# 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:** 2
**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, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645/21 "2012-05-02T19:51:04Z")
> [@well\_he\_s\_back](#): > > Anyone here know of a fantasy book called “Ismo”? can’t remember author & cannot locate book. Does this description sound right: > [@](#): > > The Old Master racket, art theft and smuggling, Italian lessons, and an idealistic anarchist organization dedicated to world conscience and humor are the ingredients of an involved adventure as a family prepares to spend a year in Italy. If so, it’s a children’s book by John Verney published in 1964. ---
**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, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645/22 "2012-05-02T19:56:09Z")
KneadtoKnow - thank you. I’m sure that’s the book. thanks again! ---
**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, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645/23 "2012-05-02T19:59:23Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > \*I \*think it’s a scream, fulla 1920s slangy wisecracks. Third page. > [@](#): > > The real ambition of our young generation .. is to be cool but look hot. Well, this theory, that I have, that is to say, which is mine,… is mine. My theory is along the following lines… The 1960s are the direct successor to the 1920s. An accident of space-time warpage introduced three extraneous decades in between, which never should have been put there. They just confuse cultural historians. If you take those three decades out, the entire 20th century starts to make sense and goes the way it was supposed to go. That is the theory that I have and which is mine and what it is, too. ---
**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, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645/24 "2012-05-02T20:00:01Z")
The NinJew- A very fit Jew details his approach to life and a fictional story of stopping terrorists. Haikus For Jews- The title says it all The Angry Clam- a picture book. A clam searches for meaning in the universe. ---
**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, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645/25 "2012-05-02T20:01:35Z")
> [@well\_he\_s\_back](#): > > KneadtoKnow - thank you. I’m sure that’s the book. thanks again! Happy to help. It’s a fairly widely-held book, so if your local public library does not own it, they should be able to get it for you via inter-library loan. ---
**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, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645/26 "2012-05-02T20:03:07Z")
Among my rarities (which I’m sure others have read): as I noted on the What Are You Reading This Month threads, I’ve recently read a bunch of histories and geographies from the first half of the 19th century. I don’t have the titles with me, but they’re fascinating. History stops with Andrew Jackson and there are a lot fewer states – but they cover history and geography more intensely because there’s less of it. I don’t have any titles at hand. **End Product: The First Taboo** by Sabbath. A book entirely devoted to shit. Literally. Oddly fascinating. **Two Planets** by Kurd Lasswitz, the German contemporary of Jules Verne who has been unjustly neglected in English-speaking countries. **The Snouters** – a German fantasy about Darwinian evolution on an island where a single species of rodent has adapted to fill all ecological niches, like Darwin’s finches. the book is tongue-in-cheek, so many of the adaptations are wonderfully ludicrous. Some of them look as if they were deliberately drawn as caricatures of people, but who they were (politicians? entertainers? well-known evolutionary biologists?) I have no idea. > **[The Snouters: Form and Life of the Rhinogrades (English and German Edition):...](https://www.amazon.com/Snouters-Rhinogrades-Phoenix-English-German/dp/0226778959)** > > The Snouters: Form and Life of the Rhinogrades (English and German Edition) \[Harald Stumpke, Leigh Chadwick, Gerolf Steiner\] on Amazon.com. \*FREE\* shipping on qualifying offers. The Snouters: Form and Life of the Rhinogrades (English and German... I obtained an original German copy and gave it to my (German) Ph.D. Advisor when I graduated. ---
**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, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645/27 "2012-05-02T20:08:45Z")
After Man- A zoology of the far future Man After Man- An anthropology of the far future Hercolubos Or The Red Planet- a lunatic’s predictions of the coming end of mankind. LSD And Psychotherapy- Freudianism on acid. ---
**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, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645/28 "2012-05-02T20:09:22Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > If you take those three decades out, the entire 20th century starts to make sense and goes the way it was supposed to go. But . . . but . . . we’d miss Jean Harlow, and the Andrews Sisters . . . and _Betty Grable!_ ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2012, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645/29 "2012-05-02T20:16:09Z")
One of my favorites is an historical adventure novel entitled _The Year of the Horsetails_. It was published in the 1960s, I found it in a pile of used books of $1, and I’ve never come across anyone who has read it - though no doubt somebody here has. I recommend it on occasion. The unique aspect of the book is that it has an extremely well-researched setting - the nomadic invasions of settled peoples on the fringes of the steppe - without ever specifically locating the place or the time. ---
**Author:** ![Greg\_Charles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/839c29/32.png) [@Greg\_Charles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greg_Charles)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2012, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645/30 "2012-05-02T20:17:14Z")
I’ve read a couple of collections of short stories by Turkish author Aziz Nesin. He’s a humorist in the vein of Mark Twain, James Thurber, or Ring Lardner … i.e., he pokes fun at society’s foibles, though in his case it’s Turkish society. For some reason, he’s fantastically popular in Vietnam, but I haven’t seen his books in English. Amazon has a couple, but they don’t look like the stories I’ve read. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2012, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645/31 "2012-05-02T20:41:53Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > (I have a paperback from the 1890s, _Fair but Faithless_. The kind of thing _servant girls_ read) That sounds fascinating. Google books shows that three copies exist in libraries. Since it’s out of copyright, hopefully someone will digitize it soon. ---
