Post Pictures of Weird and Wonderful Books

The Something Awful Forums > Main > General Bullshit > Post Pictures of Weird and Wonderful Books

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Gutter Phoenix: Jul 23, 2013; I preferred your last avatar, so I put it back. My apologies to the pedo who purchased your last one (it's always projection).

# ? Aug 10, 2019 20:08

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# ? Jun 1, 2024 05:42

Gutter Phoenix: Jul 23, 2013; I preferred your last avatar, so I put it back. My apologies to the pedo who purchased your last one (it's always projection).

# ? Aug 10, 2019 20:09

Gutter Phoenix: Jul 23, 2013; I preferred your last avatar, so I put it back. My apologies to the pedo who purchased your last one (it's always projection).

OK, I think that's all of them from the paperback lot.

# ? Aug 10, 2019 20:11

Gutter Phoenix: Jul 23, 2013; I preferred your last avatar, so I put it back. My apologies to the pedo who purchased your last one (it's always projection).

# ? Aug 10, 2019 20:22

The Wiggly Wizard: Aug 21, 2008

All this time your mom was trying to say �give me trade�

# ? Aug 10, 2019 21:43

KrunkMcGrunk: Jul 2, 2007; Sometimes I sit and think, and sometimes I just sit.

so I ordered a used hardback of the Fountain Pen Conspiracy. A family friend who is a semi-retired forensic accountant recommended it (basically, he helps bag white-collar criminals). He had some really cool stories to tell, and I sat listening to his stories about busting all kinds of white-collar dirtbags for at least an hour. Anyway, i love hearing about shysters getting pinched, and he knows I love to read, so he recommended this book. I ordered a used copy from an Amazon dealer.

The book was listed as "Good Condition" but the spine is very flimsy, it didn't have a dust jacket, and there is some marring on the cover. I was kinda pissed about how crappy it was, until I flipped over the inside cover and saw it was an old library book from the 80s. Still had the checkout card and people's handwritten names, calling back to an old era of libraries before digitization. Kinda cool!

Then I noticed that little disclaimer glued to the inside cover.

Why does Bob Jones University ring alarm bells for me? Oh that's right! They're a fundamentalist christian university founded by a guy who never graduated college, and they didn't allow interracial dating until 2000 and still don't allow music, dancing, and anything else that keeps people from axe-murdering each other.

Anyway, I haven't started reading the book yet. Like I said, it's all about white-collar fraudsters. The author originally intended it to be an encyclopedia for law enforcement, making it easy to identify the fast-talking man walking into banks with phony insurance policies as collateral. But, when he started writing the book, he realized hucksters were earning their bones faster than he could categorize them, so he just made it about a few of the more notable guts.

Here are some pics from inside:

KrunkMcGrunk fucked around with this message at 22:01 on Aug 12, 2019

# ? Aug 12, 2019 21:18

wa27: Jan 15, 2007

KrunkMcGrunk posted:

The book was listed as "Good Condition" but the spine is very flimsy, it didn't have a dust jacket, and there is some marring on the cover.

Unfortunately in the collectibles scene, "good" typically means "one step above completely trashed".

That's interesting stuff about Bob Jones university though. I wasn't familiar with them at all.

# ? Aug 12, 2019 21:25

KrunkMcGrunk: Jul 2, 2007; Sometimes I sit and think, and sometimes I just sit.

wa27 posted:

Unfortunately in the collectibles scene, "good" typically means "one step above completely trashed".

That's interesting stuff about Bob Jones university though. I wasn't familiar with them at all.

ah, i'll have to remember that. i'm just starting to build a collection. i picked up some cool stuff from HPB yesterday too.

# ? Aug 12, 2019 21:27

Ornamented Death: Jan 25, 2006; Pew pew!

KrunkMcGrunk posted:

ah, i'll have to remember that. i'm just starting to build a collection. i picked up some cool stuff from HPB yesterday too.

If you care about condition, basically never, ever buy a book if there aren't photos (plural) of the actual book you're buying. That's not to say you can't get stuff in fine condition without pictures, but it's a crap shoot and you're relying on the person selling the book a) knowing what they're talking about with regards to condition (most people selling books don't!) and b) telling the truth.

# ? Aug 13, 2019 01:50

Sham bam bamina!: Nov 6, 2012; ƨtupid cat

This came up in the last TBB Secret Santa too:

Furious Lobster posted:

Apparently, even being able to speak Russian was dangerously communist.

Sham bam bamina! fucked around with this message at 05:15 on Aug 13, 2019

# ? Aug 13, 2019 05:12

KrunkMcGrunk: Jul 2, 2007; Sometimes I sit and think, and sometimes I just sit.

