Post Pictures of Weird and Wonderful Books

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Tuxedo Ted: Apr 24, 2007

Handen posted:

They're all pretty goony but I wouldn't feel right without posting this one specifically:

Any author that controls this many fonts and is bold enough to use all these exclamation marks must be incredibly powerful.

# ? Jul 7, 2018 23:10

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# ? May 25, 2024 19:18

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 did some garage saleing on Saturday morning and got all of these for $4:

# ? Jul 10, 2018 16:24

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).

I picked up a couple of new books about sloths:

And a couple more back issues of Found magazine that I've never read:

Not a book, but I saw this flyer on a phone pole across the street from my apartment Friday night and figured I'd share it:

I wasted yesterday digging through my bookshelves and pulling out a few hundred books to sell/ donate since I need to clear up space for new books. I took a bunch of pictures while doing that, some of which I'll post over the next few days.

# ? Jul 16, 2018 03:50

wa27: Jan 15, 2007

Not a lot of originality in sloth book titles, eh?

# ? Jul 16, 2018 04:03

Perpetual Hiatus: Oct 29, 2011

Handen posted:

Eight years ago I had a serious break with reality that coincided with me finding hundreds of rare old books about UFOs that had been dumped at a local book store. My collection used to be about 5x bigger but most of them were just repeating the same information from a core of primary source materials, and those are mostly the ones I tried to keep.

When I was a kid we won a box of books at an auction, one of the books was about UFOs - aimed at children. The 'scientific' feel is pretty great. As are the illustrations.

# ? Jul 16, 2018 09:04

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).

So I've been thinking of taking a road trip to Yugoslavia...

# ? Jul 16, 2018 23:27

wa27: Jan 15, 2007

Found this picturebook of ROCK SUPERSTARS today.

And I also found this book:

It sounds pretty interesting:

quote:

On February 28, 1967, Dave Johnston, Art Davidson, and Ray Genet became the first climbers to stand on Mt. McKinley�s 20,322-foot summit in winter. On the descent, the weather turned, and they dug a tiny snow cave above 18,000 feet and hung on for six days and nights, barely able to sit up in what they wondered would be an icy grave. The windchill dropped temperatures as low as -148 Fahrenheit, and their teammates lower on the mountain assumed the worst.

Just as interesting was this insert:

Check out that Amazon logo at the bottom! Remember when books used to be hard to find? Apparently 20 years ago the best way to get this was to put in a request to Amazon and hope they found it. I've never heard of such a service before. This particular book was a hospital library copy. So I guess Amazon would just buy up lots of used books and sell them to whoever was waiting for a copy first? I wasn't buying things online back then, but that's such a foreign concept today.

# ? Jul 17, 2018 04:42

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).

Handen posted:

I had to order a copy of this. I just couldn't resist.

wa27 posted:

Found this picturebook of ROCK SUPERSTARS today.

And I also found this book:

It sounds pretty interesting:

Just as interesting was this insert:

Check out that Amazon logo at the bottom! Remember when books used to be hard to find? Apparently 20 years ago the best way to get this was to put in a request to Amazon and hope they found it. I've never heard of such a service before. This particular book was a hospital library copy. So I guess Amazon would just buy up lots of used books and sell them to whoever was waiting for a copy first? I wasn't buying things online back then, but that's such a foreign concept today.

I'd like to read both of those. So many books, so little time...

That Amazon letter is interesting. I don't remember them offering a service of tracking down out of print books. They must have only been a tiny behemoth back then.

For content, here is my mismatched set of a 2,000 page classic:

# ? Jul 17, 2018 23:42

Comrade Koba: Jul 2, 2007

Gutter Phoenix posted:

This one is great but :smithicide:

as gently caress.

# ? Jul 18, 2018 06:17

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).

Comrade Koba posted:

This one is great but as gently caress.

Yeah, I like Jon Krakauer's books. He's a compelling writer. I've read this one before and had a bootleg CD set of the audio book years ago, but I've never actually owned a copy of the book.

Fun fact: Dan Lafferty, one of the main Morman murderers talked about in Under the Banner of Heaven, was the cellmate of good-forger/bad-bomber Mark Hofmann, the topic of a bunch of books I posted on the previous page.

