-minute feel. Ellen Cherry, I also collect humor and Richard Armour is one of my favorites. I not only have Drug Store Days but also another two dozen of his books. Including all three updates of his American history classic, It All Started with Columbus. Written during Eisenhower’s term, he updated it with a chapter on Kennedy, and then a decade later with Nixon. Armour’s still pretty easy to find cheap and he’s well worth it. Lightray, I have \*Light on the Sound, \*which is part of the [Inquestor](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?1527) (not Inquest) series, along with Starship and Haiku and The Aquiliad, which aren’t. Here’s a book for this thread. _America’s Tomorrows: An Informal Excursion into the Era of the Two-Hour Working Day_, by C. C. Furnas. Published in 1931. Not a completely new idea even at the time, but it was getting enormous attention because of the Depression. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2012, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645/16 "2012-05-02T18:14:27Z")
[Harbinger Farm](http://www.ourroots.ca/e/toc.aspx?id=2271), a book written by a relative of mine about our family’s early experiences emigrating from England to Saskatchewan. I once owned a book called something like “Canada’s Seal Industry Statistics – 1974”, but to be honest I didn’t read the whole thing. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2012, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645/17 "2012-05-02T18:58:19Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I might read this one now on Eve’s recommendation. It’s a modern version of the epistolary novel, including reproduced “radiograms” for that up-to-the-minute feel. \*I \*think it’s a scream, fulla 1920s slangy wisecracks. (I have a paperback from the 1890s, _Fair but Faithless_. The kind of thing _servant girls_ read) ---
**Author:** ![well\_he\_s\_back](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/3ab097/32.png) [@well\_he\_s\_back](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/well_he_s_back)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2012, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645/18 "2012-05-02T19:31:55Z")
Scumpup - yes! I read those books about the trip to the mushroom planet. They were innocently written before the 60s made you think of mushrooms in a different way. Somehow in my memory I get them confused with the Freddy books, about the very intelligent pig. Did Freddy ever go to the mushroom planet? Hmmm. Anyone here know of a fantasy book called “Ismo”? can’t remember author & cannot locate book. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2012, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645/19 "2012-05-02T19:42:41Z")
Who In Hell?- An alphabetical index of demons, devils and the damned. Betty Davis is not in Hell. Errol Flyn is. Gone To Be Snakes Now- In a dystopian future, aliens (who we never see) take care of humanity. We meet a cult leader/serial killer, a mutant named The Borg (predates Trek by decades) and others. It’s a deeply weird book. The Muller Fokker Effect- A man is recorded on special computer tape. Another man leads a racist fight against an imagined negro conspiracy, a man and a woman in the Jess Burch society fight all kinds of conspiracies, a kid goes to military school, a Hugh Hefner type holds parties, plus transvestites! The Love Machine- I only vaguely remember this as Hollywood crap. I think it may have been a thinly veiled biography of some one. I only read it to make sure it was crap before I ripped out most of the pages, thoroughly distressed it and kept it as a relic- it’s a hard cover with an embossed ankh on the front. Secret And Forbidden- A very Victorian (though OTTOMH it was written in the fifties) look at sex, pornogrpahy and depravity through the ages. You can sense the author’s disgust and glee throughout. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2012, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645/20 "2012-05-02T19:47:36Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > The Love Machine- I only vaguely remember this as Hollywood crap. I think it may have been a thinly veiled biography of some one. I \*had \*to read the damn thing, as it was a thinly veiled biography of Rex Harrison and Kay Kendall! I never read it on the train, as I always thought, “What if the train crashes and my body is found with \*this \*clutched in my hands?” [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645.md?page=2)