June 22, 2008


Benda, W.T.:
MASKS
Watson-Guptill Publications, New York, 1944.

An eerie collection of theatrical masks with names like "The Miser," "Nincompoop," and "Lady Disdain."

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n/a:
WELCOME TO MADURODAM!
The Hague, [ca. 1960s].

Guide to a pathologically detailed, and unbearably twee, scale replica of a Dutch village. In English, with handy folding map laid in.

<-- front cover


Mitchell, Richard Scott:
MINERAL NAMES: WHAT DO THEY MEAN?
Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 1979.

In the mineral world, "samsonite" is not luggage, "priderite" is not a deadly sin, and "cummingtonite" is not a promise.

<-- front cover


McCully, Helen:
THE FRENCH HAVE A WORD FOR IT: MAYONNAISE
Hellmans/Best Foods, New York, 1967.


In English, we know it as "that shining golden ointment."

<-- front cover


Palmieri, Mario:
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FASCISM
Dante Alighieri Society, Chicago, 1936.

Brazen Italian propaganda promoting a now-discredited political ideology: braggadocio deflated by history.

<-- title page

n/a:
THE HORN BOOK: A GIRL'S GUIDE TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL
[n.p.; pirate reprint of the 1923 London edition].

63 coital postures ("The Saint-George," "The Stork," "The Sack of Corn," etc.) in quaint and utterly raunchy detail.

<-- title page