For content, here's a compendium of Mormon silliness straight from the horse's mouth:

And some Jehovah's Witnesses picture books:

Every home needs one of these ten-pound beasts:

This is Thomas Jefferson's edit of The Bible, wherein he removed everything except for the words and deeds of Jesus. It is a very slim volume.

I thought I took a picture of my hand-annotated copy of the Koran, but I guess not. No big loss. That book is dull.

# ? Jul 18, 2018 16:57

A Strange Aeon: Mar 26, 2010; You are now a slimy little toad; The Great Twist

Oh yeah, I heard about the Jefferson bible--there's no mention of anything supernatural at all, apparently. Kind of a neat idea, to square the circle of respecting Jesus but discarding all the non-rational stuff. Like, the New Testament without Jesus being resurrected seems like a very different book.

# ? Jul 18, 2018 23:42

A Strange Aeon: Mar 26, 2010; You are now a slimy little toad; The Great Twist

"The wonders of the little world, or, A general history of man in six books : wherein by many thousands of examples is shewed what man hath been from the first ages of the world to these times, in respect of his body, senses, passions, affections, his virtues and perfections, his vices and defects, his quality, vocation and profession, and many other particulars not reducible to any of the former heads : collected from the writings of the most approved historians, philosophers, physicians, philologists and others / by Nath. Wanley"

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A67489.0001.001/1:12.9?rgn=div2;view=toc

This is kind of cheating, but I can't find an affordable version of this book--I can't even seem to find a way to get this link onto my Kindle, but it's full of some pretty wonderful stuff--just check out the table of contents:

Chap. 1. Of such Infants as have been heard to cry while they were in the Womb of their Mothers.

Chap. 36. Of the different and unusual ways some Men have come to their Deaths.

CHAP. XVII. Of the long Sleeps of some, and of others that have been able to subsist for months and years without it, or were difficultly brought to it.

The style of writing I just adore--I just wish some of the Latin was translated, but that would probably take a new edition which will never come out. In a lot of ways, it reminds me of the Anatomy of Melancholy, one of my favorite bedtime books to just page through.

# ? Jul 19, 2018 00:15

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).

When I was ten years old, my dad gave me four used paperback copies of books he thought I should read. I've long since lost track of those copies, but I've never forgotten the books:

It's funny, because he's never been a big reader, but between those books and taking me to see Robocop at around the same age, he did a good job of showing me how the world really works. I love my dad.

# ? Jul 19, 2018 18:10

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).

# ? Jul 20, 2018 20:48

A Strange Aeon: Mar 26, 2010; You are now a slimy little toad; The Great Twist

I think I'll describe myself as a near poet from now on!

# ? Jul 21, 2018 06:07

Esplanade: Jan 6, 2005

A Strange Aeon posted:

I think I'll describe myself as a near poet from now on!

Would that be your sort or your condition, though?

# ? Jul 21, 2018 07:15

Choco1980: Feb 22, 2013; I fell in love with a Video Nasty

Gutter Phoenix posted:

When I was ten years old, my dad gave me four used paperback copies of books he thought I should read. I've long since lost track of those copies, but I've never forgotten the books:

It's funny, because he's never been a big reader, but between those books and taking me to see Robocop at around the same age, he did a good job of showing me how the world really works. I love my dad.

My dad has a copy of Future Shock down in his basement bookshelves. I was never interested as the jacket alone made it sound incredibly dated.

# ? Jul 21, 2018 07:30

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 hit up a church rummage sale across the street from my apartment this morning, and against my better judgement I brought home a box of books. In my defense, they were only a quarter each! I also had the best homemade lumpia I've ever eaten while rummaging, so it was a pretty good time all things considered.

Catholic Catechism book from 1900:

This book is full of glossy pictures of Rome. It doesn't have a date, but I would guess early 20th century. It is pretty rad.

I took pictures of the entire interior, so maybe I'll post more later, but here's a taste:

Miscellaneous pamphlets stuck inside:

Cowboy romance novel:

Self-published novel. These are usually hilariously terrible:

Self-published book on 9/11:

Huge hardcover about the World Trade Center and its collapse:

Huge book of pictures from Life Magazine:

Picture books about San Francisco from 1969 and 1979. I'm sure nothing has changed since then.

