Browsing in Waterstones the other day (I really shouldn't do that), my eye was caught by "How To Avoid Huge Ships, And Other Implausibly Titled Books". This is obviously intended for the Christmas market and not a bad entry in the field since it doesn't involve putting rude words on the front cover or attempting a lame parody of Harry Potter / Lord of the Rings / [fill in the blank].The book is based on the Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year. (See also the Guardian article The Must Reads.) Sadly, opportunist schoolboy smut seems to play a significant part here too but there are some gems to be found such as the following (many of which are available via Amazon):
- Highlights in the History of Concrete (winner 1994)
- The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification (winner 2007)
- Tattoed Mountain Women and Spoon Boxes of Daghestan (shortlisted 2006)
- How Green Were the Nazis? (shortlisted 2006)
- The Book of Marmalade: Its Antecedents, Its History, and Its Role in the World Today (winner 1984)
5 comments:
I've got another one for you: "Lincoln: The Man and The Car."
I haven't read 'How Green were the Nazis', but from reviews it appears that it actually makes out a perfectly serious case for the 'green' elements in Nazi ideology, including valuing nature above some types of human life. Modern Greens are often eugenicists, too. So perhaps the book isn't as daft as you might at first think.
My favourite is probably "An Illustrated History of Dustcarts", which is a genuine book I saw advertised in a leaflet from a publisher of books on transport. I didn't get it though. Maybe I should have, but perhaps I was distracted by the leaflet also advertising "An Illustrated History of Cranes". Industrial cranes, that is!
The Book of Marmalade..."
Now that's something I could sink my teeth into! One of my culinary complaints this side of the pond is that American companies don't know how to make 'proper' marmalade... The product comes out as saccharine slush. The old expression "too sweet to be wholesome" comes to mind.
Proper marmalade should be tart, with a bite to it - something you can sink your teeth into. Whenever I find a jar of "Old Time Irish" or "Olde English" in a grocery store, I snap it up.
Alternatively, my sister on occasion sends me a tin of the "makings" and I make my own - adding a 'drop of the craythur' to produce a fair resemblance of Irish Whiskey Marmalade.
Oh yes, it mustn't be too sweet - that stuff is for babies. And the Irish Whiskey Marmalade is indeed a delicacy.
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