# Weirdest Books You Own **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 7, 2004, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654 "2004-04-07T00:24:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Okaybear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/9fc348/32.png) [@Okaybear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Okaybear)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654/21 "2004-04-07T04:22:01Z")
Ok, so this is not _terribly_ weird nowadays, but I have a copy of Kate Bornstein’s **My Gender Workbook** which goes through the many ways a person can screw with gender. Quite a fun read, actually. Interactive, and all that rot. ---
**Author:** ![SanguineSpider](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@SanguineSpider](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanguineSpider)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654/22 "2004-04-07T04:50:52Z")
> [@GMRyujin](#): > > **The 120 Days of Sodom and Other Writings** and **Justine, Philosophy in the Bedroom, and Other Writings** by De Sade raises an eyebrow or two. They were for school! I swear! I’m a card-carrying member of the Greater **GMRyujin** Library… I swear I am. Might you hold those copies for me, good sir? I used to have **The Encyclopedia of Strange Sexual Practices** somewhere in my room but it’s disappeared recently. I wrote a paper on bloodletting for college, which received an A+ (toot toot, my horn). ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Rieux](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Dr.Rieux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Rieux)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654/23 "2004-04-07T05:08:21Z")
I used to have (I found it on the sale rack at a public library for a quarter) a small, black velvet covered book with a dust jacket of thin paper embossed with a spider-web motif. It was a memorial book from the funeral of Arthur W. A. Cowan, who was one of the subjects of Lillian Hellman’s _Pentimento_. ---
**Author:** ![Doomtrain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/0ea827/32.png) [@Doomtrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doomtrain)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654/24 "2004-04-07T05:20:04Z")
> [@SanguineSpider](#): > > I’m a card-carrying member of the Greater **GMRyujin** Library… I swear I am. > Might you hold those copies for me, good sir? I’ll put you on the waiting list. And the Pervert List. 😉 Glad to see you Chartered up, by the way! ---
**Author:** ![Rabid\_Squirrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Rabid\_Squirrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rabid_Squirrel)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654/25 "2004-04-07T05:35:50Z")
Umm… - Illustrated History of Torture (not as gory as you may think) - Houdini on Magic (it’s better than you would think) - Outbreak: The Sociology of Collatice Behaviour - Who’s Who in Mythology - Rise of the Robots (book of the oh-so horrible computer game) - Cultural Anthropology: Tribes, States and the Global System (bought it for a fiver at the uni book sales) ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654/26 "2004-04-07T05:46:13Z")
Mine would have to be a toss-up between _A History of UFO Crashes_ and _Sex Lives of the U.S. Presidents_. ---
**Author:** ![Hometownboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5e9695/32.png) [@Hometownboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hometownboy)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654/27 "2004-04-07T05:53:32Z")
A Richard Scary picture book in Icelandic. Some of the artwork has been modified for the country (mailboxes, IIRC, for one thing) and it has several fewer pages than the English version. Fascinating to see the cognates. “Whale” is “Hvaler” if memory serves me correctly. A collection of political cartoons from the Chicago Tribune from 1952, showing stalwart Upper Midwest congressmen blocking foolish programs institued by President Truman, and tying every hint or thread of scandal to HST. An 1873 book of German poetry with embossed and colored leather cover and delicate endpapers. A WWII British guerilla fighting manual. **String Figures and How to Tie Them** **A Silk Workers Handbook** **Aakki-Daakki to Zoomorph: An Encyclopedia of Hood River County** **The Daily Telegraph Fifth Book of Obituaries** **Steel Square Pocket Book** giving all the uses, calculations possible, etc. with using a standard right angle steel square **Pissing in the Snow and other Ozark Folklore** Too late I learned that there were serious academic folks who made thier living gathering, researching and writing books about…dirty jokes. My high school guidance counselor never mentioned **that** option! ---
**Author:** ![SanguineSpider](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@SanguineSpider](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanguineSpider)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654/28 "2004-04-07T06:18:36Z")
Thanks, **GMRyujin**! Me, too… and thank my buddy. ---
