Folks build private libraries for a variety of reasons, and the books they choose to shelve in those private libraries reflect humanity in all its wonderful and messy diversity. While some folks choose "serious" literature or books that support a vocation or an avocation, others choose books that reinforce their faith, or their lifestyle, or their sense of the absurd. Some folks even fill the shelves of their private library with books they have no intention of ever reading--it's not uncommon, for example, for booksellers to be contacted by interior designers seeking a "yard or two of books bound in red leather" to accent the watered-silk walls of an apartment or townhouse.
A favorite way of injecting a little levity into an otherwise serious private library is to shelve, as prominently as possible, a few oddball titles that the book collector is unlikely to ever actually read. Anyone doing a quick scan of your bookshelves--at a party or dinner, let's say--will immediately have whatever assumptions they previously had made about you as a book collector immediately brought to a screeching halt.
Almost every independent bookseller on the planet has a title or two like this languishing in his or her stock, just waiting for the right appreciative book collector to come along:
Such titles can be picked up very inexpensively in any number of places, although if you're seeking to buy such books en masse you really should turn to a specialist independent bookseller.
In our post of 25 September 2009, we pointed out some of the bookish attractions of a great book city, Toronto. One of Toronto's most beloved independent booksellers is The Monkey's Paw, known far and wide for its incredible selection of really weird titles:
You can run but you cannot hide...virtually everywhere you turn in The Monkey's Paw you are likely to be assaulted by the wild, the wacky, the unintentionally ironic:
If you can't visit The Monkey's Paw in person, their virtual window display gives you entrée to some of the store's more notable selections. There are winners of the Diagram Prize, awarded annually by Britain's The Bookseller magazine for Oddest Title of the Year. And, though you have to work somewhat harder to find them, there even are potential winners of the infamous Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. That, however, is a post for a dark and stormy night....
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