# Books of an unusual nature **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [August 4, 2026, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141 "2026-08-04T13:54:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2026, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141/61 "2026-08-05T17:00:19Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Two books were printed on a page simultaneously, and then the pages were cut in half to make a 4" x 6" paperback, with the binding on the short side. Finding two books with nearly the exact same page length, so that the minimum amount of paper was wasted on blank pages, was always a problem, though. Couldn’t they just make multiple copies of the same book? Landscape-oriented books are also common for children’s picture books. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2026, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141/62 "2026-08-05T17:04:58Z")
Are there any books out there where the even number pages were one story, and the odd number pages were another story? ---
**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:** [August 5, 2026, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141/63 "2026-08-05T17:44:49Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > When I went to the Kansas City Worldcon (MidAmericon II) they had a large display of Armed Forces Edition science fiction books. Wow! [ They only did eight sf titles](https://explore.lib.virginia.edu/exhibits/show/booksgotowar/walk/collect1), and that’s if you includes the novel _The Adventures of Superman_.\* Maybe they were part of a bigger collection? > [@Chronos](#): > > Couldn’t they just make multiple copies of the same book? You’d think. I’ve always wondered that myself. The only thought I have is that it was better to have one long press run of two titles than two separate shorter runs of individual titles. Less set up time. But that implies that the cutting in half time was minimal. \* That page calls it “the novel on which the comic-book figure was based,” which is total nonsense. It did include a few details that later became canon, though. ---
**Author:** ![vbob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/vbob/32/4439_2.png) [@vbob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vbob)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2026, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141/64 "2026-08-05T17:48:11Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Are there any books out there where the even number pages were one story, and the odd number pages were another story? There are quite a lot of ‘facing page translations’ and apparently even some cryptic menus in Word, etc. to assist in creating such documents… [Nicholas Jenkins: "facing pages"](https://web.stanford.edu/~njenkins/archives/30facing_pages/) ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2026, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141/65 "2026-08-05T17:53:52Z")
Most reform and conservative Jewish prayer books have pages like that. Often, most of the pages are like that. That’s not unusual. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2026, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141/66 "2026-08-05T19:14:00Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > Most reform and conservative Jewish prayer books have pages like that. Vast, vast numbers of ancient literary works have “original text edition with facing-page translation” versions that are like that. Example: [the entire MFing Loeb Classical Library](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loeb_Classical_Library) ---
**Author:** ![Quondam\_Mechanic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quondam_mechanic/32/3404_2.png) [@Quondam\_Mechanic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quondam_Mechanic)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2026, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141/67 "2026-08-05T19:28:25Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > > [@Quondam\_Mechanic](#): > > > > Much of the book is unusual in content rather than form, but the frame story for Barth’s _Lost in the Funhouse_ is supposed to be folded and pasted into a Möbius strip. > > Did you mean “Menelaiad”, a story in the collection _Lost in the Funhouse_? “Menelaiad” has a frame story that goes seven levels of quotes deep. > > > " ’ " ’ “Seasick,” she admitted. “Throwing up.” To my just query, why she repaid in so close-kneed coin my failure to butcher her in Troy, she answered-’ > > " ’ " ‘Let me guess’, requested Proteus." > > " ’ “What I said in Troy.” said offshore Helen. “What I say to you now.”’ My original reference was to “Frame-Tale,” but “Menelaiad” captures the flavor of the thing very well. Somewhere (is it in “Menelaiad?”) there’s a line, as I remember it, “”“”“Help”" I cried" I cried" I cried.". (Apologies if I misbalanced the quotation marks.) ---
**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:** [August 5, 2026, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141/68 "2026-08-05T19:45:12Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > > [@Quondam\_Mechanic](#): > > > > Much of the book is unusual in content rather than form, but the frame story for Barth’s _Lost in the Funhouse_ is supposed to be folded and pasted into a Möbius strip. > > Did you mean “Menelaiad”, a story in the collection _Lost in the Funhouse_? “Menelaiad” has a frame story that goes seven levels of quotes deep. > > > " ’ " ’ “Seasick,” she admitted. “Throwing up.” To my just query, why she repaid in so close-kneed coin my failure to butcher her in Troy, she answered-’ > > " ’ " ‘Let me guess’, requested Proteus." > > " ’ “What I said in Troy.” said offshore Helen. “What I say to you now.”’ Stories-within-stories-within-stories-etc. have a long history. Recently David Mitchell’s **Cloud Atlas** has six nested stories (which they wisely didn’t try to follow in the movie adaptation, choosing to intertwine them). There are examples in Douglas Hofstadter’s **Godel, Escher, Bach** , which is appropriate, since the whole book is about self-referential systems and Strange Loops (and their role in Godel’s Theorem). I don’t recall how many levels his book descends, but he remarks upon how it’s unsatisfying if you don’t go “all the way down” or “all the way up” to return to your starting level. There are multiple levels of storytelling i n the _1001 Nights_, which go to at least four levels, but I haven’t read the whole thing yet, and I’m not sure what the maximum is. There are quite a few such “nested stories” referred to in this Wikipedia article: > **[Story within a story](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Story_within_a_story)** > > A story within a story, also referred to as an embedded narrative, is a literary device in which a character within a story becomes the narrator of a second story (within the first one). Multiple layers of stories within stories are sometimes called nested stories. A play may include a brief play within it, as in Shakespeare's Hamlet; a film may show the characters watching a short film; or a novel may contain a short story within it. A story within a story can be used in all types of narratio St... ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2026, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141/69 "2026-08-05T20:40:23Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I don’t recall how many levels his book descends, but he remarks upon how it’s unsatisfying if you don’t go “all the way down” or “all the way up” to return to your starting level. And of course, he doesn’t: The outermost story cuts off into the next one on a cliffhanger, and then the whole assemblage ends at the level below that. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2026, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141/70 "2026-08-05T20:49:36Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > There are examples in Douglas Hofstadter’s **Godel, Escher, Bach** , which is appropriate, since the whole book is about self-referential systems and Strange Loops (and their role in Godel’s Theorem). I don’t recall how many levels his book descends, but he remarks upon how it’s unsatisfying if you don’t go “all the way down” or “all the way up” to return to your starting level. Including a moment in one of the dialogues where a character in one level somehow hears his counterpart speaking in another level. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2026, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141/71 "2026-08-05T20:57:02Z")
Not what I am looking for, which is one story on the odd pages and a totally different story (not an explanation or translation of that first story, etc.) on the even pages. ---
**Author:** ![themapleleaf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/themapleleaf/32/14349_2.png) [@themapleleaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/themapleleaf)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2026, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141/72 "2026-08-05T21:14:37Z")
In my middle school library there was a book narrated in the first person about a country family that takes a day trip to the city. It was illustrated thoughout with black and white pictures in a minimalist, geometric graphic style. The gimmick of the book, as I recall, was that after reading about the journey there, you had to flip the book upside down to read about the journey back, or at any rate about the later part of the day. Viewed upside down, the image changed to reflect the places described in the text on the other side. Another book we had was [Black and White: Four Connected Stories, One Amazing Book](https://turtleandrobot.wordpress.com/2012/10/25/four-connected-stories-one-amazing-book/) by David Macaulay. It actually told four whimsical stories simultaneously on each page, and it quickly becomes clear that the rather different stories told from various perspectives are all the result of interconnected events, in a similar way to the 2006 movie _Babel._ Another book that springs to mind is one I saw featured on the Internet about four years back, but unfortunately I can’t remember the title. It is a thick coffee table-type book with weird, colorful illustrations that are not given any text for context. I think the artist is Italian and that he was inspired by the mysterious, indecipherable [Voynich Manuscript](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript). In a similar fashion, the book purports to be some kind of science encyclopedia or similar desciptive volume, but with all kinds of crazy anatomical cutaways of fantasy vehicles and machines and strange creatures. The two most specific details that have stuck in my mind are: 1) a recurring presence of rainbow / spectral motifs and 2) an image of skeletons putting people on a machine that removes their flesh, causing the skeleton inside to leave alive and in one piece. ---