**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:** [April 7, 2004, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654/29 "2004-04-07T06:23:31Z")
**The Smythe Report- Atomic Energy For Military Purposes** **To Serve Man-A Cookbook For People** Seriously. It was written by Karl Wurf and published by Owlswick press. I have been in the author’s kitchen. Hanging on one wall is a large illustration of praying mantis about to carve up a roasted human cadaver. **Who In Hell** It’s a list of demons, and of famous folks who the authors think are in hell. Errol Flynn is in hell. Bette Davis is not. **The History Of Torture** Don’t know if this the same on **Rabid Squirell** has. Mine is by Daniel P Manix. He tries to be scholarly rather than sensational but relies too much on secondary sources. **Secret And Forbidden** It’s a book on sex through the ages. There are chapters on cults and secret societies, bestiality, homosexuality, and child prostitution. The real charm of the book is the combination of disgust and prurient delight with which the author views the subjects. **LSD Psychotherapy** Half the book is about how lsd and other psychedelic drugs will revolutionize psychology. The other half is so thoroughly mired in Freud as to destroy any credibility the author has left. **The Angry Clam** You’ve heard rumors of this heroic bivalve. Now, at last, you can read his story in his own words. **A Book In Every Home** Edward Leedskalnin. Ed proposed to his sweetheart. She rejected him. He moved to America. Working alone and without heavy machinery, he built a home from blocks of coral (IIRC the average block weighed two tons). He also wrote this book. Every other page is left blank. In his foreword he explains ‘If you think you can write a better book, I’ve given you just as much space as I used.’ Among other things, Ed advises mothers on how to keep their daughters pure for marriage. If they think the boyfriend may have uncontrollable urges, they should sleep with him. This way, his urges are relieved, the daughter’s virginity is safeguarded, and the mother can educate the boy as a lover. Ed said that since a mother had already lost her virginity, sleeping with another guy made no difference. **The Book Of Bad Virtues** Tales and poems celebrating sloth, gluttony, disobedience, and the like. **The Afterlife Diet** From page 2 “I have died and gone to Heaven. And Heaven is a resort in the Catskills.” ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654/30 "2004-04-07T06:23:51Z")
It looks fairly innocent on the shelf, when you only see the spine, but I’d nominate **Textual Poachers** by Henry Jenkins. It’s a study of media fandom and fanfic, with special focus on _Star Trek_ and _Beauty and the Beast._ It’s a rather dry read, but I found it interesting to see how common themes of fan behavior cross over from one fandom to another. On a more approachable, browse-the-shelf level, I’d nominate my various tomes documenting the history of video and computer games. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654/31 "2004-04-07T06:44:44Z")
> [@Tuckerfan](#): > > _The Anarchist’s Cookbook_ My great-grandmother had _The Poisoner’s Handbook_, which is exactly what it sounds like. She was a mystery novelist. Her job was to know this stuff. ---
**Author:** ![BlackKnight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eb8c5e/32.png) [@BlackKnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlackKnight)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654/32 "2004-04-07T06:49:36Z")
I don’t have any really weird ones, but I do have copies of “Chariots of the Gods” and “Gods or Spacemen?” Classics, I tell you. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Sengkelat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@Sengkelat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sengkelat)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654/33 "2004-04-07T07:04:29Z")
Everything I own is in cardboard boxes, so there’s really no browsing the shelves. But once I actually have shelves, the oddest thing to be found will probably be The New Manual of Surgery. It isn’t very new at all, and includes illustrations of some procedures that would absolutely not be performed by any modern doctor. (You want to sew my what to my what? No!) I also have a book of paintings of animals having sex. I can’t for the life of me remember what it’s called. It’s all very tastefully done, of course. ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654/34 "2004-04-07T07:07:38Z")
_Be Your Own Undertaker Contingency Cannibalism: Hardcore Survivalism’s Dirty Little Secret Rack, Rope and Red Hot Pincers: A History of Torture The Book of Execution U.S. Army Improvised Munitions Handbook, v.1-2 The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers Lawless Lawmen Black Collar Crimes Holy Homicide Still at Large: Serial Killers who Eluded Justice Odd Gods: New Religions and the Cult Controversy Cults, Sects & Alternative Religions Malleus Malificarum Compendium Maleficarum_ Yeah, I’ve probably got an FBI file somewhere. ---
**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:** [April 7, 2004, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654/35 "2004-04-07T07:24:17Z")
Ah Von Daniken. I have **Gods From Outer Space** **The Lost Continent Of Mu** **Lo!** and **Book Of The Damned** by Charles Fort. **The Beast Within** Adam Douglas. A marvellous book on werewolves. There are chapters on mythology, theology, werewolf trials, wild children, pyschology, and a debunking of the claim that ergot poisoning is responsible for the legend of the werewolf. Rush out and buy yourself a copy. **Subliminal Seduction** by Wilson Brian Key [The Master did a column on him](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_344.html) **Sexpionage! The Exploitation Of Sex By Soviet Inteligence** **The Melancholy Death Of Oyster Boy** by Tim Burton **The Hardhat’s Storybook** by Al Capp. For those who don’t know Al Capp created Lil Abner, one of the greatest comic strips ever to grace a paper. It was filled with innocence, joy, and hillbillies with funny accents. The Hardhat’s Storybook was Capp expressing his true self. He was a close-minded bigot filled with some of the purest hate you’ll ever see. The back cover says “If you can walk to the welfare office, you can walk to work.” ---
