Oops, my mistake. Ricci is prominently mentioned as the editor and copyright holder, but it is the Codex of Luigi Serafini. No whoosh.
:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:
By any chance, did you buy this in the last few days? Say, from me? On Amazon?
You’re that Blackeyes?
FRAK!
:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:
Tangent–Are you aware that Griffin & Sabine is part of a series…a total of six books, five of which have already been published. I love them and highly recommend them.
I also own the parody Sheldon & Mrs. Levine: An Excruciatingly Painful Correspondence by Sam Bobrick and Calamity & Belle: Cowgirl Correspondence by Calamity Wronsky (searching for it on Amazon, I also see that there’s a sequel, yee-haw!).
Anyway, while those are fine nominations for my list, I’d have to say A Child’s Machiavelli: A Primer on Power is at the top. 
Lets see, I haveNecromonicon, in originial Arabic, an English translation of the Unausprechlichen Kulten, Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, and a couple other books that can destroy a man’s sanity just by reading them. 
Seriously, I actually have a hard copy version of the Eye of Argon http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/SF-Archives/Misc/Eye_Of_The_Argon that my uncle found for me somewhere. Scary.
I’ve probably dinged a few FBI warning bells with my book purchases.
Contingency Cannibalism: Superhardcore Survivalism’s Dirty Little Secret (with recipes)
Rack, Rope and Red Hot Pincers history of torture.
The Big Book of Execution
Handbook of Improvised Munitions, vol. 1&2
Night Movements, a Japanese military text from the 1920’s on fighting in the dark.
Be Your Own Undertaker
Ain’t Nobody’s Business if You Do on consensual crimes.
Malleus Malificarum
Compendium Malificarum
Factories of Death
Hidden Horrors
Unit 731: Testimony (this and the previous two are on Japanese war crimes)
Mein Kampf
Encyclopedia of Sects, Cults and Alternative Religions
and on True Crime:
Black Collar Criminals
Lawless Lawmen
Holy Homicide
Still at Large
Encyclopedia of Serial Killers
Believe it or not, I’m actually a rather well-adjusted person. Mask of sanity, I guess.
I’ve got quite a few of the books listed above, or read them.
Possibly the weirdest book in my collection is End Product: The Last Taboo. I forget the author’s name. This is a lengthy book devoted to the subject of poop and excretion, heavily footnoted. Mine is the only copy I’ve ever seen. Since I picked it up at a used book store, I’ve seen other books on the topic, but none so scholarly and well-documented.
I can’t believe I’m posting this but…
…I have a coloring book called “What does he call his member?” It talks about the traits of different men based on what they call their penis (dick, schlong, penis, prick, etc). I bought it for a dollar.
:eek:
I had no idea! I am definitely going to seek out the others–thanks for the info!
If you have the chance, post the title of this one, pretty please? Thanks. (I’m wondering which variation of the dog’s name they choose–Cavall, Cabal, Caefall, etc.)
My “weird” contribution is not weird by content, but by shape/size and use. I have a copy of a Nazi spy thriller by Helen MacInnes, While Still We Live, which was judged properly patriotic and distributed by the military for use by US soldiers in WWII. It is the right size and shape to be shoved into a back pocket, and it is broader than it is tall.
I have a few military format books from WW2.
Including a biography of Nikola Tesla.
These are called Armed Services editions. They were published in incredible numbers starting in 1943. (They were also done for the Korean war, though not in such numbers.) About 125,000,000 copies of 1300 titles were published. Most never made it home, so they are a bit scarce today though not enough so to be worth big bucks. The most valuable one I know of is George Lowther’s 1940s Superman novel, The Adventures of Superman. There’s one for $950 listed on bookfinder.com.
They came in two basic sizes, 5 1/2" x 3 7/8" and 6 1/2" x 4 1/2". A few came out in the digest paperback size (about the size of a Reader’s Digest). These are truly rare, especially the ones from Korea.
don’t know the title but it’s a handbook on phrenology. Picked it up from a flea market. I already have a phrenology bust with all the areas marked. Not so much for belief as for kitsch factor. Good times though.
Hands down, The Policeman’s Beard is Half Constructed, a collection of short essays and writings by an artificial intelligence named RACTER.
It’s called The Dragon Stone: A Tale of Arthur, Merlin, and Cabal. The author is John Conlee, one of my old college professors (which is how I came by the book in the first place).
Ally Sheedy’s book o’ poetry, Yesterday I Saw the Sun. Picked it up for a dollar at the used bookstore.
I can’t put my hands on it right now, but I have a little booklet from the late 1950s or early 1960s for secretaries on the importance of keeping orderly files at the office. The main reason for this, the booklet teaches us, is that if nuclear war occurs, it’s going to be very important for all files to be neat and easy to use. I think this was distributed to government offices since I found it when doing some housecleaning at the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department in Austin. The illustrations are amusing too.
Ally Sheedy’s book o’ poetry, Yesterday I Saw the Sun. Picked it up for a dollar at the used bookstore.
I can’t put my hands on it right now, but I have a little booklet from the late 1950s or early 1960s for secretaries on the importance of keeping orderly files at the office. The main reason for this, the booklet teaches us, is that if nuclear war occurs, it’s going to be very important for all files to be neat and easy to use. I think this was distributed to government offices since I found it when doing some housecleaning at the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department in Austin. The illustrations are amusing too.Yesterday I Saw the Sun
Ally Sheedy’s book o’ poetry, Yesterday I Saw the Sun. Picked it up for a dollar at the used bookstore.
I can’t put my hands on it right now, but I have a little booklet from the late 1950s or early 1960s for secretaries on the importance of keeping orderly files at the office. The main reason for this, the booklet teaches us, is that if nuclear war occurs, it’s going to be very important for all files to be neat and easy to use. I think this was distributed to government offices since I found it when doing some housecleaning at the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department in Austin. The illustrations are amusing too.
Ok, shoot me. I triple posted. Sorry! Someday I’ll figure this thing out… :smack:
I have a Texas history textbook from the 1890’s.
I have a German-American cookbook from the 1880’s (recipes in both English [Roman alphabet] and German [Fraktur script]).
I also have this really kooky book entitled Secret Doors of the Earth by Jacques Bergier. It was written in the '70s and chronicles a lot of alleged paranormal occurences, all with some perplexing thesis about portals.
Its translation is “Japanese Samurai Warrior Gods” - and it is a pictorial book of lithographs, from earlier prints and illustrations, published in Japan in 1935 - possibly as a piece of morale boosting propaganda.
A nice chronological history of Japanese mythos and emperorism from the year ?? to the 1600’s.
The next oddest title I can think of, is *“Cats are not Peas” (the author owned a male calico, and when someone pointed out unusual that was - she started investigating why. Nice little book, that. :))