My wife and I were both 50’s kids, and we’d love to find a copy of The Junior Woodchuck Manual.
At Disneyland, some many years ago, they had a little pamphlet with that title, and a cute cover, which they gave to kids so they could collect autographs from “Disney Afternoon” characters in costume. I asked for one, and the polite cast member said they were only for kids.
Since then, I’ve felt a very great affinity for Scrooge McDuck.
It certainly had all the answers to life’s problems!
A few from The Simpsons:
Love in the Time Of Scurvy
Big Book of British Smiles
The Troll Twins of Underbridge Academy
Nude Language and Adult Facial Expressions by Andre Norton.
I had a copy in the 70s.
Italian War Heroes?
The Five Most Courageous French Soldiers of WW2.
Brilliant Polish Army Generals and the Strategies they Conceived.
The Strange Apparent Acceptability Of Gratuitous Racism In The Guise Of Humour.
Oh, you want SMALLEST books (fictitious)? 'How about:
- War Movies I Have Not Appeared In * by John Wayne
- Morton Downey, Jr.'s Book of Ettiquette
Mao tse-Tung on Peaceful Coexistence with the West
Recent Movies You Can Take Your Kids To
A Middle-class Guide to Financing a House*
My faves:
The Last Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison
Necrotelicomnicon, by Achmed the I Just Get These Headaches
A Method For Madness, by David Gerrold
Hansard’s Guide to Refreshing Sleep, presumably by Hansard.
Nowadays, every one has one, it’s called Google.
Neither the Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or the* Encyclopedia Galactica* exist in reality, although (a version of) Venus on the Half Shell does.
Greatest of them all,
I, Libertine by Jean Shepherd
Wow. The exact three tomes I came in here to mention. Oh well, lemme think of another…
I worked at a Barnes & Noble bookstore for a while during the mid 90’s. I remember a horribly pretentious, self-important, ludicrous indie film called “the Myth of Fingerprints” came out around that time. Part of the ‘plot’ of it revolved around Julianne Moore reading a book called “the Scream of the Rabbits” and being hysterically upset because the copy of the book she was reading didn’t have the last chapter in it, so she couldn’t find out how it ended. For several weeks after the film came out, about a dozen people a day came into the B&N store asking for the book “the Scream of the Rabbits.” Boy did it get to be exhausting explaining that the book did. not. exist.
Cryptonomicon, by assorted authors, as detailed in Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson. (I just read this – Great book.)
In Warm Love, or How I Rehabilitated Two Hardened Criminals Who Invaded My Family’s Home, by Herb Clutter, as made up by me.
By Daniel Tosh.
The Big Book of Intercourse, from the Pennsylvania Department of Tourism and Recreation.
I wish Buttercup’s Baby (sequel to The Princess Bride book) existed (there was even an excerpt in the back of the first one of it), but apparently that preview was only part of the whole joke, much like the “Good Parts” version was the only copy that ever existed.
In fact, that’s another one to add to the list. The full version of The Princess Bride, not just the “Good Parts” version.
The Hardly Boys and the Mystery of the Spiral Bridge.
Oolon Colluphid’s trilogy of philosophical blockbusters: Where God Went Wrong, Some More of God’s Greatest Mistakes and Who is this God Person Anyway?.