Well, my copy of The Inferno isn’t very exciting, except for the cover.
Though I’ve had more than my share of unusual LIBRARY books on hand at one time or another. Anything from Art of the Third Reich and Guidebook to Nuclear Reactors.
Ranchoth
Heh. We should set up a SDMB lending library. We all seem to share the same tastes in outre literature. Here are a few selections from my shelves:
Do-It-Yourself Coffins for Pets and People
Cadaver Dog Training Manual
A Morning’s Work: Medical Photographs from the Burnley Collection
Wisconsin Death Trip
Common Endo-Parasites of Reptiles and Amphibians, A Reference and Treatment Guide
The Oxford English Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes
Field Guide to Cows
Meowing Nuns, Headhunting Panics, and Little Green Men: A Survey of Mass Panic and Psychogenic Illness
Manual of Marine Invertebrates
Guide to Home Worm-Farming
I also enjoy the works of Jan Bondeson, which it seems many here would enjoy. He mainly writes about historical medical oddities, and has written
A Cabinet of Medical Curiosities; The Two-Headed Boy, and Other Medical Marvels; Buried Alive; and The Feejee Mermaid.
Visitors to Casa Potter are always faintly disgusted to find a hefty collection of well-thumbed Jilly Cooper novels (Heterocentric sex-and-romance romps involving Britain’s Upper-Middle classes) nestling amongst the Queer theorists/obscure poets/East European playwrights/arsty novelists/porny photographers that cram my shelves. Jilly’s my dirty little secret: my bookshelves attempt to suggest that I am highly-sexed, over-educated and more than a little pretentious, but Jilly inisists on letting the world know that at heart I am just a big puss who wants everyone to fall in love and get married.
The one book that gets the biggest reaction before being fell upon with glee is a 1946 reprint of ‘Hints and Etiquette and the Usages of Society with a Glance at Bad Habits’, originally written in 1834. It contains crucial information along the lines of:
So now you know.
yay! 
Between my collection of true crime, criminal psychology, forensic anthropology, and DSM guides and my husband’s collection of anti-establishment, “rise up and fight the Man”, Eastern religion, and huge number of computer books, most people can’t quite figure out what’s going on.
I also have quite a few sex manuals, a ton of paperback mystery novels, history and sociology books, and a lot of medical texts. I’ve picked up a lot of interesting things from library book sales and the like. One of my favorite conversation pieces was a book titled “Men Are Not Cost-Effective” but I since have given it to my MIL.
Ooooh, thanks for the tip, Potter, I must find that one!
I, too, have the Malleus Maleficarum, the George Hay version of the Necronomicon, Crowley’s Magick, a number of books by Dion Fortune (which are on the same shelf as my Bibles - no particular reason, but I suppose that would get me some funny looks), and several other “occult” or “New Age” books. Then there’s Gray’s Anatomy (it’s just one of those reference books you have to have handy), a few books on heraldry, my gigantic copy of the Morte D’Arthur (with Aubrey Beardsley illustrations), and forensic pathologist Keith Simpson’s catchily titled memoirs, Forty Years of Murder. Between those, and all the SF and fantasy, and the RPGing stuff, there’s enough to arouse the darkest suspicions about me. (And I’m such a nice person at heart…)
Some people have, in the past, been disconcerted when picking up, say, my copy of Homer’s Odyssey, and finding out it’s not a translation… I have a few foreign language books, mostly standard Greek and Latin stuff, plus a large wodge of SF in French, and a Beowulf in Old English. For some reason, the only books I have in German are Wittgenstein’s Tractatus and Enid Blyton’s Three Cheers, Secret Seven (Hoch, der Schwartze Sieben). Make of that what you will.
I’ve been looking for years for Casket and Sunnyside, the mortician’s magazine Mr. Benchley and Mrs. Parker used to keep lying around their offices. I did have Funeral Director Monthly, but it’s not quite the same thing.
Hmmmm…a few I haven’t seen mentioned that I know I am going to have to move someplace less conspicuous as the rugrats get a little older (“hey daddy, what is that book?”) include:
-
The Story of O - I actually had a first U.S. edition of this for a while…
-
Topping from Below and Panic Snap by Laura Reese - SM & BD murder thrillers
-
The Fermata - okay, it was mentioned earlier, but between it and Vox, much eyebrow-raising could occur.