Other hopelessly outdated books about my home turf:

Some books about south of the border:

Books on Microwave cookery:

Crock-pottery:

Other cookbooks of dubious value:

Quotes from my favorite founding father:

Annotated translation of Utopia:

X-treme!

And finally, two of the early Oz books in one beat up edition:

# ? Jul 21, 2018 19:50

RandomPauI: Nov 24, 2006; Grimey Drawer

If you're ever in Ventura County, I have like $400 in trade-in credits at a local bookstore chain. To be fair, it is only useable for used books in stock, and can only cover up to half the purchase price.

# ? Jul 22, 2018 18:19

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 missed a few from the rummage sale box:

This dumb thing was stuck in a box flap. I've been thinking of doing that SA Christmas gift swap this year just so I can get rid of a giant box of some of the sweet-yet-superfluous crap from my apartment, so some (un)lucky goon may very well be getting this as part of that:

I own both of these already, but I picked them up as a cheap gift for a visiting friend. I know I posted a bit about The Radioactive Boy Scout earlier in the thread, and think I posted the stupid Sharknado promo book too.

RandomPauI posted:

If you're ever in Ventura County, I have like $400 in trade-in credits at a local bookstore chain. To be fair, it is only useable for used books in stock, and can only cover up to half the purchase price.

I'm rarely down in that neck of the woods, but appreciate the offer for cheap books. You should use that credit to buy something ridiculous and post it here!

After returning from the church rummage sale on Saturday, my girlfriend and I drove up to Fort Bragg to spend a night at a little inn right on the beach. We had dinner at a seafood restaurant between a table of outlaw bikers and a table of Mennonites, which made for some fascinating eavesdropping. I took this picture of an old McDonaldland Captain Crook statue on the lookout for filet-o-fish sandwiches from his nearby rooftop perch:

I stopped by a liquor store on the way back to the inn to grab water. They had an odd selection of magazines. I bought these two:

Sunday morning we woke up and walked to Glass Beach, which is beneath a cliff where local yokels used to throw their garbage until the practice was banned in the 1960's. Most of the trash has been either removed or washed away, but a century of broken glass has become part of the beach. I am an idiot and tried to run down the steep incline in flip-flops rather than climbing down carefully, so I tripped and slid down the glass covered rocks and cut the poo poo out of my shins. It was pretty funny, so hopefully someone caught it on their phone and the resulting video will end up on YouTube.

A nearby sign:

The underside of a sea anemone in a tank near a cliff-side lighthouse:

We stopped by a rad thrift shop named after Paul Bunyan and I finally got a copy of Fire and Fury for a buck. I've been wanting to read it since it was published, but since it sold a gazillion copies I knew it was only a matter of time before cheap used copies started popping up.

My girlfriend got this:

On the way out of town we stopped by a little bookstore built into a shipping container.

All proceeds were donated to the local library, so I wanted to buy something to show my support. I briefly considered this Willard Scott novel as a novelty to sit next to the Al Roker mystery I already own, but ultimately decided on buying a run of The Thing comic books from the mid-80's.

# ? Jul 23, 2018 17:32

A Pack of Kobolds: Mar 23, 2007

I love dialect/slang dictionaries and I want this one so much.

# ? Jul 23, 2018 18:26

Captain Quack: Feb 18, 2013

Gutter Phoenix posted:

Bob Ross is indeed a great teacher.

# ? Jul 23, 2018 18:56

Barudak: May 7, 2007

Captain Quack posted:

Bob Ross is indeed a great teacher.

I dont sin, we just have happy little transgressions.

# ? Jul 23, 2018 19:25

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).

That Golden Girls book my girlfriend bought reminded me of this compilation of a funny Portland zine that was all about that show:

The same guy also wrote a zine all about the hilarious Canadian teen drama Degrassi High:

Speaking of Little Golden Books, here is an older one that is presumably out of print:

Lasty, because it was next to those on my book shelf, here is a compilation of Mad Magazine covers, which I wrongly ascribed as the content of a different book about Mad Magazine much earlier in the thread. Oops.