**Author:** ![Paladud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Paladud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paladud)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654/36 "2004-04-07T07:35:12Z")
Raymond E Feist’s “Faerie Tale” - a crappy quasi-fantasy novel revolving around weird sexual stuff. I loved his Riftwar, Serpentwar, and Empire series as well as the interim books and the first one in the Riftwar Legacy, but this was just bizarre. “Tom Clancy’s Power Plays: Zero Hour” - might have been decent if it had been actually written by Clancy; he’s at least consistent. This had the most disjointed, illogical aberration of a storyline humanly imaginable. In my defense, it was a present from a coworker. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654/37 "2004-04-07T07:48:09Z")
I’ve got lots of Conspiracy stuff (mostly John Birch lit but some more extreme stuff like Wickliffe Vennard’s Federal Reserve Conspiracy & Nesta Webster’s books), the two anti-Semitic standards The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and The Hoax of the Twentieth Century, lotsa UFO/Ancient Astronaut stuff- especially two original George Adamski books, but the three most bizarre books I have- all obtained from AMOK when it did mail-order… The Trial of Gilles de Rais, the comic version of The Image of the Beast (the psychedelic sci-fi crime novel about genital severing were-beasts, as far as I can tell- Phillip Jose Farmer I think wrote the novel). the comic Timothy Leary’s NeuroScience, and the comic Tales of the HoloHoax (ickie!) ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 8:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654/38 "2004-04-07T08:10:50Z")
Charlton Heston just wrote a foreward to THE END OF HISTORY MESSIAH CONSPIRACY by Phillip N. Moore, who is either a Messianic Jew or a Christian Zionist, has written lots of pro-Israel books, and has done research work for Hal Lindsey. His site is [www.ramsheadpress.com](http://www.ramsheadpress.com) ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654/39 "2004-04-07T11:39:45Z")
> [@Queen Tonya](#): > > While I don’t think it’s weird at all, it has made most of my friends look puzzled. A newly acquired 1971 revised edition of “Our Bodies, Ourselves.” > > Lucky me, it was given to me by a friend going thru her recently deceased mother’s belongings. She hadn’t a clue what it was, she just put all books aside in a pile for me. I remember hearing about this book and stuff by Nancy Friday and Marilyn French and countless others I can’t remember, and thinking that I’d have to be sure to read them when I grew up as they certainly seemed to be ticking off everyone I knew! Hmmmm. As my daughter was growing up, when she had questions about how her body worked, I’d take that book out and show her various stuff (checking first to make sure it was age appropriate). Sometime between the time she turned 12 and 14, I just gave her the book, told her to keep it in her room, and read it periodically. I told her that if she had any questions, that she could ask me. She came to me every now and then, but I’ve noticed that that book got a LOT of use. Lots of dogeared pages, the spine was very broken (and my daughter is generally very careful about not breaking the spine), and the book was never in the same place twice. I don’t know which edition this book was…I read one of the early editions, but I bought a later edition for my daughter’s education. Sure, the book is very slanted politically, but it promotes what I believe is a healthy appreciation of a woman’s body, and the idea that being a woman is great, and that there’s nothing shameful about our body functions. As for my oddest book(s), I have the Pressed Fairy book, a couple of Myth Adventures graphic novels (not weird so much as rare, but very good), and a lot of game strategy handbooks, which most nongamers would consider weird. Since I play pen and paper roleplaying games, I also have a huge collection of game handbooks, manuals, and published adventures. For those who are not familiar with these, an adventure is a prepackaged game for a roleplaying group. It will have party recommendations (how many adventurers, and of what level, and sometimes of which classes). It will have a setting, a map or several maps, a hook (the introduction to the adventure and just WHY the party would want to participate in one), the nonplayer characters, the monsters, and the rewards ready for a game. NonRPGers would find this all incredibly confusing, as the adventures use abbreviations that are not readily apparent, and assume knowledge that nongamers just won’t have. But I enjoy reading them, and altering them to my own game world I’ve also got a lot of science fiction and fantasy, some of which is fairly weird. ---
**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654/40 "2004-04-07T12:15:44Z")
_Churches of the South Atlantic Islands, 1502 - 1991_ - just what it says, an ecclesiastical history of places like Ascension Island and St. Helena! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654.md?page=3)