Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Most Unusual Book

This blogger has initiated conversation on unusual books, asking what's the strangest thing on your shelves.

Unusual is of course in the eye of the beholder. I'll treat the books in my Girl Scout collection as usual - even the ones from the 60s on sports, horse stories, and "beauty" (which includes party manners and making friends as I recall). Surely Googie and other books on popular culture and architectural history and material culture aren't that odd.

How about Henrico: A Photographic Celebration (1989). The Industrial Development Authority of Henrico County put it out. It's a boosterism kind of item, written in English, German, and Japanese, and full of pictures of fire trucks, libraries, homes, highways and smiling people with the goal of luring business to the county.

What's on your shelf that's odd?

2 comments:

Josh said...

Odd on my shelf: Mars and Venus on a Date by John Gray. My mom bought it for me when I was 19 and she thought I needed some dating advice.

And now, seven years later, I still haven't cracked open the book but I'm married. Go figure.

Anonymous said...

Good Time Girls of the Alaska-Yukon Gold Rush, by Lael Morgan... An entirely aboveboard serious history of the very few women who ventured to the Far North looking for lonely men with gold dust. A good read.

C.