Gutter Phoenix posted:

And finally, a basic history of Mad Magazine, including color pictures of every cover up through sometime in the mid-90's or whenever it was published:

That one is a general retrospective in case you're curious.

# ? Jul 23, 2018 21:22

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).

# ? Jul 24, 2018 16:19

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've had this one since I was a kid:

I haven't read this one yet, but I did read The Rising Sun, the author's two-volume history of the rise and fall fascist Japan during WW2 and it was good.

I owned a really nice set of The Rising Sun, but I gave them to a friend once I finished reading them. Here is a picture of similar set I found online.

I was looking up the list of best selling books of all time for some reason a couple of weeks ago, and was sort of shocked to see that Don Quixote is on top. Sure, it's a decent work of fiction, but it's no Gargantua and Pantagruel, Divine Comedy, Candide, or Metal Angel.

I think these are the only three books I have from that list. I haven't read Think and Grow Rich or The Story of the Stone/ Dream of the Red Chamber yet.

That Agatha Christie book used to have a much more racist title. I haven't read that one yet either. Nor have I read any of the Harry Potter books, although JK Rowling seems cool so maybe I will some day. I've read Dickens and Tolkien, but do not care for those authors at all. I'm not sure if I've actually read the original Alice in Wonderland. I think I read The Little Prince when I was a kid.

Anyway, here's more Cervantes and assorted other books:

# ? Jul 24, 2018 17:15

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).

# ? Jul 24, 2018 19:20

A Strange Aeon: Mar 26, 2010; You are now a slimy little toad; The Great Twist

Dream of the Red Chamber is really interesting. Reading all 5 volumes I was struck by how it would make a really excellent premium TV series. There's lots of poetry and people spit in each other's faces frequently.

# ? Jul 24, 2018 19:34

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).

# ? Jul 24, 2018 19:44

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've held on to this book for over ten years because I like a little glossy picture of a fancy Alvah C. Roebuck tucked inside:

# ? Jul 24, 2018 19:50

count_von_count: Nov 6, 2012

Gutter Phoenix posted:

That Agatha Christie book used to have a much more racist title.

Found it way upthread:

Peetown Manning posted:

I was obsessed by this book as a kid, apologies for not being able to photograph my own copy since most of my library is in storage atm:

It's sadly out of print, but you can get a taste of it here.

e: Oh lol there's an LP of it: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3675404

count_von_count fucked around with this message at 17:01 on Jul 26, 2018

# ? Jul 26, 2018 16:23

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

I really like that Oedipus Cycle cover.

# ? Jul 27, 2018 06:19

wa27: Jan 15, 2007

# ? Jul 27, 2018 16:23

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).

wa27 posted:

Yes!!! I am totally on the hunt for a copy of that. I saw there was also a companion volume about better golfing through hypnosis, but gently caress that poo poo. It's all about hypno-bowling for me.

I posted a different copy of this gem earlier:

Unfortunately, it is missing a chunk of pages from the back half, so I am going to be tossing it in the recycling bin. Same sad story for this magnificent book:

I posted about John Benton at the very beginning of this thread. I really should go back and take pictures of each one individually, because they deserve it.

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.

Completely unrelated, here is a book of photos by Henry Rollins. I bought it from him in person after randomly seeing him speak at a bookstore in Berkeley back in 2011.

He signed it for me:

# ? Jul 27, 2018 18:56

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).

Now that I'm working again, I decided to pick up some books I've had my eye on for awhile. Sure, I already have a shitload of books that I haven't gotten around to reading yet, but gently caress it, you only live once, right?

First up, I decided to show my support for the stellar small publisher RE/Search, which I've already mentioned several times in this thread. They were down to the last few copies of these books and will probably never republish them, so I wanted to get them while I had the means and opportunity.

I already have a beat-up softcover copy of this one, but the hardcover is signed by the late Daniel P. Mannix, who as I've mentioned is one of my favorite authors.

I also found copies of four other old paperbacks he wrote:

Speaking of favorite authors of mine, I bought used hardcover copies of three excellent black comedy crime novels by Jason Starr. The first one is signed, and even came with a photo of the author autographing the book:

This long out-of-print book by Charles Willeford (another of my favorite authors) was just re-released by the wonderful Hard Case Crime. It's the only book of his I've never read because paperback originals are exceedingly rare and sell for about $200.

