October 24, 2010

Dutton, June and Edith Vanocur:
THE BOOZE BOOK.
Determined Productions, San Francisco, 1967.

It was the Summer of Love for middle-class alcoholics, too. Here are recipes for mai tais, daiquiris, sangria, etc., illustrated with cheerful caricatures in supersaturated pop colors.

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Johnson, Margaret Fullerton, and Dorothy E. Cook:
MANUAL OF CATALOGING AND CLASSIFICATION FOR SMALL SCHOOL AND PUBLIC LIBRARIES
H.W. Wilson Co., New York, 1950.

Highly concentrated bibliographic pathos: a guide to card catalogue management, discarded by a school library without a single checkout recorded on its "Date Due" card.

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"Zeta" [Zachary Cope]:
THE DIAGNOSIS OF THE ACUTE ABDOMEN IN RHYME
H.K. Lewis & Co., London, 1949.

Rarely is the dissonance between form and function so jarring, even scandalous, as in this collection of perky doggerel describing life-threatening abdominal afflictions.

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Herdeg, Walter:
SCHWEIZER SIGNETE / TRADE MARKS AND SYMBOLS
Graphis Press, Zurich, 1948.

A work of such haughty elegance that no one would dare call it vanity publishing -- even though a single highly-motivated Swiss designer was its publisher, editor, and primary contributor. Text in German and English.

<-- pp. 64-65

Sullivan, Jim, and Lori Calicott:
BREAK DANCING: STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTIONS
Publications International, Skokie, IL, 1984.

Be sure to read the fine print: "The moves in this book have been explained and demonstrated by experienced dancers. Breaking moves should not be attempted without the assistance of an instructor."

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Ketley, A.J.:
TEXTBOOK OF IRONMONGERY AND HARDWARE
National Institute of Hardware, Birmingham, [1949].

A guide so comprehensive that an enterprising archaeologist could reconstruct the entire metal-based material culture of the 20th century from the contents of this one book.

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