**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, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645/32 "2012-05-02T21:01:55Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > **Two Planets** by Kurd Lasswitz, the German contemporary of Jules Verne who has been unjustly neglected in English-speaking countries. To be fair, there wasn’t an English translation until 1971 and even that one was abridged. ---
**Author:** ![Tangent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tangent/32/3098_2.png) [@Tangent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tangent)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2012, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645/33 "2012-05-02T21:54:09Z")
As a kid, I read not only the novelization for the movie _ **E.T. The Extra Terrestrial** _, but also the sequel novel, _ **E.T. The Book of the Green Planet** _. ---
**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, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645/34 "2012-05-02T22:19:13Z")
By F Gwynplaine “Froggy” MacIntyre (name probably misspelled). AFAIK, it’s never been published. I was working at the home of George Scithers, member of the Trapdoor Spiders, friend and editor to Isaac Asimov, and agent of Macintyre. Mostly, I read submissions for weird tales. One day, a large box bearing the picture of a two headed hermaphrodite and the words The Lesbian Man arrived. I was curious so I read a bit. It was fascinating in a horrible way. In a dystopian future, a man has to leave the settlement he belongs to. Along the way he injures his hands. He finds a new settlement where the women are normal, but the men are Crogs- beast things the women generally don’t realize are members of the human species. He gets sold at a slave auction, where a brand injures his tongue. His new owner knows that he is inteligent but disguises him as a half Crog half dog hybrid to fool the other women. That’s as far as I ever got. The above description utterly fails to convey the weirdness of the book. Macintyre _could_ write. He had numerous published sf and fantasy stories and a few books. So the Lesbian Man is NOT a bad read. It’s just that he got obssessed with a few strange ideas, threw in a few stranger ones and wrote a book about them. > **[F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._Gwynplaine_MacIntyre)** > > Fergus (also Feargus) Gwynplaine MacIntyre (1948 – 25 June 2010), also known as Froggy, was a New York City-based journalist, novelist, poet and illustrator. MacIntyre's writings include the science-fiction novel The Woman Between the Worlds and his anthology of verse and humour pieces MacIntyre's Improbable Bestiary. As an uncredited "ghost" author, MacIntyre is known to have written or co-written several other books, including at least one novel in the Tom Swift IV series, The DNA D On 25 Ju... Froggy also wrote a letter to Mr Scithers when Like Water For Chocolate was really hot and the recipe novel was in. He was probing interest in a recipe novel involving female killers who ate their male victims. I am not making this up. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2012, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645/35 "2012-05-02T23:03:14Z")
Well dammit, I was going to mention the long-out-of-print **Flicker** by Theodore Roszak, but it’s been reissued as a [“Rediscovered Classic”](http://www.amazon.com/Flicker-A-Novel-Rediscovered-Classics/dp/155652577X). But if you like film, and you like books like Foucalt’s Pendulum, this is a winner. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2012, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645/36 "2012-05-02T23:16:25Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > After Man- A zoology of the far future > > Man After Man- An anthropology of the far future I’ve read both of those! Pretty cool IIRC. ---
**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, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645/37 "2012-05-02T23:32:22Z")
Oh! More good humor books, both by Douglas Jerrold, a friend of Chas. Dickens: **Mrs. Caudel’s Curtain Lectures** , and **The Biography of a Feather.** I found both, first editions, at a dusty old bookshop, and just fell in \*love \*with Jerrold. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Peyote\_Coyote](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f8ce5/32.png) [@The\_Peyote\_Coyote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Peyote_Coyote)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2012, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645/38 "2012-05-02T23:36:22Z")
_The Wicker Man_. I forget the author. \*To Walk the Night \*and _The Edge of Running Water_, both by William Sloane, a fantasy author of the 1930’s. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2012, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645/39 "2012-05-02T23:57:31Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > (I have a paperback from the 1890s, _Fair but Faithless_. The kind of thing _servant girls_ read) This interested me so I Googled it and came up with this 1887 NY Times article: [Fair but Faithless](http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F10C13F9355C15738DDDA00994D9415B8784F0D3), the story of which actually details a plot you’d expect a typical serving wench to enjoy. 😉 ---
**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 3, 2012, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645/40 "2012-05-03T00:07:36Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > That’s as far as I ever got. The above description utterly fails to convey the weirdness of the book. Macintyre _could_ write. He had numerous published sf and fantasy stories and a few books. So the Lesbian Man is NOT a bad read. It’s just that he got obssessed with a few strange ideas, threw in a few stranger ones and wrote a book about them. > [F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._Gwynplaine_MacIntyre) > > Froggy also wrote a letter to Mr Scithers when Like Water For Chocolate was really hot and the recipe novel was in. He was probing interest in a recipe novel involving female killers who ate their male victims. > > I am not making this up. _Everything_ about Froggy was made up, including Froggy himself. The details of his death were bizarre, to say the least. > [@](#): > > 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! I read this when I was in a John Sladek phase. He was a very funny writer. Others for my list: **The Carpet Makers** by Andreas Eschbach. Eschbach is Germany’s best SF writer, and this was his only book translated into English. An amazing story about a world where people make carpets of human hair – millions of them – and send them off to the emperor. No one knows why. The solution will blow you away. Hell, reading just the first chapter (which appeared in Fantasy & Science Fiction in 2001) and will blow you away. Probably the best SF novel of the 2000s and unlike any other. **Swashbuckling Editor Stories** – not a joke, and actually a decent collection. **L’Homme qui dort cent ans (The Man Who Slept 100 Years)** – a French science fiction novel that I haven’t been able to track down since I read it. **[Where Were You Last Pluterday?](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_were_you_last_Pluterday%3F)** by Paul van Herck [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-s-you-read-that-youre-pretty-sure-nobody-else-has-read/620645.md?page=3)