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I love books. I read a lot and my tastes are all over the place, so I pick up anything that looks fun and interesting, especially if it's cheap or free. Also, I used to work for a school district that was always withdrawing old books from their libraries, so I used to go through them before they went into the recycling bin. On top of that, my girlfriend is a professional editor and also loves to read, so she's always bringing books home too. We own thousands of books between the two of us, even though we purge our personal library fairly frequently. Here is the tip of the iceberg of the cream of the crop from my collection: How and When "Heaven's Gate" (The Door to the Physical Kingdon Level Above Human) May Be Entered  I bought this earlier in the year from one of (the only?) living members of the Heaven's Gate cult, who was left behind to manage their publicity. Only By Blood and Suffering: Regaining Lost Freedom by LaVoy Finicum   This gem of a novel was written by Tarpman himself, the sovereign citizen "martyr" of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge takeover who went out in a blaze of hilarious glory last year. He even signed it before he died! Metal Angel by Nancy Springer   This wonderful romance novel is about an angel who leaves heaven in order to come down to Earth to become a heavy metal singer. I highly recommend it to fans of glam metal and sleazy garbage. Cotton Tramps by Kevin North  Convoy by B.W.L. Norton  This is a novelization of the 1978 movie about the 1975 trucker novelty song by C.W. McCall. On the topic of strange 70's pop culture, here are some of the books I have about custom vans: Vans: The Personality Vehicles  Vans: A Book of Rolling Rooms by Baron Wolman  Some Basics About Vans by Ed Radlauer  Customizing Your Van by Allan Girdler  Street Art by Donald J. Davenport  Another pop culture touchstone that strikes my fancy is the Y2K scare, which spawned lots of terrible fiction and survival guides. Here are a few: Y2K: It's Already Too Late a novel by Jason Kelly  The Y2K Survival Guide by Bruce F. Webster  The Y2K Personal Survival Guide by Michael S. Hyatt  OK, that's a good start. I'm sure that other people here have all sorts of crazy crap that I've never seen or read before. Post your best books here, whether it's because they have great covers, odd or interesting subject matter, or are just plain awesome.
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Nov 29, 2017 21:04
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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.     These four are about Amy Fisher and Joey Buttafuoco. The top two are different autobiographies by Amy Fisher, the bottom left one is a sleazy true crime book about the shooting, and the last is an autobiography by Mary Jo Buttafuoco with an absolutely fantastic title:   The Peanuts take a sinister turn in this kids' activity book:    Self-published books can be some of the craziest. I found these two in the close-out section of a Half Price Books. They are by an wildly unhinged man named Robert Randolph, who spills the dirt on a festive Hollywood sex conspiracy. He is especially upset about John Travolta's unwillingness to admit his homosexulty. For reasons I can't even begin to speculate upon, the author got plastic surgery to look like John Travolta between the publication of the two. The books are sheer, unadulterated insanity.      I love sleazy paperbacks:       This one is sleazy and racist!   Harlequin publishes an entire series of NASCAR-themed romance novels. Here are a few:  Watergate criminal E. Howard Hunt wrote a sleazy crime novel called House Dick in 1961. The original is rare and prohibitively expensive, but the stellar Hard Case Crime imprint republished it a few years ago:  Speaking of Watergate criminals, Will by G. Gordon Liddy is one of the (somewhat unintentionally) funniest books I have ever read. Highly recommended!  The Texas-Israeli War:1999 by Jake Saunders and Howard Waldrop. The title is reason alone to track this one down, but it's a fun, dumb read on top of that. I see cheap used copies every once in awhile.   Boy Wonder: My Life in Tights by Burt Ward. This is one of the sleaziest autobiographies I've ever read. It's out of print and sort of hard to find, but well worth tracking down.  The Ice Opinion by Ice-T  Bigger is Better by Big Ang  The Miracle of Jimmy Carter by Howard Norton and Bob Slosser  Carcajou by Rutherford G. Montgomery To the best of my knowledge, this is the only novel ever published with a wolverine as a protagonist.   Here are two books about sloths:  
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Nov 29, 2017 23:24
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Scientology textbooks/ propaganda! I bought all of these from a Savers in Dublin, CA for a buck or two a piece. They are loony, even by Scientology standards. The first two are huge and heavy. They easily weigh five or six pounds each.          