Ha, well nice to know somebody isn't putting phony BJU disclaimers in books at least

# ? Aug 13, 2019 06:02

Gutter Phoenix: Jul 23, 2013; I preferred your last avatar, so I put it back. My apologies to the pedo who purchased your last one (it's always projection).

KrunkMcGrunk posted:

so I ordered a used hardback of the Fountain Pen Conspiracy. A family friend who is a semi-retired forensic accountant recommended it (basically, he helps bag white-collar criminals). He had some really cool stories to tell, and I sat listening to his stories about busting all kinds of white-collar dirtbags for at least an hour. Anyway, i love hearing about shysters getting pinched, and he knows I love to read, so he recommended this book. I ordered a used copy from an Amazon dealer.

The book was listed as "Good Condition" but the spine is very flimsy, it didn't have a dust jacket, and there is some marring on the cover. I was kinda pissed about how crappy it was, until I flipped over the inside cover and saw it was an old library book from the 80s. Still had the checkout card and people's handwritten names, calling back to an old era of libraries before digitization. Kinda cool!

Then I noticed that little disclaimer glued to the inside cover.

Why does Bob Jones University ring alarm bells for me? Oh that's right! They're a fundamentalist christian university founded by a guy who never graduated college, and they didn't allow interracial dating until 2000 and still don't allow music, dancing, and anything else that keeps people from axe-murdering each other.

Anyway, I haven't started reading the book yet. Like I said, it's all about white-collar fraudsters. The author originally intended it to be an encyclopedia for law enforcement, making it easy to identify the fast-talking man walking into banks with phony insurance policies as collateral. But, when he started writing the book, he realized hucksters were earning their bones faster than he could categorize them, so he just made it about a few of the more notable guts.

Here are some pics from inside:

This looks rad. I love stories about people who grift the poor getting severely punished, almost as much as I like stories of poor people grifting the rich. I've never heard of this book, but I would like to read it.

# ? Aug 13, 2019 15:59

Gutter Phoenix: Jul 23, 2013; I preferred your last avatar, so I put it back. My apologies to the pedo who purchased your last one (it's always projection).

Also, the Bob Jones University tags inside are great. A lot of the cheap used hardcover books I buy online are ex-library copies, but I don't think I've ever seen one from BJU.

I just looked it up, and was shocked to learn that that place is actually accredited as a real school by some people:

Ha Ha Ha!! The south is a joke.

# ? Aug 13, 2019 16:05

Gutter Phoenix: Jul 23, 2013; I preferred your last avatar, so I put it back. My apologies to the pedo who purchased your last one (it's always projection).

Ornamented Death posted:

If you care about condition, basically never, ever buy a book if there aren't photos (plural) of the actual book you're buying. That's not to say you can't get stuff in fine condition without pictures, but it's a crap shoot and you're relying on the person selling the book a) knowing what they're talking about with regards to condition (most people selling books don't!) and b) telling the truth.

This is very true. I rarely order books through Amazon because the new copies arrive all banged up, and the used copies sold through 3rd parties don't have pictures. Some of the big used booksellers straight up lie in their descriptions (I'm looking at you, WorldOfBooksUSA, you loving scumbags!!!!!). Thriftbooks is pretty decent with descriptions, but they put bar code stickers on the spines that rip the print off of paperback books if you try to remove them. Goodwill always overcharges, and is bad at descriptions.

These days I usually end up buying specific used books on ebay. People often don't know what they have, so there are lots of sweet deals to be had, and the shipping costs are often lower than Amazon's.

I wish I could do all my book shopping at actual, independent bookstores, but I am often looking for old, rare, and unpopular books, so that can be a challenge. I usually just grab whatever strikes my fancy at used book stores.

Anyway, semi-related, here is an article about those companies that sell books for as low as 1 cent per copy on Amazon, but still make a profit through shipping costs and volume:

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/25/magazine/a-penny-for-your-books.html

# ? Aug 13, 2019 16:18

A Pack of Kobolds: Mar 23, 2007

Gutter Phoenix posted:

Thriftbooks is pretty decent with descriptions, but they put bar code stickers on the spines that rip the print off of paperback books if you try to remove them.

At the used book shop we used Zippo fluid and/or Goo Gone to remove stickers and labels from books. It feels wrong to put a liquid on a page or soft cover, but it evaporates dry and leaves no trace. Never really seemed to take the ink off of the covers either, but I'd go really easy on it if it was something valuable.

# ? Aug 13, 2019 16:40

KrunkMcGrunk: Jul 2, 2007; Sometimes I sit and think, and sometimes I just sit.

Gutter Phoenix posted:

Also, the Bob Jones University tags inside are great. A lot of the cheap used hardcover books I buy online are ex-library copies, but I don't think I've ever seen one from BJU.