I think that’s it for now…
God damn it!
I went to Amazon to look up many of the books that I did not recognize and now thanks to you guys Amazon thinks I am some sort of freak and is suggesting some very disturbing titles. God I hope my family does not log on as me there anytime soon…
“No mom, I have no idea what “MeatMen” is.”
Well, I own Monkey on a Stick: Murder, Madness, and the Hare Krishnas (back cover quote: “Child abuse, sadistic torture, white slavery, drug pushing, arson, arms running, and MURDER - THESE are some of the unspeakable atrocities committed by the Hare Krishna movement in the name of religion!”), that’s a pretty lurid tale.
Gary Allen’s None Dare Call it Conspiracy, which details a longstanding Rockefeller/etc. conspiracy against the world.
The autobiography of G. Gordon Liddy, Will, whose scowling visage definitely scares the arty-hippie chicks.
Best of all is the collection of crackpot UFO literature from the sixties that I inherited it from my grandmother’s 3rd husband, with titles like Incident at Exeter: UFOs over America Now, Flying Saucer Occupants, and the most sublimely perverse of them all, Albert K. Bender’s gothic account of how he was stalked and harassed by the Flying Saucers and the Three Men.
::wish list gets longer::
This thread just gets more interesting and fun as it goes along.
Two more that I don’t keep on the shelf right now:
Why I Am Not A Christian by Betrand Russell. But I got plenty of looks while I was reading it.
All I Need Is Love by Klaus Kinski. The one that got withdrawn because of lawsuits. But most of my friends don’t know about Kinski or the book’s history, so it’s kind of wasted on them.
Funny my aunt has a library full of material related to ww2. The majority of it is either in german or english so most people that visit her only understand the cover’s drawings (Svastikas) Somehow my aunt and uncle are considered escaped high-ranking nazis officers :).
Argentina…books in German…with sv(w)astikas on them?
[Artie Johnson] Ver-ry en-terestink. [/Artie Johnson] 
Well, first you have the books I do push behind others when people visit:
** The Pearl** which is a collection of late 19th century erotica.
** Sex for Dummies** by Doctor Ruth.
Then there are the books people pull out and ask why on earth I have them: like my Spanish slang instuction guide, a book called ** 101 ways to avoid reincarnation** and, for some odd reason, books on poetry, grammar and the history of the English language.
ecstasy club - douglas rushkoff
and
coercion - douglas rushkoff
I also had a copy of The Necronomicon. Ditto the yawn.
Another overrated controversial book is The Satanic Bible. The philosophy isn’t very interesting, and the whole “Hey, we’re not that bad!” tone makes for a very boring read. It’s only worthwhile if you get a kick out of freaking people out.
When I was in college I bought a copy of The Anarchist’s Handbook. It tells one how to do all kinds of illegal things. Full of dangerous advice, IIRC. Would probably appeal to wannabe revolutionaries.
I have a copy of The Total WOman. Don’t shoot me. My fiance bought it for me at a church book sale- he’d heard me mention the title, so he figured he’d get it. I resisted chasing him with an axe. For those who don’t know, it’s an antifeminist treatise on how to be a doormat for your husband. I’m not sure whether to burn it in the back yard, or put it next to my copy of The Beauty Myth.
I also have a book called Whores In History that I bought cheap at a used bookstore. It’s pretty biased, but kind of interesting.
The Velveteen Rabbit- in the philosophy section.
I want a copy of The Nazi Doctors, by Robert Jay Lifton, and the Vulgate in Latin.
I have Venus in Furs by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, and 120 Days of Sodom by the Marquis de Sade. But I’m more worried about hiding the physics and computer science textbooks. UML in a Nutshell? Now that’s embarrassing.
*Anarchist’s Cookbook *
A bunch of very naughty pieces of knowledge to have. That’s why I have it. The book used to be hard to get for a while- some places refused to carry it.
I read somewhere the author tried to back pedal from this book later in life, “it was a first amendment exercise blah, blah, blah” but the genie is out of the bottle. Much better then the random crap you would find on the Internet.
The fun you can have with household chemicals. . . .