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Nov 30, 2017 01:11
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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
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Nov 30, 2017 01:29
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Spinster posted:This is very much my poo poo, great OP. When I get off work I will share something of what I have. Weird old books are so cool. I've had thousands over the years, but purged nearly everything in 2006. Yeah, I've gotten rid of a lot of books over the years thinking I'd never read them again, and I really regret some of those choices. I've re-purchased more than a few. Never had a van, but I have an odd fascination with short-lived pop culture fads. The 70's CB radio/ trucker craze is another one, although I don't have many books on that subject.  Julius CSAR posted:
That looks neat. I have a copy of The Cocaine Consumer's Handbook in a box somewhere. I'll try to dig it out tomorrow. In the meantime, here's this:  Criminal Minded posted:I saw Crispin Glover’s two feature films as part of a roadshow at the Alamo Drafthouse in KC a couple of years ago, and while the films were great, what was even cooler were the presentations he did before each film. He projected these kitschy old books onto the screen (old Boy Scout field guides and stuff like that) which he’d heavily marked up and edited to turn into weird occultish stories which he narrated. There are probably some pictures online. I almost went to one of those in Portland back in 2007 or 2008, but I was too broke to buy tickets at the time. My ex-wife had a couple of Crispin Glover's weird art books and they were pretty cool. I was actually looking them up a few months ago for some reason, and saw they were still for sale on his website: http://www.crispinglover.com/books.html That guy also wrote an awesome true crime book about the kid who went missing while playing Dungeons & Dragons in some steam tunnels beneath his college. It is well worth reading.  It's be tough to beat this OJ Simpson classic, but I will keep my eyes peeled for the William Dear book!  cda posted:This post owns. Requesting a juicy quote from Marji and the Gangland Wars, please. I'll see what I can do. SEX BURRITO posted:Lovey Banh was one of my favourite threads. These look amazing. I have gotten some great recommendations from the forums, including this one from a funny old thread in the goldmine:  It's where I found my avatar: 
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Nov 30, 2017 04:05
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I bought a copy of that book after seeing that passage quoted in another thread! I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but it's in my queue. 
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Nov 30, 2017 07:25
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A few more before I go to bed: The Senator's Whore by Cindy Kallmer   Gentleman Pimp by A.S. Jackson  Magnum, P.I. Maui Mystery #1 by William Rotsler  Family Ties: Alex Gets the Business by Joe Claro  Jared, the Subway Guy: Winning Through Losing by Jared Fogle  More tomorrow.
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Nov 30, 2017 07:39
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hackbunny posted:I assume everyone knows about this book by now: I've never heard of that, but it looks super cool. Thanks for the detailed story behind it too, because that's what intrigues me the most. I'll have to look into finding a copy. Creamed Cormp posted:I don't have a lot of books I would consider weird or wonderful, but my dad did give me this book that he had as a kid, and its atomic punk as gently caress : This also looks cool. I love old books, magazines, cartoons, and educational film shorts that show visions of what the future might look like. I find it interesting that they generally overestimate advances in mechanical technology and the general decency of human nature, but tend to vastly underestimate how powerful and ubiquitous computers became. berth ell pup posted:Every one of these books looks like something from liartownusa The Liartown book just came out earlier this month. Everyone should buy a copy! 
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Nov 30, 2017 17:43
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Found my copy of this! Cocaine Consumer's Handbook  That reminds me of the defunct publisher Loompanics, and also Paladin Press, both of which are/were notorious for printing all sorts of crazy how-to books about borderline legal (sometimes totally illegal) stuff. I have a whole shelf of Loompanics book I bought a year or two ago from a book dealer that was going out of business, but that shelf is currently buried behind a bunch of boxes I was moving around yesterday, so those will have to wait. In the meantime, here are a couple of small books/ pamphlets from Paladin Press:   Novelizations of bad movies are always fun: Spacecamp by Joe Claro (Hey, that's the guy who wrote the Family Ties book I posted last night!)  C.H.O.M.P.S I saw this movie on cable about twenty years ago. It starred Conrad Bain from Diff'rent Strokes and was ever dumber than it looks on the cover of this book.  Ghost Dad Hey, I just noticed that the screenwriters of Ghost Dad are the same guys who wrote and directed the Tremors movies. I love those! I've never seen Ghost Dad but now I'm curious.  I had no idea that Upton Sinclair (yes, the author of The Jungle), wrote The Gnomobile until I find this in a recycling bin years ago:  The Beastmaster by Andre Norton These are not novelizations, and the movie Beastmaster is only loosely based on the text. I actually prefer the movie, but the book is decent too. I have two copies (one abridged) with different covers:   Here are some biographies about popular musical groups written during their peak: Kriss Kross Krazy by Anne M. Raso  New Kids on the Block by Grace Catalano  On the Road With Michael by Mark Bago  Love Letters to the Monkees and The Monkees Go Mod  This one is a little different. It was written by a roadie for GG Allin during his last tour: I Was a Murder Junkie by Evan Cohen  "CHiPs" is my favorite show of all time. It is ridiculous perfection. The DVD box set of all six seasons was finally released a couple months ago and it is every bit as amazing as one would imagine it would be! Here is an unauthorized biography of Erik Estrada from during the show's original run: The Erik Estrada Scrapbook by Susan Katz  A timeless classic: Paul Hogan: A Biography by Carolyn James  Another biography: Harlem Globetrotters by George Vecsey  One more: Some Basics About Skateboarding by Ed Radlauer (Hey, that's the author of one of the books aboout vans I posted yesterday. Talk about a renaissance man!) 