I just looked it up, and was shocked to learn that that place is actually accredited as a real school by some people:

Ha Ha Ha!! The south is a joke.

ha, yeah BJU was finally accredited in like 2006 after ~80 years of being a "university"

e: also, I'm not sure how people here feel about Half Price Books, but there are a few near me, and I find they usually stock really good quality used books. They also have big sales about once a month, iirc where you can pick over their warehouse stock.

KrunkMcGrunk fucked around with this message at 17:16 on Aug 13, 2019

# ? Aug 13, 2019 17:08

Gutter Phoenix: Jul 23, 2013; I preferred your last avatar, so I put it back. My apologies to the pedo who purchased your last one (it's always projection).

A Pack of Kobolds posted:

At the used book shop we used Zippo fluid and/or Goo Gone to remove stickers and labels from books. It feels wrong to put a liquid on a page or soft cover, but it evaporates dry and leaves no trace. Never really seemed to take the ink off of the covers either, but I'd go really easy on it if it was something valuable.

That's good to know. I usually just peel them off very slowly, but I've still managed to gently caress up a few of my old paperback spines.

# ? Aug 13, 2019 17:31

Gutter Phoenix: Jul 23, 2013; I preferred your last avatar, so I put it back. My apologies to the pedo who purchased your last one (it's always projection).

KrunkMcGrunk posted:

ha, yeah BJU was finally accredited in like 2006 after ~80 years of being a "university"

e: also, I'm not sure how people here feel about Half Price Books, but there are a few near me, and I find they usually stock really good quality used books. They also have big sales about once a month, iirc where you can pick over their warehouse stock.

I have found some great stuff for a buck or two in the close-out sections (at least at the stores in Dublin and Fremont, CA). I found this at a Half Price Books, and that alone makes me appreciate them:

Gutter Phoenix posted:

Jay J. Armes, Investigator by Jay J. Armes

Jay J. Armes was a private eye who blew off both of his hands playing with blasting caps as a kid. I had never heard of him until I found a beat up copy of his autobiography in a recycling bin about a decade ago. I was positively giddy when I found another copy in the clearance section of a Fremont, CA Half Price Books last year. Not only was it in much better condition than the copy I had, but Jay J. Armes signed it himself with his very own hook hands back in 1976!! This might be the crown jewel in my book collection.

There was actually a toy line based on Jay J. Armes back in the 70's. They are sort of rare and expensive now, but I still hope to eventually find one for a reasonable price some day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_J._Armes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBew90y0U8o

# ? Aug 13, 2019 17:36

Ornamented Death: Jan 25, 2006; Pew pew!

I'm immensely jealous of folks that live within reasonable proximity to places like Half Price Books. There's like two good used book stores near me, I've gone through their inventory with a fine-toothed comb, and they don't get stuff I care about in very often.

# ? Aug 14, 2019 00:41

SavageMessiah: Jan 28, 2009; Emotionally drained and spookified; Toilet Rascal

Every time I look in this thread it makes me want to head over to Wonder Book again. They're a local-ish independent bookstore with 3 locations in MD. The one in Frederick is enormous and kind of a disaster in a charming way. The shelves are really close together, there's usually stacks of books in the aisles, the books on the shelves are packed in tetris style. They have basically everything and tons of really obscure and strange stuff, as well as a bunch of rare stuff locked up. I remember finding a copy of the report on the planning and construction of the pennsylvania monument at the battlefield in gettysburg. It was the Adams County library copy too. I grew up in gettysburg and finding something that specific in an honest to god brick and mortar bookstore was something of a revelation. Every time I go there I spend pretty much the whole time digging through the military history section and don't have time to check out everything else.

# ? Aug 14, 2019 01:38

Pastry of the Year: Apr 12, 2013

Ornamented Death posted:

I'm immensely jealous of folks that live within reasonable proximity to places like Half Price Books. There's like two good used book stores near me, I've gone through their inventory with a fine-toothed comb, and they don't get stuff I care about in very often.

Don't be: Half Price really isn't good anymore.

# ? Aug 14, 2019 02:14

KrunkMcGrunk: Jul 2, 2007; Sometimes I sit and think, and sometimes I just sit.

I like the clearance section. I got some cool stuff for like $2-3 each.

# ? Aug 14, 2019 02:38

I brought my Drake: Jul 10, 2014; These high-G injections have some serious side effects after pulling so many jumps.

I use Better World Books if I just need reading copies of things. They have new books too but I don't hit the jackpot with those very often. I'm okay with building my esoterica collection with ex libris copies.

# ? Aug 14, 2019 03:11

Light Gun Man: Oct 17, 2009; toEjaM iS oN
vaCatioN; Lipstick Apathy

Gutter Phoenix posted:

Yo that cover kicks rear end

# ? Aug 14, 2019 03:23

Iron Crowned: May 6, 2003; by Hand Knit

Pastry of the Year posted:

Don't be: Half Price really isn't good anymore.

