Bizarre Books: A Compendium of Classic Oddities (Paperback)

~ (Author), Brian Lake (Author)
Key Phrases: New York, Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

They say you can't judge a book by its cover—but its title can tell you more than you ever needed to know!

Amazing, illuminating, and gut-bustingly funny, Bizarre Books is the wonderfully twisted product of more than two decades of determined searching in forgotten corners of out-of-the-way libraries and through the literary detritus of eclectic private collections. It is certain to delight every true fan of trivia and the patently absurd.

About the Author

In the course of their careers in the business of writing and selling books, Russell Ash and Brian Lake have collected hundreds of bizarre examples from this extensive field. From double entendres and astonishingly specialized subjects to weird books on horticulture, science, and medical matters, the authors have left no catalog page unturned in their quest for the most bizarre of books.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (October 30, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061346659
• ISBN-13: 978-0061346651
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #138,358 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hilarious, March 24, 2008

By	David M. Giltinan (San Francisco) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This book arrived in the same Amazon shipment as "Bertha Venation", a book devoted to funny names of people. While "Bertha Venation" managed to be singularly unfunny, "Bizarre Books" had a pretty high hilarity quotient. Almost every page had at least a couple of titles which made me giggle.

Conveniently grouped into chapters such as Double Entendres, Science & Scientific Theories, health & Medicine, Sex & Marriage, Sport, Leisure, Clothes & Fashion, Food & Drink, The Workplace, Crime & the Law, Religion & Beliefs, and Death , most of the titles included in this book are genuinely funny. For some of the more baffling titles, the authors include a representative short excerpt, a welcome feature.

This book is not for everyone. But if you have a penchant for the offbeat, the quirky, and obscure weirdness, it's good for more than a few belly-laughs.

It would be remiss of me not to include a few of my favorite entries:

* The Art of Faking Exhibition Poultry (1934), by George Ryley Scott.
The author treads an indistinct line between condemning this widespread and despicable practice, and telling the reader exactly how to do it.

* Correctly English in 100 Days(Shanghai Correctly English Society, 1934)
This book is prepared for the Chinese young man who wishes to served for the foreign firms. It divided nealy hundred and ninety pages. It contains full of ordinary speak and write language.....

* Was Oderic of Pordenone Ever in Tibet?, by Berthold Laufer (1914)

* The Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum, by Wallace Irwin (1901)
'Am I a turnip? On the strict Q.T.,
When do my Trilbys get so ossified?
Why am I minus when it's up to me
To brace my Paris pansy for a glide?'

* Truncheons: Their Romance and Reality, by Erland Fenn Clark (1935),
with over 100 plates illustrating more than 500 truncheons.

Admit it, aren't you just a little bit curious to learn more about those 500 truncheons? To know more about the mysterious, mythic Oderic of Pordenone? To sample more of that literary hoodlum's oeuvre?

Perhaps what I enjoy most about this book is the glimpses it provides of the infinite inventiveness, and never-ending quirkiness, of the human mind.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars I wish it had more excerpts, March 19, 2008

By	Jody "bigdumptruckdotcom" (Leominster, MA USA) - See all my reviews

I really like this meta book - I just wish there were more excerpts from the featured books. After a while, reading the massive lists of book titles was like going to a restaurant and only reading the menu - eventually, you want something to eat!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's been years since I've laughed this hard, November 19, 2007

By	Charlene Vickers (Winnipeg, Manitoba) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

"Bizarre Books" contains the titles, and a few excerpts, of thousands of the strangest books ever written. This book is hilarious! It would be a great Christmas gift for anyone with a relatively silly sense of humour.