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Nov 30, 2017 18:32
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Spinster posted:What an astounding collection you obviously have. I'm curious, after all of your years being around unusual books, what do you read for pleasure? (Besides GBS) I actually do like reading the sorts of silly books I've been posting here! As far as actual literature, I'd say that The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov is probably my favorite book. Gargantua and Pantagruel by Francois Rabelais is another personal favorite. I've read just about everything by Gore Vidal. I adore his command of the English language, and think he might have been the greatest American author of the 20th century. His use of sardonic, flowery insults was unparalleled, especially in his essays. Daniel P. Mannix is sort of obscure, but he's another favorite. He wrote books about whatever happened to interest him, whether it be Roman gladiators, training wild animals, the Hellfire Club, or his time as a circus sword swallower in the 1930s. I'll post some of those later. He's probably best known for writing The Fox and the Hound, which was later made into a Disney movie, although I've never read that one. You Can't Win by Jack Black is another one of my favorite books. I love autobiographies by outsiders and oddballs. I've read a lot of books by tramps, hobos, and petty criminals. I have an ever-growing collection of books by people who survived disasters, with a special emphasis on being lost at sea. I'll post some of those later. I read a lot of crime novels. I mentioned the publisher Hard Case Crime yesterday, and everything they've released has been great. They reprint a mix of long out-of-print pulp novels, lost/ unpublished books by famous crime writers, and new books by the best crime writers of today. I've read almost everything by the extradinarily prolific Lawrence Block and Donald E. Westlake (aka Richard Stark). I really like James Crumley and Charles Willeford too. I started re-reading Cockfighter by Charles Willeford the other day and it's even better than I remembered. Gonna finish it later today. His unpublished novel Grimhaven has the bleakest, most nihilist ending of any book I've ever read. Jason Starr is probably my favorite current crime writer. His novels have a really dark sense of humor, and usually have unlikable protagonists who end up getting screwed in the end. They are a lot of fun to read. I read a lot of ancient history and crazy religious texts too. And Chick tracts. I have a massive collection of those, which I've posted about at length in the Chick Tract thread. I'm sure I'm forgetting a bunch of stuff. Like I said in the OP, my interests are all over the place.
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Nov 30, 2017 19:45
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Memoirs of a Sword Swallower and Freaks: We Who Are Not As Others by Daniel P. Mannix  These copies were both republished by the magnificent San Francisco-based RE/Search run by pioneering punk writer V. Vale. They specialize in well-researched books about strange subcultures. I cannot recommend their entire catalog highly enough. Please support them!! https://www.researchpubs.com/ Born on the Circus by Fred Powledge  A book about growing up in the circus. I dug it out of a recycling bin. Who would throw this away?! You Can't Win by Jack Black  This is a reprint from a tiny imprint called NABAT books (published by AK Press) that specializes in weird old memoirs by outsiders and criminals. All of them are worth reading, but You Can't Win is the easily the best one. Life and Adventures of A-No. 1, America's Most Celebrated Tramp  A-No. 1 (aka Leon Ray Livingston) was a turn or the century tramp who published a bunch of popular paperback books about being a hobo. This is the first one, published in 1910. It's the only one I have, although I hope to track down the rest of them some day. Unfortunately, since they are a century old and were published as paperbacks, they are fragile, and seem to be getting increasingly hard to find. I kick myself my not buying the whole set about ten years ago. I think it was $100 or so, but I didn't have the money to spare at the time. Oh well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Ray_Livingston Pimp by Iceberg Slim  This is a legitimately good biography by Iceberg Slim (aka Robert Beck) about being a pimp in Chicago during the first half of the twentieth century. These are two different printings from Holloway House, which specialized in printing paperbacks by black authors for a black audience, which most publishers refused to touch. A lot of their books are sleazy and border on exploitation, but so were a lot of the paperbacks aimed at white audiences during the heyday of cheap books. I find them fascinating because they are a window into a world very different from anything I've ever experienced. The slang varies wildly depending on the age and regions of the authors too, so that's a rare treat. Gentleman Pimp (which I posted yesterday) has a ton of 1940s pimp slang I have never heard before or since. Pimpology: The 48 Laws of the Game by Pimpin' Ken  This is a recent book about pimping. I only recently picked it up and haven't had a chance to read it yet. Soiled Doves: Prostitution in the Early West by Anne Seagraves  I read this years ago, and just recently found an autographed copy in the clearance section of a Half Price Books in Fremont, CA. Same place I found the autographed Jay J. Armes book a year earlier! Dildoides by Samuel Butler  This is a small press printing of the infamous 17th-century poem about a British dildo embargo. Oddly, there are actually several epic 17th-century poems about dildos, although this one is the best. I wrote a short article on that topic in a zine I put out about a decade ago, and reprinted the full text of three of the poems, including Dildoides. Maybe I'll post it here if I can find the ancient Word file I typed it in. 1984 by George Orwell  This is the first U.S. paperback printing of 1984, and features a cover like many of the racy pulp novels of the time. The Iron Dream by Norman Spinrad and The Little People by John Christopher   I bought both of these after seeing the covers here in various threads that I've since forgotten. I haven't read either yet, but I am looking forward to doing so. Some other gold I mined from the recycling bin: The Hovercraft Story by Garry Hogg  This is Israel (1962)  Sky Lab by William J. Cromie  Cosmonauts in Orbit by Gene and Clare Gurney  The Man in the Box: A Story From Vietnam by Mary Lois Dunn  The World of the Prairie Dog by David F. Costello  The World of the Opossum by James F. Keefe  I remember finding a first edition copy of Anne Rand's Atlas Shrugged in the school district recycling bin too. I forced myself to read the whole thing for some masochistic reason, and joyfully hurled that stupid, pointless, repetitive, humorless piece of poo poo back into the bin as soon as I was done. I know that the first edition hardcover is actually valuable (to idiots) and I could have sold it for a bunch of money, but gently caress it. That is the worst loving book I have ever read. Ten years later I still get angry I wasted my time reading that thousand-page sub-literate screed.
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Nov 30, 2017 21:08
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my dog died im sad posted:This is an awesome thread OP. I'm inspired to visit my local goodwill tomorrow. A question for you and the thread: where do you go or what are the best places to look for books? I've had some good luck with clearance sections at used book stores. Thrift stores (especially chains like Goodwill) tend to charge too much for used books, but I've found some good stuff at those. Garage, moving, and estate sales can be goldmines. Books are heavy (particularly art books and big, old hardcovers), and a lot of people would rather give them away or sell them cheap rather than go through the hassle of moving them. Those are all hit-and-miss, but can be a great way to find weird things you aren't actually looking for. I usually end up using ebay or Amazon when I'm trying to find specific titles.
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Dec 1, 2017 21:35
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The Yugo: The Rise and Fall of the Worst Car in History by Jason Vuic I really enjoyed this one. In addition to telling the history of the Yugo, it gives a really interesting background of Yugoslavia and the surrounding countries in the years leading up to the collapse of the USSR. The Devil's Butcher Shop by Roger Morris  This one gives a detailed account of an absolutely brutal prison takeover in 1980. Fans of the thrash metal band Exodus might recall the story from the song "Last Act of Defiance." At least 33 inmates were murdered by their fellow prisoners, many in absolutely horrific ways. One unfortunate guy got burned in the face with a blowtorch until his head exploded. It's an interesting book, but also pretty disturbing. Killer Show by John Barrylick  This is a detailed account of the Station Nightclub fire where 100 people died in mere minutes after glam band Great White set off pyrotechnics during a concert. After reading this, you will never go into a cramped space without making sure you know where the fire exits are. I thought about this book a lot when the Ghost Ship art collective in Oakland burned down last year. On a lighter note... Mindsploitation by Vernon Chatman  This book is hilarious! The author contacts a bunch of companies (mostly overseas) that offer to write college essays on any topic for a fee. He gives them ludicrous topics and publishes the results. Vernon Chatman is probably best known for being one of the creators of Wonder Showzen, or possibly as the voice of Towelie on South Park. Will Not Attend by Adam Resnick  Adam Resnick was the co-creator of the bizarre Chris Elliott sitcom Get a Life!. This book is just a series of stories from his life, but they are really, really funny. I laughed to the point of tears at least three times while reading this! The Glory Hole Murders by Tony Fennelly  I just got this and haven't read it yet, but it was highly recommended in the "Read Hard or Die" section of an old issue of the classic zine Murder Can Be Fun, so I assume it will be great. How can it not be with a title like that?! Speaking of great titles: There's a Snake in the Toilet!  Here are a handful of old books warning about the scourge of global communism:    The Ugly American by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer  The term "Ugly American" has become a term for people from the U.S. behaving badly, especially when traveling abroad. As such, I was really surprised when I read this 1958 novel that the title character (Homer Atkins) is called an ugly American because he is physically ugly. He's actually a good person trying to help poor people in Vietnam build water pumps from old bicycles. Beyond that, the novel is a really interesting look at the failed French attempts to maintain their colony, and warns against increasing U.S. involvement in Vietnam years before the war started.  Eugene Burdick also wrote the classic novel Fail Safe about an accidental nuclear launch. I don't want to spoil the ending of that one, but it's a doozy. Here are a couple of old books about JFK:   (Note: the first one isn't by the drunken 50's Senator Joseph McCarthy, just a guy with the same name.) Here are a couple of gross cookbooks:   Unrelated to anything, I am fascinated by the existence of Mitchell, South Dakota's Corn Palace. 
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Dec 1, 2017 23:01
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Yeti or Not, Here We Come! by Robert Leiterman This self-published Bigfoot novel was written by a park ranger. My favorite part is on the acknowledgments page where he apologizes to his kids for spending so much time writing Bigfoot novels. Here are some more miscellaneous books:         Many, many more to come. Thanks to everybody else who has posted books. Please post more!!
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Dec 4, 2017 05:55
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This morning I went to a nearby Salvation Army that I'd never been to before. They had a whole room full of books and they were pretty cheap ($1 for paperback; $2 for hardcover), but the selection was pretty lackluster. Oh well, if I ever need a James Patterson novel or several sets of the Twilight series in a hurry, I'll know where to go. I did pick up a couple of things: This is a book from the crazy Christian group Focus on the Family, so it ought to be good for a few laughs:  Bart Ehrman is a world-renowned scholar of ancient Christianity, and also writes a lot of great books on the subject aimed at the general public. I wasn't sure if I had this one, but for a mere dollar I was willing to take the risk. Turns out I do have it. Oh well, it's a good book. I'll give it to a friend.  This is a compilation of all of the 1971 New York Times articles on the Pentagon papers. I have to go on a stupid 12-day work trip to North Carolina in a few days, and will probably take this one with me to read on the plane.  Not a book, but I bought this hideous clown painting for $6:  I recently bought this book about Leon Czolgosz off of Amazon and it arrived without a dust jacket despite costing an outrageous $3.26 (plus $3.99 shipping) and being listed as in "Very Good" condition. gently caress you worldofbooksusa!! Oh well, I want to read it, so I'll be keeping this copy. 
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Dec 5, 2017 23:25
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I enjoy watching Bonanza every once in awhile, so I figured I'd enjoy these silly novels from the early 60's. I haven't read them yet, but the covers are great.    On the topic of books based on old TV westerns, I picked this one up in a Gladstone, Oregon junk store back in 2009.  I've wanted the stupid Mysteries of the Unknown Time-Life book series ever since I saw the commercials as a kid. Sadly, this is the only one I have:  Before you start feeling too sorry for me, I finally found the full 33 volume set for a mere $60 the other day, and it should arrive sometime before Christmas. Hooray! Here are a couple of recent books about excellent movies:   Here is a book about the late, great Divine, written by his mother. Sorry about the crappy picture. 
Gutter Phoenix fucked around with this message at 00:16 on Dec 6, 2017 |
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Dec 5, 2017 23:53
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Menckeniana: A Schimpflexikon by H.L. Mencken  H.L. Mencken was a fairly famous social critic and journalist during the first half of the twentieth century. I definitely wouldn't call him an elitist, but he didn't have a very high opinion of the common man either: "On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron." "No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public." In any case, he attracted a lot of scorn from all sides, especially after a series of satirical articles he wrote during the Scopes monkey trial. He collected his favorite insults that people wrote about him and published them in this book. The Second Oldest Profession: A Study of the Prostitute's "Business Manager" by Ben L. Reitman  Ben Reitman is probably best known for being Emma Goldman's lover, but he also wrote this 1931 book about pimps. Sister of the Road: The Autobiography of Boxcar Bertha By Ben L. Reitman  Ben Reitman also wrote this fictional biography on the life of a hobo woman, although it was supposedly based on real stories from people he knew. This version is another fine reprint from NABAT, who also did You Can't Win.
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Dec 10, 2017 01:25
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I mentioned the odd publications put out by Loompanics and Paladin Press earlier. Here are pictures of a bunch more:                     
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Dec 13, 2017 18:26
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Here are a bunch of books about disasters at sea, usually after encounters with angry whales. Most of them are first-person accounts from people who survived for extended periods in small life rafts. Seriously, don't screw around in the vicinity of whales because they are smart, huge, and will gently caress your poo poo (and ship) up. The Wreck of the Whaleship Essex by Owen Chase  This book inspired Herman Melville to write Moby Dick. The Loss of the Ship Essex, Sunk By a Whale by Owen Chase and Thomas Nickerson  This is a reprint of Owen Chase's account, along with one by first-mate Thomas Nickerson that had only existed in manuscript form until it was discovered sometime in the 1980's. Staying Alive! by Maurice and Marilyn Bailey  Adrift by Steven Callahan  Survive the Savage Sea by Dougal Robertson  Almost Too Late by Elmo Wortman  Sole Survivor by Ruthanne Lum McCunn  Shipwrecked! by Evan L. Balkan  This one looks cheap and cheesy, but it was clearly a labor of love for the author and has a ton of obscure stories and even more obscure sources. I actually bought it because it was the only book I could find that listed the sources for some weird story I'd heard about, although I can't remember which of the stories that was now. Kingdom of the Octopus by Frank W. Lane  This is the only book I know of that has a source on the story of a giant squid attacking sailors in a life boat after their ship was sunk during World War II. Unrelated, but it seems like as good a time as any to post this one: Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition by B.R. Burg 
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Dec 15, 2017 17:16
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genesplicer posted:A book, published in the 1930s... I would like to read both of these. I'll have to check archive.org to see if they have scans of either of them.
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Dec 15, 2017 17:23
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Shima Honnou posted:Oh my God, my stepfather has this set and it is amazing, you need to track them all down. I wonder if I can dig them out here. I will definitely post pictures when my set arrives. Pick posted:I'm going to be real with you dude, I bought this book and read it. Do you know what book it reminded me of? Panzram: A Journal of Murder, which is largely Panzram's own letters along with some research corroborating the content. Panzram's deeds were considerably more newsworthy, so it admittedly it would be easier to verify his claims (i.e. killing a shitload of people). That said, they lived in almost exactly the same time period, committing (for the most part) almost exactly the same kind of crimes. And do you know what struck me? That Panzram, for all his strange grammar and roiling tone, seems to know what he is talking about and You Can't Win reads like a fairy tale. To be honest I'm kind of curious if the content of You Can't Win was ever validated or verified in any way, because it seems so heavily romanticized. In fact, it sort of reminded me of Gang Leader for a Day, which is a book that I am 100% certain is completely full of poo poo. It's been awhile since I've read the book, but I don't remember there being anything that stood out to me as being too far-fetched. Honestly, it wouldn't change my opinion of the book at all if it turned out to be completely fabricated. I like it because it's a good book, not because it's a true story. I'm familiar with that Panzram book and have a pdf of his short memoir somewhere, but I've never read either of them. This is sort of unrelated, but I am reminded of this book of almost unbelievable stories from John Muir. I don't doubt that they actually happened. He probably downplayed the truth of his crazy adventures. John Muir was an amazing guy. And a madman.  Pththya-lyi posted:There are so many more! Longarm was a series of adult Western novels that chronicled the adventures of U.S. Deputy Marshal Curtis Long. The series ran from 1978 to 2015 and there were over 450 installments Labes for days posted:
Holy poo poo, I need to find all of these ASAP!!
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Dec 15, 2017 17:37
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JnnyThndrs posted:More remnants of mid-Seventies 'culture': Oh man, these are right up my alley. I don't have any of them, but I am going to do my best to change that, post-haste. Thanks for making me aware that these exist!! Pastry of the Year posted:My great-aunt gave me this book when I was small: Gonna look for this one too. Canned Panda posted:I have a bunch of these dumb things. I love gross old cookbooks. I used to have a bunch of those 1970's menu cards with pictures and recipes of disgusting food, but I think I gave them away during a massive purge of my belongings about eight years ago. So many regrets about that decision...
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Dec 15, 2017 17:47
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The Radioactive Boy Scout by Ken Silverstein This was originally an article in Harper's Magazine, later expanded into a full book. It tells the tale of David Hahn, a Michigan eagle scout who tried to build a nuclear reactor in his mother's backyard and got the whole neighborhood classified as a hazardous superfund site! He died last year, and although a lot of people speculated it was due to radiation poison, it turned out he drank himself to death. He had a lot of problems in later life, was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder, and had a history of substance abuse. His mom also had issues and committed suicide. This article has some interesting pictures and information: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-100-years.html This page from a deleted science blog has some theories on his prominent facial lesions, as well as comments from people who claimed to know him: https://web.archive.org/web/20140808060135/http://depletedcranium.com/the-radioactive-boyscout-strikes-again/   A man claiming to be David Hahn comments extensively in this article: https://web.archive.org/web/20140808083515/http://www.damninteresting.com/smoke-detectors-and-a-radioactive-boyscout/   Anyway, it's a really sad story, but also fascinating.
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Dec 15, 2017 18:15
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Shoshaman by Arai Shinya This is an odd one. It is a Japanese business novel and tells the story of a guy who follows his dream of opening the best goddamn hamburger restaurant in Japan. I can't really express why the concept is so strange as the plot to a novel other than to say that it is the most uniquely Japanese book I can imagine. I went along with my girlfriend when she had to go on a work trip to Tokyo two months ago, and I thought of this book repeatedly during our week long visit. I discovered this book about twenty years ago when it was required reading in a community college comparative world history class. The professor was a brilliant and crazy man who assigned all sorts of weird texts to give students a taste of what other cultures are like. I have to say, Shoshaman was an inspired choice to explain what modern Japan is like. That guy was the best teacher I've ever had in my life. I owe him a huge debt of gratitude for introducing me to Diogenes the Cynic, the Epic of Gilgamesh, and countless obscure historical texts. At one point I even planned to get a Ph.D in ancient history myself, but I could never justify pissing away so much time and money on a college education when I could just as easily read books on my own. Probably not a smart choice, but it (eventually) worked out for me. Anyway, that professor ended up publishing this book in the 90's. It is chock full of his nutty and erudite ideas that inspired me so much as a nineteen year old (and continue to do so as a world-weary 40-year old geezer). Syncretism in the West: Pico's 900 Theses by Steve Farmer 
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Dec 15, 2017 19:34
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Turmoil in the Toybox by Phil Phillips He-Man and the Care Bears are going to drag your child to Hell.   I discovered this book at some point in the past year after seeing this hilarious Christian scare film on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hnjdq32u-MU 1994? by Harold Camping  I don't want to frighten anyone, but according to this book the world is going to end in 1994. Repent now before it's too late!!
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Dec 15, 2017 19:43
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More Than Earthlings: an astronaut's thoughts for Christ-centered living by James B. Irwin Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia (vols. 1-3)  Here are a bunch of miscellaneous books that I took pictures of when I started the thread. I want to clear them from my desktop before I start taking more pictures.           
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Dec 15, 2017 19:55
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My 32-volume set of Mysteries of the Unknown arrived! I also picked up a few things in the miscellaneous section of a Half-Price Books this morning. $13 for all seven of these.      These two will go nicely next to my Ollie North Iran-Contra Scandal coloring book (which I will post a picture of at some point):   
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Dec 19, 2017 00:49
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Pththya-lyi posted:My husband was using my computer and asked me: "Have you been looking up cowboy porn?" Turns out the Longarm quote was the last thing I had c/ped and he accidentally pasted it into a search bar I literally just laughed out loud when I read that! That reminds me, the other night I asked my girlfriend if she'd ever heard of those Longarm books and she said that she had. It turns out that early in her career she had to edit a competing line of softcore Western romance novels for men. I had no idea that was actually a genre, let alone one with at least two lines of books dedicated to it! Anyway, she told me about how the publisher was an old man, and one day he lectured her at length about how he would never, ever allow cunnilingus to appear in one of his books because it is filthy and has no place in a semi-pornographic cowboy sex book.
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Dec 19, 2017 23:23
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SniperWoreConverse posted:This poo poo is fuckin nuts -- loving crazy poo poo. I am a big fan of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, wherein baby Jesus kills another kid for irritating him while he's playing. The dead kid's parents complain to Joseph, who scolds Jesus and orders him to bring the kid back to life. Jesus snottily says, "You're not my father, Joseph. My dad is God." However, to keep the peace with his mom and stepdad, he relents and resurrects the kid. That's only one of the stories in one of the gospels that are included in that specific Bart Ehrman book. Good stuff. Yeah, there were a lot of different branches of ancient Christianity, and all sorts of crazy gospels and other writings. The vast majority are lost to history, which is a real shame. Even so, it's amazing that some of them have survived at all, because most ancient writings are long gone unless they happened to have been copied (by hand) over and over and over again as the originals wore out, fell apart, and rotted away. That's why we have so many copies of the New Testament (although most manuscripts are from the middle ages), yet only fragments of most of the Christian writings that didn't make the cut for inclusion. Taken as a whole, a real case can be made for Jesus of Nazareth having been an illiterate nomad preaching an apocalyptic form of Judaism mixed with Cynic philosophy. I think it's fascinating stuff, and I have a bunch of books full of weird old documents relating to that subject. I'm in frigid New York City for the rest of the week, but I have a lot more books to post when I get home to sunny California. I've never had much luck finding anything good for a reasonable price in any of the used bookstores I've been to during my previous visits to NYC, yet I still have hope that this trip will be different. It doesn't really matter to me because the search is half of the fun! Since I don't have any book covers to post, I will post this picture:  Every time my girlfriend and I take the train from NYC to the suburb where her brother lives on Long island, I marvel at this Buttafuoco & Associates sign. I've never been able to get a picture, so I took this one from Yelp.
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Dec 28, 2017 01:03
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Flyball posted:Pulled from our recycling bin today All of those are awesome! Pick posted:Always scan cat books. they may be rarer than you think. I pulled Space Cat Visits Venus, Space Cat Meets Mars, and Space Cat and the Kittens from the school district recycling bin sometime around 2006. I might have had Space Cat too, but I don't specifically remember it. When my wife and I broke up a couple of years later and we split all of the stuff we'd acquired over twelve years together, she somehow ended up with those. I had no idea they were valuable until I remembered them a few years ago and tried to track down cheap copies. Oh well. I checked Amazon out of curiosity, and it turns out that the first two books are being republished in a few months. Hopefully the other two follow. I like having old books, but $50 - $250 apiece is way more than I'm willing to pay to replace my (free) copies of the Space Cat books. I'll probably pick up the reprints though. Space Cat is cool. AKA Pseudonym posted:
There was another good one that I used to look at from time to time. I think it was this: http://awfullibrarybooks.net/ Applesnots posted:This neat book came in the mail the other day. I almost bought that (or something very similar) at a used book store a couple of weeks ago! Sadly, they were asking too much for it, so I had to pass. Somewhat related, I just remembered checking out this Loompanics classic from the Portland library way back when:  I didn't end up doing any book shopping while in New York. We flew home yesterday and were stranded on a layover in Dallas for four hours longer than anticipated thanks to a broken plane and poor planning by the usually decent Southwest Airlines. Fourteen hours of terrible travel in total. My girlfriend and I were in the middle of the fifteen-minute cab ride home from the Oakland Airport when 2018 arrived at midnight. Happy New Year! Anyway, a bunch of books arrived while I was gone, but I have to go pick them up where I get my mail delivered. I'll do that tomorrow.
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Jan 1, 2018 17:08
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Flyball posted:This book is pretty weird Holy poo poo! I love DEVO and yet I've never even heard of that book! You have some impressive stuff. Please post more.
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Jan 1, 2018 22:10
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Rough Lobster posted:Welp it looks like I need to break into the increibly secure X rated western genre. Longarm is my new hero! Yeah, and unlike most of the other shipwreck/ stuck-on-a-life-raft books I posted, he was by himself. That's got to be even worse than being stuck on a life raft with other people. Also, if I remember correctly, when he was finally found by some poor Caribbean fishermen out at sea, he didn't want to take away their livelihood by causing them to lose a day of fishing, so they went off to do that and he just had to have faith that they would come back for him when they were done (they did).
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Jan 2, 2018 22:38
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No More Toast posted:This is definitely the book I'm most jealous of! Heaven's Gate has always fascinated me, and I'm always surprised there haven't been more books/documentaries about it. Does the book just contain what is written on the website, or is there more to it? I've thought about contacting them and ordering it, but I imagine the cost of shipping it to the UK would be quite high. As far as I can tell, most of what's in the book is on their website, although I haven't compared the two extensively or anything. I got it by emailing the contact on that site. The response was quick. I was asked to send (I think) $20 cash to a PO Box in Arizona, and just had to have faith that any believer in the teachings of Ti and Do would refrain from stealing my money. A couple of weeks later my book arrived. I have no clue what it would cost to send to the UK, but if you really want a copy it couldn't hurt to ask! I have a couple of other Heaven's Gate books (including one that's similar in looks and format to the book I posted), but they are currently in a different state, so it'll be a few weeks before I can post pictures.
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Jan 2, 2018 22:46
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Speaking of Chick tracts, here are pictures of the first four (compared to more recent versions) which were originally published as books/ booklets: Why No Revival? (1961)   A Demon's Nightmare (1962)  This Was Your Life (1964)  Holy Joe (1964)  Here are a bunch of books from Chick Publications: The Last Call (1963)    The Battle (1972).  The Next Step for Growing Christians (1973)   A Solution to... The Marriage Mess (1978)  Going Bananas? (1979)  Smokescreens (1982 audio tape/ 1983 book)    He Came to Set the Captives Free by Rebecca Brown (1986)   Prepare for War by Rebecca Brown (1987)   Did the Catholic Church Give Us the Bible? by David Daniels (2005)   Babylon Religion by David Daniels (2006)  Hot Topics (2008)  I've posted at length about all 295 Chick tracts (as well as other miscellaneous Chick publications) here: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3795280&userid=203154&perpage=40&pagenumber=1
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Jan 3, 2018 22:36
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The Saddest Rhino posted:i've posted some of these books i've got or seen here and there but this seems like a good thread to house them Ha Ha Ha! I actually have a few issues of Campus Life magazine. Back in 2004 I somehow ended up with a huge stack of mail-in postcards to request information packets from various fundamentalist Christian colleges all over the U.S. I figured that the brochures would have a bunch of funny pictures and stuff that I could use as clip-art in a zine I used to publish, so one night I got drunk and filled out about 60 post cards and dropped them in the mail the next day. My mailbox was jammed with Christian college application information (addressed to my pen name) for months. As could be expected, my pseudonym also ended up on a bunch of crazy mailing lists. At some point I got an offer for a free trial issue of Campus Life, which I promptly accepted. After receiving a couple of issues they started sending me angry letters demanding that I pay for a subscription since they kept sending me magazines. Eventually the magazines stopped coming, although the angry letters continued until I moved. Hopefully the person living at my old place on Belmont Street in Portland is still getting angry letters from Campus Life magazine thirteen years later. That would be neat. There wasn't anything too noteworthy in the college application packets, but I've held on to a few of the magazines all these years because I remember them being funny. I'll have to read through them again when I get a chance.   
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Jan 4, 2018 17:43
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Uncle Wemus posted:I've seen so many of these sorts of books but I've never read them what are they actually like? Here is a random page from Sex Agent:  That's probably pretty representative of the smutty 60's paperback genre. cda posted:This post owns. Requesting a juicy quote from Marji and the Gangland Wars, please. Better late than never:   
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Jan 4, 2018 17:49
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Here are a few new books I've picked up:     And a few I got for Christmas:     The Bigfoot one might be my favorite of the bunch. It's never too early to teach kids about cryptozoology!
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Jan 4, 2018 17:55
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ultrafilter posted:This must be amazing. Have you read it? I just got it and haven't had a chance to read it yet. I had never even heard of it until it showed up as a suggestion on Amazon. Uncle Wemus posted:Are there audio books available for these trashy old books they'd be great for my graveyard shifts. I know that Lawrence Block has been republishing a bunch of his sleazy novels (written under various pseudonyms) from the 50's and 60's, and there are some available as audio books. You can listen to this classic while at work: 
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Jan 5, 2018 23:21
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My girlfriend saw this on the free book table at her office and brought it home for me last night. It's in French (which I cannot read), although that doesn't really matter because it's mostly filled with pictures, posters, and other miscellaneous Mexican wrestling ephemera in Spanish (which I can barely read). It's pretty awesome. ˇViva la lucha libre! Here are a bunch more books. This one isn't as notable as the DEVO book that Flyball posted, but it's still pretty good:  The cover on this one is flocked in fuzzy fake velvet:       This is a booklet from the 50's advising American tourists on how to act while vacationing in Mexico:  It even has a special message from Ike:  Here are a few of the little booklets that used to be available in grocery store checkout lines:    
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Jan 5, 2018 23:38
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There was a vintage furniture store in Alameda that went out of business a couple of years ago. They also had a room full of used books which they were giving away for free on their last day in business. The selection was pretty picked over by the time I got there, but I still managed to pick up a few decent things. Most notably, there were stacks of these trashy "urban romance" books that no one else seemed to be interested in. I grabbed as many as I could carry and barely made a dent in the pile.                    I like that they used the "B" from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV show logo for the title font on this one:  Sometimes I regret not going back and taking the rest of them, although I have yet to actually read any of them. Also, we have nine full size bookshelves in our apartment (plus a few smaller shelves) and all of them are already packed two rows deep, yet that's still not enough to house all of our books. I just hope that the rest of the collection went to a good home.
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Jan 6, 2018 00:09
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