Yeah, it's mostly just stuff you can get at B&N, but used. There's occasionally something neat there, but mostly useless unless you look in the rare book cabinet.

You always want to find the independent ones. If you really want a good used book store, you gotta find the ones that are cramped and floor to ceiling nothing but books. The bigger the fire hazard, the better.

# ? Aug 14, 2019 16:00

A Pack of Kobolds: Mar 23, 2007

Iron Crowned posted:

Yeah, it's mostly just stuff you can get at B&N, but used. There's occasionally something neat there, but mostly useless unless you look in the rare book cabinet.

You always want to find the independent ones. If you really want a good used book store, you gotta find the ones that are cramped and floor to ceiling nothing but books. The bigger the fire hazard, the better.

The owner must be insane and preferably at least one cat lives in the store. It's how things are done.

# ? Aug 14, 2019 17:35

Pastry of the Year: Apr 12, 2013

just some unsettling cover art; I get that it's intended to be, but it's a little too good at its job

# ? Aug 17, 2019 13:24

Gutter Phoenix: Jul 23, 2013; I preferred your last avatar, so I put it back. My apologies to the pedo who purchased your last one (it's always projection).

# ? Aug 20, 2019 21:38

SavageMessiah: Jan 28, 2009; Emotionally drained and spookified; Toilet Rascal

drat, my dad gave me a ton of similar action schlock ages ago. The same kind of short novel series with a huge number of books but I think it was some WW2 thing? It's all long gone but now I wish I still had some. Could be a fun weekend to read a bunch of them.

# ? Aug 21, 2019 02:20

nut: Jul 30, 2019

Gutter Phoenix posted:

isn't that how david carradine died

# ? Aug 21, 2019 02:35

Pastry of the Year: Apr 12, 2013

We gettin' pulpy up in here?

# ? Aug 21, 2019 12:52

Barudak: May 7, 2007

Dont poke the dude sleeping with a stick jesus how rude are you Satin Chaps

# ? Aug 21, 2019 13:03

DerekSmartymans: Feb 14, 2005; The
Copacetic
Ascetic

Barudak posted:

Dont poke the dude sleeping with a stick jesus how rude are you Satin Chaps

Satan Chaps are already in the process of going to hell for being gay. We discussed the duality at our Union meeting last week at the dick-sucking factory. Some folks outside said we were going to hell too. I barely had time to spit that BBC out of my mouth. My grandad was a cock-sucker, my Dad was a cock-sucker, and I am a cock-sucker.

Actually wait: In all this dick-sucking, where did Dad and I get borned?

# ? Aug 22, 2019 11:10

nishi koichi: Feb 16, 2007; everyone feels that way and gives up.
that's how they get away with it.

YES MORE GAY PULP

# ? Aug 23, 2019 05:59

Barudak: May 7, 2007

Gulp is the industry term

# ? Aug 23, 2019 06:12

The Kins: Oct 2, 2004

Gutter Phoenix posted:

I saw a big pile of Destroyer books at my usual haunt the other day.

Wikipedia says there's over 150 books in the series, covering from 1976 to 2018. I suspect at least a few of those may have suffered in quality as a result of the sheer quantity of output...

# ? Aug 23, 2019 15:24

Pastry of the Year: Apr 12, 2013

I'm just crazy about old textbooks.

# ? Aug 23, 2019 15:38

Gutter Phoenix: Jul 23, 2013; I preferred your last avatar, so I put it back. My apologies to the pedo who purchased your last one (it's always projection).

Pastry of the Year posted:

We gettin' pulpy up in here?

Post as much pulp as you can. Those old painted covers are amazing.

# ? Aug 25, 2019 19:10

Gutter Phoenix: Jul 23, 2013; I preferred your last avatar, so I put it back. My apologies to the pedo who purchased your last one (it's always projection).

Pastry of the Year posted:

I'm just crazy about old textbooks.

I worked for a school district for 8 years, and I really, really wish I had taken pictures or scanned of countless things I saw when going through the old books going into the recycling bin. I saved about 0.01% of it, so that's something, but man, textbooks are often pretty ridiculous on multiple levels.

# ? Aug 25, 2019 19:20

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# ? Jun 1, 2024 05:42

Gutter Phoenix: Jul 23, 2013; I preferred your last avatar, so I put it back. My apologies to the pedo who purchased your last one (it's always projection).

I picked up another volume in the old hobo series by A-No.1, the world's most famous tramp:

# ? Aug 25, 2019 19:22

The Something Awful Forums > Main > General Bullshit > Post Pictures of Weird and Wonderful Books

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