Some items deserve superlatives: this tiny, obscenely-illustrated field guide to "breast types" is the CRUDEST and MOST OFFENSIVE pamphlet we've ever handled.

An aesthete with a sweet-tooth for midcentury graphics was overheard in our shop describing the gift books of Peter Pauper Press as "the liqueur-filled bon-bons of letterpress culture."

But if an activity is really that wholesome, can it still be FUN?

It would be so gratifying to be able to shout, "My beach house is an egg!" in German.

Puerile laughter at the front desk: "Dude, can you design a logo for my cock?"

Or maybe the most satisfying book is the unique one that you cobble together yourself.

It's a shameful admission, but in recent months we've been neglecting the "Remote Window Display" in favor of almost-daily Fbook posts. For those who disdain social media and prefer our blog, we've finally brought over some of this spring's goodies:

Only a pop-up book could so vividly portray the virile thrust of a moon launch.

Your assignment: teach the children of Soviet Estonia to loathe vermin and microbes.

 

Bonus feature: paper footprints.

As an alternative to playing sudoku on your lunch break, you could try to decode the dense and baffling info-graphics in a 1950s Japanese atlas...

Lewis Carroll reimagined as anti-Prussian propaganda: "Twas dertag, and the slithy Huns / Did sturm and sturgel through the sludge; / All bulgous were the blunderguns, / and the bosch bombs outbludge."

Some of us have already made up our minds on this subject.

"It is the bones, tough gristle, and tendons, that interfere with the easy progress of the knife."

The practice of hipster-baiting is more than five decades old.

A book whose juju is irresistible... though that may reveal more about its audience than its subject.

If you changed the title to "21st Century Bibliophiles," this could double as a study of typical Monkey's Paw habituées.

It's endearing that the two of them are still together after all these years.

"I venture to predict that future generations will be taught telepathy in the schools, and that eventually it will partly replace the wireless."

For drawing-room thespians: an inspiring handbook on the lost art of dramatic recitation.

A taxonomy of the entire manufactured world, organized in a single volume: catnip for systematic types who are obsessed with the precise naming of things.

Our latest business plan calls for a portable bookshop, which could be transported from place to place on the backs of camels.

n/a:
PATTERN BOOK 1935. ARMSTRONG'S LINOLEUM
Armstrong Cork Co., Lancaster, PA, 1934.

If you know of anything sexier than a 340-page full-colour catalogue of Depression-era linoleum patterns, please contact us immediately.

<-- pp. 138-139

Monahan, Barbara:
A DICTIONARY OF RUSSIAN GESTURE
Hermitage, Tenafly, NJ, 1983.

The Slavic soul expressing itself in non-verbal gestures: dissatisfaction, resignation, caution, approbation, sexual innuendo, satiety, disgust, etc. Illustrated with photos.

<-- front cover

Cravat, Harland R., and Raymond Glaser:
COLOR AERIAL STEREOGRAMS OF SELECTED COASTAL AREAS OF THE UNITED STATES
U.S. Department of Commerce, Rockville, MD, 1971.

Could be useful if you're planning an amphibious invasion. Includes folding stereo viewer in pocket at rear.

<-- front cover

Burns, Aaron:
TYPOGRAPHY
Reinhold Publishing Corp., [New York], 1961.

Here's a sure-fire bait for trapping graphic designers: take a large-format typography book from the high modernist era, and display it spread open to a dynamic Paul Rand design. Mortally effective!

<-- pp. 14-15

Logan, Herschel C.:
HAND CANNON TO AUTOMATIC: A PICTORIAL PARADE OF HAND ARMS
Standard Publications, Inc., Huntington, WV, 1944.

Lovingly rendered pen-and-ink illustrations of firearms both ancient and modern: basically it's pinup art for pistol fetishists.

<-- front cover

Groneman, Chris:
GENERAL BOOKBINDING
McKnight & Knight, Bloomington, IL, 1946.

Six decades ago, students at vocational high schools were actually taught bookbinding as part of their industrial arts education. Here's the proof.

<-- front cover

Lang, Robert (ed.):
LA COLLECTION DES "DOCUMENTS MÉDICAUX"
[16 issues bound in one volume]
Documents Médicaux, Paris, [ca. 1933].

In a perfectly aesthetic world, even a journal of gruesome medical photography would aspire to the highest standards of production and design… wouldn't it?

<-- "La Sympathologie"

[de Postels & Klinkel]:
TWINKLE TUNES PIANO BOOK
No publisher, no place; [ca. 1939].

The plinking of a 70-year-old toy piano makes a suitably eerie soundtrack, drifting from the back of a haunted bookshop.

<-- front cover, with toy piano keyboard

Haney, Robert, and David Ballantine; Jonathan Elliott (phot.):
WOODSTOCK HANDMADE HOUSES
Random House, New York, 1975.

The vernacular architecture of hippies in upstate New York: utopian dwellings for hermits and hobbits.

<-- front cover

[n/a]:
[BOUND ARTIFACT] (paper, leather, fur, plant material, etc.)
[no publisher, place, or date]

Bookseller's dilemma: in what section do you shelve a cryptic leatherbound book-object, apparently handmade as an art stunt by a mad occultist?

<-- (fur, vellum, Satan)

[Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory]:
THE EFFECTS OF ATOMIC WEAPONS
U.S. Department of Defense, Washington, 1950.

Disclaimer: "Atomic explosion phenomena are so complex as to make precise quantitative evaluation of their results almost impossible."

<-- front cover

Owens, Joseph:
DREAD: THE RASTAFARIANS OF JAMAICA
Sangster's Book Stores, Kingston, Jamaica, 1976.

Apparently it's more than just ganja smoke. "Dread is an experience: it is the awesome, fearful confrontation of a people with a primordial but historically denied racial selfhood."

<-- front cover

Schroeder, Francis de Neufville; Alvin Lustig (dustjacket):

ANATOMY FOR INTERIOR DESIGNERS; AND HOW TO TALK TO A CLIENT

Whitney Publications, New York, 1951.

What, bibliographically speaking, makes a book "sexy"? It's the combination of intriguing subject matter; smart design; and an ineffable, but bewitching, physical allure. Like this.

<-- front cover