# ? Jul 28, 2018 16:22

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).

Five paperbacks by Chuck Tingle:

These two were posted by other fine folks in this thread and inspired me to get my own copies:

And another book about CBs:

These two were among my favorite books when I was a kid and I had an urge to revisit them and see how they hold up:

Yet another book about Mormon forger/ bomber Mark Hofmann that I haven't read:

# ? Jul 28, 2018 16:31

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).

A timeless classic that everyone should read:

A kid's book about glyptodons:

One from the late, great Harry Anderson:

An older hardcover about con-men:

A Holloway House publication about the life of a pimp:

A book about the life and unsolved murder of Peter Ivers, host of the 1980's cable access show New Wave Theater:

I really like the 70's movie The Poseidon Adventure, and even thought the somewhat recent re-make was OK (mostly because it stars my favorite actor, Kurt Russell), but I've never read the book:

Edward Abbey's fine eco-sabotage novel and its adequate sequel:

Finally, these three beat-up paperbacks were included with the cheap copy of The Monkeywrench Gang I purchased, so I figured I might as well post them for your viewing pleasure:

Yeesh, I better start doing some reading...

Gutter Phoenix fucked around with this message at 15:39 on Jul 29, 2018

# ? Jul 28, 2018 16:44

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).

Way back in 1996-1997 I was going to community college full-time, working my first full-time job, and also playing super-fast punk rock drums at band practice for several hours at a time four nights a week (plus whatever shows we had). This required several pots of coffee and 30-40 Mini-Thins (ephedrine pills) each and every day. I earned a whopping $6 an hour working in the pharmacy at a Wal-Mart, and I didn't even get a discount on the numerous bottles of Mini-Thins I raced through every week since those only seemed to be sold at gas stations.

Somehow I still found time to read books. I hadn't been much of a reader during my teenage years, but a few of my community college classes (along with tons of OTC speed) led to a sort of intellectual awakening. I felt like I had a lot to catch up on, so I went a little overboard trying to read every book I could get my hands on. Luckily, I barely slept and had ephedrine-induced laser-focus, so I could read for eight or ten hours at a time.

I hated my job and the company I worked for, but there was a Border's bookstore in the same lovely shopping complex and I enjoyed going there after work and browsing for a bit before heading off to school. One of the five classes I took during the spring 1997 semester was Astronomy. I didn't really enjoy it all that much, but it got me intensely interested in NASA's Pathfinder mission due to land on Mars on the 4th of July. For those of you who aren't as ancient as I am, the Pathfinder was a pyramid-shaped lander that parachuted into Mars' atmosphere and deployed air-bags around its entire exterior so it could crash-land onto the surface. It contained a little battery/ solar-powered rover named Sojourner that looked like the vehicle in the 80's arcade game Moon Patrol (complete with multiple missile-launchers and the ability to jump, if I recall correctly).

That all leads to one fine day in the spring of 1997, where after finishing an undoubtedly lovely shift at my terrible job, I went to Border's and saw this book:

Although it was published shortly before the Pathfinder mission and doesn't have any pictures of that, it contains almost 400 glossy color pages of the very best pictures NASA had of the planets (and assorted other space stuff) at that time. At 20" x 13", it is the largest book I have ever owned. It is also the most expensive book I have ever purchased. It cost me about $175 with tax, which represented approximately one full 40 hour week of my take home pay. Adjusted for inflation, that's about $280. From a purely personal salary standpoint, it's the equivalent of me spending a month's (Bay Area) rent on a single book. From the standpoint of how much money it would take for me now to work 40 hours at a Wal-Mart, the price is incalculable!

Published almost twenty-two years ago, the book is pretty outdated. However, I bought this years before I had steady internet access, so this was the best I hope for if I wanted to look at cool space pictures. It's still a pretty neat book, as evidenced by the fact that this giant thing has made it through 10+ moves and countless book purges.

# ? Aug 3, 2018 18:23

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 these paperbacks at a flea market earlier today: