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This is another one one of those books from the box of free stuff at my apartment complex. I've been curious about what exactly this is, but not curious enough to buy a copy, so this was a nice find.  
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Jan 15, 2020 22:09
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This chameleon demon straight-up owns
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Jan 15, 2020 22:18
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Gutter Phoenix posted:These books are all from a fundamentalist Christian named John Benton, and are first-person YA stories about at-risk teenagers (usually girls) who turn to drugs and/ or prostitution before hitting rock bottom and finding Jesus. They are hilarious! I think I have all of them, but I might be missing a few. Quoting one of my first posts in this thread because I just saw an ad for these books in an old Spire Christian comic I was going to post in the magazine thread:  Now that I have access to a scanner, I need to bring my John Benton books in to work next week, scan them, and do a little synopsis for each one. These silly books check almost all of my boxes as far as my weird and wonderful tastes go.
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Jan 17, 2020 18:48
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Gutter Phoenix posted:I scored a last minute free fourth row ticket to see a Mike Nesmith and Mickey Dolenz Q&A hosted by the SF Sketchfest yesterday: A better picture in case anyone cares: 
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Jan 17, 2020 20:28
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Gutter Phoenix posted:This is another one one of those books from the box of free stuff at my apartment complex. I've been curious about what exactly this is, but not curious enough to buy a copy, so this was a nice find. I have this one! It's super beautiful in person. The filigree is a nice shiny blue. All of these Penguin Deluxe editions are great and I will buy them in good shape just to have them. I wish more books had the French folds and deckled edges like these do. I know not everybody likes them, but I love it.
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Jan 17, 2020 20:59
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Heath posted:I have this one! It's super beautiful in person. The filigree is a nice shiny blue. All of these Penguin Deluxe editions are great and I will buy them in good shape just to have them. I wish more books had the French folds and deckled edges like these do. I know not everybody likes them, but I love it. Yeah, it is pretty nice, especially for a free book! Penquin does good work. I like this style too. My copy of Anna Karenina (Peavar & Volokhonsky translation because they also do good work) is similar, and I'm sure a bunch of other books on my shelves as well. One of my fiance's former co-workers that we always see when we're in NYC works at Penguin, and always promises to send me boxes of free books, but then promptly forgets and never send them. And then the next time I see him he apologizes for not sending any books because he's so busy, and promises he will, but then he never does. It's an ongoing joke between my fiance and me.
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Jan 17, 2020 21:08
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Here are the rest of the free books that have been in my car trunk for the last few weeks: I'll scan some pictures from this when I have more time. It's from 1897:          
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Jan 17, 2020 21:38
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   I haven't really written in cursive much since I learned it in 3rd grade, so when I try to do so it looks like an eight year old's handwriting instead something elegant, not at all fancy like this:  Most people's handwriting is really getting lovely with the prevalence of phones/ computers, so I guess it doesn't matter much. I still like writing by hand sometimes.          
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Jan 17, 2020 23:45
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Jan 17, 2020 23:46
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A LITTLE OLD BY AMANDA GIRL IN BOSTON M. DOUGLAS Business and Social Forms encyclopedia owns bones
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Jan 18, 2020 00:01
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Pththya-lyi posted:
I am particularly fond of The Bashful Wooer:  
Gutter Phoenix fucked around with this message at 00:13 on Jan 18, 2020 |
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Jan 18, 2020 00:10
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Not weird but wonderful was an op-shop find in a small Australian town for 50c.   
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Jan 18, 2020 03:43
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Is there an illustration of the part where Sancho sneaks off to take a poo poo but it stinks so badly that it wakes Don Quixote?
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Jan 18, 2020 05:03
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Heath posted:Is there an illustration of the part where Sancho sneaks off to take a poo poo but it stinks so badly that it wakes Don Quixote? God I hope so. I haven't read it yet so I'll report back if it appears.
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Jan 18, 2020 05:12
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That's awesome! Don Quixote is the best selling book of all time (500 million copies sold!) for a reason.
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Jan 18, 2020 05:21
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta_Nightsquote:Atlanta Nights is a collaborative novel created in 2004 by a group of science fiction and fantasy authors, with the express purpose of producing an unpublishably bad piece of work, so as to test whether publishing firm PublishAmerica would still accept it. It was accepted; after the hoax was revealed, the publisher withdrew its offer. Back in 2004 I worked for a local bookstore chain and heard about this book--maybe from here, not really sure where else I would have uncovered it--but instantly knew I had to have a copy. I've read it once, but as you will see it's intentionally unreadable and yet is also not. You see, PublishAmerica swore up and down that they were a legitimate publisher of serious books (for serious people, by serious authors!) but also liked to talk a lot of poo poo: quote:Science-fiction and fantasy writers have it easier. It's unfair, but such is life. As a rule of thumb, the quality bar for sci-fi and fantasy is a lot lower than for all other fiction. Therefore, beware of published authors who are self-crowned writing experts. When they tell you what to do and not to do in getting your book published, always first ask them what genre they write. If it's sci-fi or fantasy, run. They have no clue about what it is to write real-life stories, and how to find them a home. Unless you are a sci-fi or fantasy author yourself. quote:But, alas, the SciFi and Fantasy genres have also attracted some of the lesser gods, writers who erroneously believe that SciFi, because it is set in a distant future, does not require believable storylines, or that Fantasy, because it is set in conditions that have never existed, does not need believable every-day characters. Obviously, and fortunately, there are not too many of them, but the ones who are indeed not ashamed to be seen as literary parasites and plagiarists, are usually the loudest, just like the proverbial wheel that needs the most grease. It was a simpler time, and perhaps they simply did not know that if you try to flex on people who specialize in making poo poo up for a living they might just try their craft out on you. Maybe they thought a bunch of authors in genres read mostly by nerds would be an easy dunk. Maybe they were just idiots. Whatever the case, the game was afoot. quote:The distinctive flaws of Atlanta Nights include nonidentical chapters written by two different authors from the same segment of outline (13 and 15), a missing chapter (21), two chapters that are word-for-word identical (4 and 17), two different chapters with the same chapter number (12 and 12), and a chapter "written" by a computer program that generated random text based on patterns found in the previous chapters (34). Characters change gender and race; they die and reappear without explanation. Spelling and grammar are nonstandard and the formatting is inconsistent. The initials of characters who were named in the book spelled out the phrase "PublishAmerica is a vanity press." It is the single most glorious mess I have ever laid eyes upon that was not a forums post.    quote:The completed manuscript was offered to PublishAmerica by an unrevealed person not usually associated with fiction. The manuscript was accepted for publication on 7 December 2004. Red Baron fucked around with this message at 05:46 on Jan 18, 2020 |
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Jan 18, 2020 05:40
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I've never heard of that, but I like it! I'll have to see if I can score a cheap copy.
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Jan 18, 2020 07:05
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Megabound posted:Not weird but wonderful was an op-shop find in a small Australian town for 50c. Beautiful. I found a clothbound copy of The Travels of Marco Polo in yellow and black that looks similar to that and had to buy it for my friend. [url] https://www.amazon.com/Travels-Peng...&s=books&sr=1-6[/url] I actually work at a vanity press and we publish all kinds of weird and terrible books. I discovered one on our bookshelf today about how to perform exorcisms. A lot of our stuff is very Christian and a lot of it is ESL. Sometimes it is both and you end up with book about a Jamaican lady rambling about how to defeat Satan. One of her stories was about how her daughter had a college roommate who was uncomfortable with the gospel music her daughter would play. There was also a bird that would hang around the window. Mom said the roommate was possessed and performed an exorcism over the phone. Shortly afterwards, the roommate moved out!
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Jan 20, 2020 20:48
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That sounds amazing!! I, for one, am very thankful that vanity presses and cheapish self-publishing have allowed virtually anybody to release anything they want, free of any input from pesky editors. This guy is one of my favorite examples: https://www.amazon.com/kindle-dbs/author/ref=mw_dp_a_ap?_encoding=UTF8&author=Robert%20Randolph&searchAlias=books&asin=B00CFSZV90
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Jan 21, 2020 00:16
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We actually had to fire a client last year because he was awful and kept harassing us, even calling us names over the phone. This guy: https://www.amazon.com/ademola-usuanlele/s?k=ademola+usuanlele He honestly thought his children’s books were going to make him a millionaire. Everything about them is terrible. His regular books don’t have proper chapters and are just several page rants that have him signing off with his name and “The Peacemaker” every time. Even the children’s book had chapters, but instead of being numbered, they were lettered, like Chapter A, Chapter B, etc... He also believed that NASA is some sort of Satanic force. I am so glad we are rid of him.
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Jan 21, 2020 05:54
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What do you get when you take the cross out of Satan? NASA. Ipso facto.
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Jan 21, 2020 05:57
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I really love marginalia, but I am reluctant to buy books with it due to the influence a previous reader can have on my own experience reading a book. I'm currently very casually reading this: It's a well-used copy that I picked up at some point for four bucks, from I-know-not-where-or-when, and in spite of its heavily cracked spine it contains some highlights in an obnoxious pink in two sections: Zen and the Samurai and Zen and Swordsmanship.   The previous owner appeared to be particularly interested in those two subjects, so I'm left to wonder much about them. While this isn't a narrative book I become a bit distracted by the thought of why the previous owner decided to highlight any specific passages. I find myself under the assumption that it was probably a male, likely in his mid-20s at the time, and has at least a passing interest in Bushido philosophy and its specific relationship to Zen. There aren't any highlights in the other sections. That aside, the book is pretty interesting. I read the section on Zen and the Art of Tea. Matcha has become a pretty big thing in the States in the last five years or so, and it has significant origins in the tea ceremony - also amusingly translated as "tea cult" according to the book, written in the 1950s. There is a lot of intention that goes into the tea ceremony, the origins of which are explained briefly in the book. Evidently fancy teaware was such hot poo poo at one point in Japan's history that finely crafted ones fetched exorbitant sums. A good tea caddy may have been a significant status symbol.
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Jan 21, 2020 07:00
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Nessa posted:We actually had to fire a client last year because he was awful and kept harassing us, even calling us names over the phone. Wowie zowie!  The author's description: "I tell you this book is a shocker! You must read it to believe it. Trillions of dollars! Hard-earned trillions of dollars have been gambled away in the outer space. Many intelligent minds have been killed, many innocent people including little children and vulnerable people have either died or have been neglected to live in pains and abject poverty because of some few people. Some few cowboys and cowgirls have created this myth that God does not exist, and they have gone all out with no expense spared to prove to themselves and the rest of the world that there is no God, there is no Jesus Christ, there is no heaven and there is no hell. In the process, they have lined up their pockets, lined up the pockets of their friends and family and lined up the pockets of some willing and unwilling politicians via lobbying, campaign financing and even infrastructure projects.They have used fraternal, professional, family and any kind of ties you can imagine just to keep this champagne flowing to the point where governments around the world have been sucked into this illusion and competition and unknowingly, they have kept the taps of the champagne fully opened. In this book, the most critical questions about heaven, earth, the galaxies and all the planets have been answered. This book also brought up some critical information about the categories of heaven and the levels of heaven. All of these have been backed up with scriptures in the Christian Holy Bible. Thank you, Jesus! Thank you, Lord!" I've seen Christianity inspire some pretty bold strains of weirdness but this is... new to me.
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Jan 21, 2020 12:17
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Pastry of the Year posted:Wowie zowie! Oh yeah, everything he writes reads like that. He’s crazy and has invested all his money in self publishing tons of books on his crazy ranting. I have only read bits and pieces, but I’m sure there’s a deep rabbit hole of weirdness in there. Maybe I’ll take some pictures of some of the weirdest books we have on our shelves today.
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Jan 21, 2020 15:21
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Nessa posted:We actually had to fire a client last year because he was awful and kept harassing us, even calling us names over the phone. Ha Ha Ha! I love delusional writers, especially the ones who think it'll make them rich. As I've mentioned, my fiance is an executive editor for a large publisher (who shall remain nameless), so I've learned a bit about the inner workings of the book business. According to her, nobody gets rich from writing children's books, particularly since the only children's books that sell a lot of copies tend to be written by celebrities who've already made their fortune. In fact, no one gets rich from writing in general except for people like JK Rowling or Stephen King who are both prolific and routinely sell millions of copies. The fastest way for an author to make money is if their book gets optioned by filmmakers. That's not to say that you can't make a living from writing, but the only writers I know who actually do are the people who bust their asses, write constantly, aren't too precious about their material and listen to editors, and can hit deadlines EVERY time. These are also people who might have a couple of niche best sellers, but aren't household names. Again, that's writers who can make a living, not get rich or live off of their royalties. *** Nessa - Thank you so much for sharing your first hand knowledge of vanity presses. I find this stuff fascinating. I'm sure I'll have some specific questions when work slows down and I have more time to think! Gutter Phoenix fucked around with this message at 17:36 on Jan 21, 2020 |
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Jan 21, 2020 17:34
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I just had to double-dip on this guy and praise the lord, there is a brief preview of his children's book, "The Adventures of Princess Pauline, Prince Ademola Jnr, and Their Blue Dragon": 
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Jan 21, 2020 17:41
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I hope that man had a keyboard macro for “Princess Pauline, Mr. Kongi and the Blue Dragon.” I also liked that they rolled up expecting Santa’s house to be a dump.
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Jan 21, 2020 17:57
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Gutter Phoenix posted:Ha Ha Ha! I love delusional writers, especially the ones who think it'll make them rich. Most of the writers who come through our doors are convinced that they will become millionaires like J.K. Rowling and that their book is the most important book in the world. We get a lot of people who are just making family books or publishing their memoirs, and some of them even have really interesting stories, like being orphaned in Hong Kong in WWII. Others are local authors or artists who want to self publish and go as far as they can with it. We printed the books of a local comic artist who is currently nominated for an award! But then there are the religious writers whose work varies from competent and well-meaning to nonsense garbage with varying degrees of bigotry. My very first day on the job here, I had to format a bible, and add content to a lady’s “Near Death Experience” book about “Soul Killers” — the things that will drat you to hell. She’s got some very “interesting” ideas... Myself and my coworkers would love for us to become a proper hybrid press, so we can curate our works, but my boss is completely against the idea. He should be retiring within the next few years, and I guess the whole company will just shut down when that happens. He tried to get his daughter to take over the reigns, but she quit a couple months back in frustration because she wasn’t being allowed to implement real changes. I would love to work at a real publisher someday, but options are pretty limited where I am. Pastry of the Year posted:I just had to double-dip on this guy and praise the lord, there is a brief preview of his children's book, "The Adventures of Princess Pauline, Prince Ademola Jnr, and Their Blue Dragon": Lol, yes! I told him that his chapter names were way too long and just explained what happened in the chapter, but that’s the way he wanted them. He told me this book is getting an animated series and he will be rich like J.K. Rowling. He once said it will be winning in the Olympics and get gold medals or something. Pure delusion. He has another children’s book series about the moose “Gold and Silva.” Short, pointless nonsense.
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Jan 21, 2020 19:46
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I honestly think it's awesome that people can self-publish their own memoirs and that sort of thing without having to go through the acceptance process at a publisher. It is extraordinarily difficult to break into the field, even for professional writers. Publishers want to know the book will sell before they spend money on a manuscript from an unknown/ little known author. For someone who just wants to have a book for themselves/ their family/ friends and has no misconceptions about getting rich, the rise of self-publishing is great. I own at least 10 self-published memoirs of people who lived interesting lives, but aren't famous. They are usually poorly written, but that's part of the charm. All that being said, I have read about people who write niche fiction/ fan-fiction and make a decent amount of money from selling original E-books on Amazon. They get more of the royalties since they don't have to split it with a publisher. Prolific and entertaining people like Chuck Tingle who bypass traditional publishers probably make a decent living from their work. Ack! I want to say more, but stupid work keeps pulling me away...
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Jan 21, 2020 20:14
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Oh yeah, it’s crazy hard to get published, even now. Competition is fierce. I think it’s good for people to be able to compile their memoirs or family histories to give to family, or for authors to be able to print, package and sell their own books. It’s especially good for stuff like comics, which I want us to do more of. For content, I took some pictures of a few pages of a book I worked on during my first day on the job.   
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Jan 21, 2020 20:59
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Pastry of the Year posted:Wowie zowie! I just got a chance to read this. Wow.
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Jan 22, 2020 03:05
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Pastry of the Year posted:I just had to double-dip on this guy and praise the lord, there is a brief preview of his children's book, "The Adventures of Princess Pauline, Prince Ademola Jnr, and Their Blue Dragon": "I have a big situation in the North Pole," said Santa.
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Jan 22, 2020 03:11
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It's weird seeing your own name on a book, though it's spelling wrong. At least it's on a subject I totally agree with. I really wish I had it with me, but my Grandfather had a book he had as a kid in the 20s that was simply called The Great War. It was incredibly inaccurate on how and why of WW1, with wonderful language like "The Arch Conspirator William of Germany, eager to see bloodshead, forced an alliance that would guarantee war to the peace loving people of the British Empire". The thing was basically the Central Powers were inhuman monsters that were always failing at everything, even when they where pushing deep into France or Russia, it was written as if they were failing. They'd talk about the inferior trenches and supplies, but then have a picture of an German trench that was well fortified or piles of ammo and food captured. Any failure of the British (because only England fought in the first world war you know) was not caused by failures in command or superior German tactics or whatever, nope, it was due to some dastardly trick on the part of the Hun. It was hilarious to read, and it reminded me of the criticisms of WW2 films made by Hollywood, in acting like the US was the only combatant in that war. Though I've never seen one that does this, just minimizes other countries roles. The best thing is all the pictures. I really wish I could have gotten it before my dad sold it along with a of other stuff when they moved into an apartment.
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Jan 22, 2020 09:39
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Nessa posted:Oh yeah, it’s crazy hard to get published, even now. Competition is fierce. There's also actual publishers nowadays who wouldn't exist if places to knock out cheap books didn't.
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Jan 22, 2020 11:00
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Back in the late 90s, my dad published a book of poetry through a fly-by-night vanity publisher. I drew the halo/cloud for the cover. He followed it up with a book of short stories in 2009 via a print on demand publisher. The cover was done a local homeless-ish man.   He was working on a novel when he died. It’s now my goal to publish my own book of whatever through a print-on-demand publisher. I think it’d be great for my family to have a shelf full of our own books to pass down.
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Jan 22, 2020 21:20
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lifg posted:Back in the late 90s, my dad published a book of poetry through a fly-by-night vanity publisher. I drew the halo/cloud for the cover. Those are awesome! I wish my parents would write down their life stories before... you know. My dad's in particular has some loving wild stories having an abusive, crackpot father and growing up on a rural Illinois farm. Those stories ought to be preserved, but he doesn't like to talk about it much, let alone write about it. I hate to see those stories disappear.
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Jan 22, 2020 21:31
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Speaking of eccentric weirdos, I got this the other day:  He's pretty reclusive, so having the signature is pretty neat.
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Jan 22, 2020 21:33
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Gutter Phoenix posted:There's a spot in my apartment building where people leave random household items for a day or two before they go in the trash/ get donated elsewhere. This morning there was a box of paperback books, mostly by Stephen King and James Patterson. I left those behind because I didn't think I'd read them. However, there was one book in the box that stood out from all the others; one that clearly belonged on my shelves: UPDATE: The weirdo who left that book in the "free stuff" area at my apartment building left the companion DVD this morning!   They also left these festive right-wing DVDs which should be good for a few laughs:  
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Jan 22, 2020 21:54
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Special direct producers' edition!
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Jan 22, 2020 22:01
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Gutter Phoenix posted:I saw this on ebay the other day, and figured it was worth posting here. It's the original artwork for an anti-communist comic book commissioned by the CIA shortly after the 1983 U.S. invasion of Grenada. The $10,000 asking price is way out of my price range, although it's a bargain compared to the $35K (about $85K with inflation) paid by the CIA!                 EDIT: Page 8 was missing/ page 9 posted twice. Gutter Phoenix fucked around with this message at 17:12 on Jan 23, 2020 |
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Jan 22, 2020 22:12
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