# 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:** 4
**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, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654/61 "2004-04-07T18:51:51Z")
**Balance** Can you give us more detail on How To Build A Corpse? I enjoy craft projects, and a corpse would not look particularly out of place in my apartment (Quite a bit of space is devoted to the Universal Studios monsters). **The Big Book Of Urban Legends** **Cooking To Kill The Poison Cook-Book** **The Whole Pop Culture Catalog** With sections devoted to such things as sea monkeys, 3 D movies, and pink flamingos **The Book Of Sequels** An issue of National Geographic. The entire cover (front, back,and spine) is a hologram. **Apocalypse Wow!** James Finn Garner examines crystals, Nostradamus, Edgar Cayce, and the Book Of Revelations. ---
**Author:** ![Lazlo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lazlo/32/9678_2.png) [@Lazlo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lazlo)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654/62 "2004-04-07T19:28:12Z")
**SPACE ALIENS FROM THE PENTAGON: Flying Saucers are Man-Made Electrical Machines** by William Lyne. The title is pretty self-explainatory. I bought it because it contained the author’s patent application for an “infinitely variable pneumatic transmission” that actually looked feasible. It wasn’t. [**Behold a Pale Horse**](http://www.hiddenmysteries.com/item100/item161.html) by William Cooper. General UFO and conspiracy theory fare. I bought it because in the aformentioned “Space Aliens…” book, William Lyne calls Cooper a crackpot. I had hoped that someone whom a crackpot called a crackpot would actually be sane. No luck. Finally, the _piece de resistance:_ [**Nothing in This Book Is True, but It’s Exactly How Things Are**](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1883319013/102-5945257-5802564?v=glance) by Bob Frissell. It’s about sacred geometry, the monuments on mars, etc. It reads sorta like [Timecube](http://www.timecube.com/), only a lot less coherent. Yes, I’ve read all three. Yes, I’m dumber for it. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654/63 "2004-04-07T19:41:33Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > **Balance** Can you give us more detail on How To Build A Corpse? I enjoy craft projects, and a corpse would not look particularly out of place in my apartment (Quite a bit of space is devoted to the Universal Studios monsters). Sure–here’s the info I emailed **Bosda** when he asked about it: There’s no author’s name or ISBN on it, but the copyright is held by DiStefano Productions. The company’s website is [http://www.distefano.com](http://www.distefano.com). They sell the book as well as completed corpses (for around $500-$600) and other props. I originally got the book from [http://www.terrorbydesign.com](http://www.terrorbydesign.com), which is an excellent source for house-haunting props, but they no longer carry it. > [@](#): > > **Cooking To Kill The Poison Cook-Book** Ah, another title I should look for. ---
**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, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654/64 "2004-04-07T20:20:20Z")
**Balance** Thank you for the links. Cooking To Kill contains recipes with few details and no information on poison. Recipes are often based on puns and devoted largely to murdering the victim instead of cooking them. It is, however, a fun book to leave around the kitchen when having guest over. I recommend To Serve Man instead. The recipes are detailed. Information is provided on how to select a proper specimen, preservation of raw meat, and other relevant subjects. It’s also conveniently available on [Amazon](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1880448823/qid=1081369068/sr=1-7/ref=sr_1_7/102-7833844-4312169?v=glance&s=books) ---
**Author:** ![Kizarvexius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/da6949/32.png) [@Kizarvexius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kizarvexius)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654/65 "2004-04-07T20:43:09Z")
I don’t have anything demonic, anarchic, psychedelic, conspiracy-related, or illegal. But I do have a few volumes of modest interest. I have a trilingual edition of the New Testament. Each page shows the same block of text in Greek, Latin, and English. Fully annotated. My high school librarian gave it to me when she learned I was taking Greek in grad school, but I bet it’s worth a lot of money. _Gregg Shorthand Manual Simplified_. Not only do very few people study shorthand nowadays, but this book has been reprinted and sold without any revisions (it would seem) since the 50s. The sample sentences are so out-of-date that they’re hilarious, as are the extremely patronizing statements about female secretaries. _The Ancient Engineers_. A pretty neat little volume on the construction of the pyramids. I noted with great interest that the Unabomber quoted it in his manifesto. And the fact that he had checked this book out of a public library repeatedly was one of the pieces of circumstantial evidence that would have been used in his prosecution. _The Odyssey_, translated by W.H.D. Rouse. This eminent scholar opted to translate Homer’s epic poem as a novel, which comes off as rather strange. He uses the gods’ epithets as surnames, so you have “Athena Ox-Eyes” and “Apollo Shoot-Afar”. _Saints and Society_. A book that goes a long way to proving that most medieval saints of the more ascetic bend were actually sadomasochists. Disturbing. _Eroticism and the Body Politic_. We were assigned five books to read for my historical methodology class, but allowed to skip one. This one I skipped. But it’s still on my bookshelf. _The Cajun Night Before Christmas_. St. Nick dresses in muskrat and drives a skiff drawn by eight flying alligators. I’ll probably think of more later on. ---
**Author:** ![NailBunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecae2f/32.png) [@NailBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NailBunny)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654/66 "2004-04-07T20:56:09Z")
I almost forgot! We also have **Criswell Predicts Your Future Until the Year 2000!** We found it in a used bookstore a couple years ago, with some very odd newspaper clippings folded up inside of it concerning some local disappearances. It’s most amusing, because he predicts that the world will actually come to an end in 1997 or so, shortly after Denver is either overrun by homosexuals or destroyed by a mysterious cloud, I forget which. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![lisacurl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/41988e/32.png) [@lisacurl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisacurl)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654/67 "2004-04-07T21:16:09Z")
> [@Paul in Saudi](#): > > **Why Paint Cats?** I am still trying to prove to myself the whole thing is a Photoshop job. It would be a very good one. We have a book called _Why Cats Paint_, which discusses the study of cats who inexplicably express themselves by painting when offered canvas and oils. It’s a very good parody and it’s fooled nearly every person to whom my hub’s shown it. The **Amanita** family library also includes (as mentioned by other Dopers) copies of _Lady Cottington’s Pressed Fairy Book_, _The Anarchist’s Cookbook_, and _Nothing in This Book Is True, but It’s Exactly How Things Are_. Mr. Amanita has a large blue hardback copy of _The Urantia Book_. We also have a hardcover copy of both The Book of Mormon and a Gideon Bible. We also have a Jerusalem Bible and a Good News Bible. We like to put these all on a shelf with our large occult book collection. _A Witch’s Bible_ tends to upset people most… I think it’s the stark cover. We also discovered when we combined libraries that we have a lovely book-ended set of _How to Think about Weird Things_ (his) and _Why People Believe Weird Things_ (mine). This says a lot about our relationship. I have _Sybil Leek’s Book of Curses_, which is out of print now. I paid nearly $50 for it through Alibris. I like to keep it on the shelf next to my 1956 edition of _Amy Vanderbilt’s Book of Etiquette_ that I found in a second-hand book store. I have a glossy coffee table book called _Cities of the Dead: New Orleans Cemeteries_. I have hardcover copies of _The Tao of Pooh_ and _The Te of Piglet_. I also have two Disinformation books that tend to concern casual visitors, _Everything You Know Is Wrong_ and _You Are Being Lied To_. I just ordered their _Book of Lies : The Disinformation Guide to Magick and the Occult_. ---
**Author:** ![Judith\_Prietht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b19c9b/32.png) [@Judith\_Prietht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Judith_Prietht)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654/68 "2004-04-07T21:35:28Z")
Thanks to my dissertation I have a large number of books on serial killers, murder, and nasty stuff in general. I see **Death Scenes: A Homicide Detective’s Scrapbook** has already been mentioned, but I must say it’s one of the only books I have that people pick up and immediately put back down again, without even really browsing through it. I have a great book on Ed Gein with amateurish illustrations of the man dancing in his skin suit and gravedigging, which is good for an occasional laugh. I also have some of Creation Books’ series of cinema books that often get glanced through: **Hollywood Hex: Death and Destiny in the Dream Factory: A History of Cursed Movies** : Twilight Zone, The Exorcist, Rosemary’s Baby. **Bad Blood: An Illustrated Guide to Psycho Cinema** : serial killer movies, plus the real-life cases that inspired them! **Lost Highways: An Illustrated History of Road Movies** **Meat is Murder!: An Illustrated Guide to Cannibal Culture** **Killing For Culture: An Illustrated History of Death Films From Mondo to Snuff** One of my favorite books, which isn’t really a book but more of a extended pamphlet, is **The Penis Inserts of Southeast Asia** , a gift from my father. ---
**Author:** ![JSexton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@JSexton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JSexton)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654/69 "2004-04-07T22:02:26Z")
> [@Lynn Bodoni](#): > > 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. Love to peruse your library sometime. My **Myth Adventures** books are sandwiched between volumes 1 - 6 of **Thieves’s World** and **Sandman** I think the single book that gets the most “Huh?” from people is an illustrated Japanese children’s book called **Everybody Poops**. It’s exactly what it sounds like. ---
**Author:** ![sj2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/65b543/32.png) [@sj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sj2)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654/70 "2004-04-07T22:58:31Z")
> [@Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor](#): > > Is it…a repair manual? 😉 > Tell us! 'Cause I doubt we’re ever gonna find a library copy… Hah! I think it actually is… The chapters include: A New Race, the Brown Americans Half Nazi, Half Democrat Dark Melody The book is by John Day, 1942 who also wrote, “Brown America, Prospecting for Heaven”. I found this book in a basket of papers I bought at an estate auction. I’ve got some other gems here too. I’ll have to go peek at the titles. ---
**Author:** ![Syntropy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/65b543/32.png) [@Syntropy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Syntropy)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654/71 "2004-04-07T23:06:28Z")
_The Illuminatus! Trilogy_ Is probably the strangest book I have ever read. I can’t make heads or tails of it, and yet it sits on my shelf at home. Every few years I take it down and take another crack at it. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2004, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654/72 "2004-04-08T01:01:36Z")
> [@Maureen](#): > > _The Illuminatus! Trilogy_ Is probably the strangest book I have ever read. I can’t make heads or tails of it, and yet it sits on my shelf at home. Every few years I take it down and take another crack at it. Uh, it helps if you’ve actually done some drugs before attempting to read it. (Kidding, I kid, I’m such a kidder. Sorta.) Read Joyce’s _Dubliners_, it’ll help give you a feel for the style they were going for in _Illuminatus!_. ---
**Author:** ![Oregon\_sunshine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/50afbb/32.png) [@Oregon\_sunshine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oregon_sunshine)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2004, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654/73 "2004-04-08T01:30:36Z")
Did somebody say subgenius? Anyway… I own a copy of **Look Out, Whitey! Black Power’s Going To Get Your Mamma!**. What a great title! ---
**Author:** ![MoodIndigo1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e8c25b/32.png) [@MoodIndigo1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MoodIndigo1)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2004, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654/74 "2004-04-08T01:44:33Z")
I can’t believe how many of my books are on this thread! I consider my 2-volume annotated Sherlock Holmes to be one of my unweird books. Anyone else have a copy of The Art of Dowsing? ---
**Author:** ![jehan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f6c823/32.png) [@jehan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jehan)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2004, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654/75 "2004-04-08T02:52:31Z")
> [@MoodIndigo1](#): > > I can’t believe how many of my books are on this thread! I consider my 2-volume annotated Sherlock Holmes to be one of my unweird books. > > Anyone else have a copy of The Art of Dowsing? I have the Sherlock Holmes Book too- I never considered it especially strange. I DO have almost the complete set of Chalet School Books, though by E Brent-Dyer. I still read them occasionally too. So there. I have the SCA Knowne World Handbook too. I also have a couple of Queen Victoria bios published in her lifetime- one for her jubilee in 1887, and one written in 1901 (okay it was just after she died, but still it’s old.) ---
**Author:** ![lisacurl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/41988e/32.png) [@lisacurl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisacurl)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2004, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654/76 "2004-04-08T03:40:53Z")
I forgot that I have a paperback of _Mafia Kingfish_ around here somewhere… the premise being that mobster Carlos Marcello masterminded the assasination of JFK. I had to read it for a history class, I swear to Og. ---
**Author:** ![Hunter\_Hawk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/50afbb/32.png) [@Hunter\_Hawk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hunter_Hawk)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2004, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654/77 "2004-04-08T04:20:47Z")
I don’t own this yet, but it’s on my to-buy list: _A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates_, published by the RAND organization. It’s, well, a list of a million random digits. Stuff that I currently own: _Cassell’s Rhyming Slang_–a dictionary of rhyming slang. _The Bedside Book of Bastards_–brief biographies of unpleasant people throughout history. _A History of Phallic Worship_ _The Erotic Muse_–400 pages of dirty songs. _The Schwa Corporation World Operations Manual_ _Death Scenes_–old photographs from police investigations. Several books by Stanislav Szukalski. I also have a number of books on somewhat odd topics in folklore and sociology. ---
**Author:** ![gooti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/eb8c5e/32.png) [@gooti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gooti)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2004, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654/78 "2004-04-08T04:25:14Z")
For some reason, I seem to have this obsession with old sideshow performers (formerly known in pre PC days as “circus freaks”) and I have a couple of books about them. One is called [Very Special People](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0806512539/qid=1081397255/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i2_xgl14/104-6172559-5148712?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) by Frederick Drimmer. It’s basically an anthology of stories about famous circus people of the “golden age of sideshows” such as General Tom Thumb, Julia Pastrana, Joseph Merrick (the Elephant Man), Jo-Jo the Dog-Faced Boy and various and sundry sideshow folks presented in a rather sappy (i.e triumph over tragedy) writing style. It’s pretty much _Up With People_ except the people are usually physically malformed in some way. I have another book simply called [Freak Show](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0226063127/qid=1081397786/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-6172559-5148712?v=glance&s=books) which is more or less a long doctoral thesis about the development of showcasing, and later and exploition, of “human oddities.” Kind of dry reading, but it has some pictures in it that I haven’t seen before so it caught my eye when I was browsing Amazon one day. The hubby has a copy of [How to Good-bye Depression : If You Constrict Anus 100 Times Everyday. Malarkey? or Effective Way?](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0595094724/104-6172559-5148712?v=glance). There was a thread about this book a few weeks ago, but I don’t feel like searching for it at the moment. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2004, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654/79 "2004-04-08T06:58:57Z")
I managed to read **The Illuminatus! Trilogy** while straight and sober, though I admit I did it largely by letting the book take me wherever it wanted to and not worrying about plot or consistency or continuity. ---
**Author:** ![sjc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e5b9ba/32.png) [@sjc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sjc)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2004, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654/80 "2004-04-08T07:35:58Z")
I imagine I have some odd books that I don’t think are odd myself, however there are few that I believe people might find odd. **Vampires, Burial & Death: Folklore & Reality** by Paul Barber. It is a look at the folkloric beliefs about Vampires and how they are actually based on observations of what happens after death. (That’s not to say people actually come back from the dead, but rather that the signs that people took to mean someone had come back from the dead, such as blood on the lips and bloating, are commonly found on corpses that are decomposing.) It also points out that there is a big difference between folkloric vampires and fictional vampires. **How to Get Pregnant** I found this one in a free-box outside a used book store. I thought the title was great. **You Call this Living? A Collection of East-European Political Jokes** which records Romanian political jokes from the Soviet era. I found it at a used book store and thought it would be interesting to read. I also have an Estonian-English Dictionary, an English-Estonian Dictionary and a grammar of Estonian (I take classes at the university, it’s one the few universities that offers 2nd year Estonian, I’m only aware of one other place and that’s probably it. So I’m among the very few Americans that can speak some Estonian, besides Estonian immigrants. After all, there are only a little more than 1 million speakers worldwide.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weirdest-books-you-own/238654.md?page=5)