**Author:** ![themapleleaf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/themapleleaf/32/14349_2.png) [@themapleleaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/themapleleaf)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2026, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141/73 "2026-08-05T21:35:51Z")
I found the book referred to at the end of the previous post. It’s called _Codex Seraphinianus_ and was written by Luigi Seraphini. [Here’s an article](https://dangerousminds.net/comments/codex_seraphinianus_a_new_edition_of_the_strangest_book_in_the_world/). Prepare to be weirded out. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2026, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141/74 "2026-08-05T21:45:06Z")
Graeme Base’s **The Eleventh Hour** also has the pages containing the mystery’s solution sealed off, albeit with regular paper printed to look like a wax seal. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2026, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141/75 "2026-08-05T22:06:23Z")
I was about to mention _Codex Seraphinianus_. I first read about the book in one of Douglas Hofstadter’s _Metamagical Themas_ columns in _Scientific American_. One of my most prized possessions is a copy of the book that I got as a gift about 20 years ago. It’s a gloriously wonderful book. ---
**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:** [August 5, 2026, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141/76 "2026-08-05T23:15:29Z")
> [@Quondam\_Mechanic](#): > > My original reference was to “Frame-Tale,” Without the capitals I didn’t realize that was a specific story. I didn’t remember it until I looked it up. “Menelaiad” is the story that always stuck with me. > [@CalMeacham](#): > > There are multiple levels of storytelling i n the _1001 Nights_, which go to at least four levels, but I haven’t read the whole thing yet, and I’m not sure what the maximum is. If any part of my memory is accurate, that’s exactly what Barth was parodying, and he went down seven levels so that he could have the record. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2026, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141/77 "2026-08-05T23:17:57Z")
I have a friend who wrote and recently re-published a book in a very unconventional format, such that each book has to be assembled by hand. It chronicles the controversy about and the process of removing a statue of William McKinley from a small Northern California town to another town in the midwest, which happened a few years prior. Besides photos and text, there are pages that reproduce various kinds of communications relating to the statue and its removal, including letters, post-it notes, newspaper articles, and various other kinds of media. It is available for sale, $50 for the standard version and $250 for the deluxe version. The title is “Expositions are the Timekeepers of Progress.” ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2026, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141/78 "2026-08-05T23:36:06Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > he went down seven levels so that he could have the record. I think Arthur C. Clarke holds the record with infinity levels deep. [![](https://i.ibb.co/k2NPmWvz/c3ap6us1cpsy.jpg) ](https://i.ibb.co/k2NPmWvz/c3ap6us1cpsy.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2026, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141/79 "2026-08-06T01:25:14Z")
I’ll just drop a nostalgic shout out to the “H” volume of the World Book Encyclopedia. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2026, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141/80 "2026-08-06T04:03:01Z")
**Hello, Goodbye, Hello** chronicles 101 meetings of famous people. Helen Keller met Martha Graham, Martha Graham met Madonna, Madonna met… The encounter between Harpo Marx and Sergei Rachmaninoff is a particular favorite. The book comes full circle, ending with the same person it started with (I think it’s Hitler), so you could start anywhere and just keep reading until you get back to where you started. But there’s more. The forward explains that each entry in the book is exactly 1,000 words long, and the forward is 101 words, for a total word count of 101,101. **The Upside-Down World of Gustave Verbeek** is a collection of Sunday comics from 1903 to 1905. Verbeek comics were six panels, which could be read and then turned over, telling a twelve-panel story. A character held in the beak of a giant bird in one panel becomes a different character in a canoe when turned over. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141.md?page=5)