James, Barry:
CALL ME MISTER.
Milady Publishing, Bronx, NY, 1974.

Everything your dad was supposed to teach you: how to fold a handkerchief, shop for a plaid blazer, offer a lady a cigarette... even how get a job in public relations. Illustrated.

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McClow, L.L.; D.N. Anderson (illus.):
TUMBLING ILLUSTRATED
A.S. Barnes & Co., New York, 1931.

Gymnastics rendered in absurdist shorthand, with over 650 floor routines portrayed as sequences of squiggly stick-figures.

<-- pp. 104-105 (One Performer and Thrower)

Uhlin, Donald M. and Edith de Chiara:
ART FOR EXCEPTIONAL CHILDREN
Wm. C. Brown Publishers, Dubuque, IA, 1984.

Emotional disturbance and art expression; art and the violence-prone personality; structuring and maintaining reality; etc. With over 300 unsettling illustrations.

<-- front cover

Wilson, D. Miller:
AN INSTRUCTION BOOK ON THE PIANO-PLAYER AND THE PLAYER-PIANO
[self-published, London, ca. 1910].

"Like a great steam hammer, which can crack a walnut or strike with tons of force, the player-piano has every gradation of touch from the softest pianissimo to the loudest fortissimo."

<-- Fig. IV & p. 25 (Driving Gear and Re-Wind Mechanism)

n/a:
CLASSIFIED LIST AND INTERNATIONAL REGISTER OF DAFFODIL NAMES
Royal Horticultural Society, London, 1969.

The names of over 11,000 daffodil cultivars, many of which are also suitable as CB radio handles (i.e., Tuba; Moon Boy; Gremlin; Salmon Queen; etc.).

<-- front cover

n/a:
A WAY TO DO IT BETTER
Eastman Kodak Co., [Rochester, NY, 1971].

A large-format publicity piece promoting the commercial possibilities of industrial photography; with hundreds of color photos of scientific manufacturing at its most glamorous.

<-- pp. 96-97, "Aero Commander" [detail]

Johnson, Richard D., et al. (eds.):
SPACE SETTLEMENTS, A DESIGN STUDY.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Washington, 1977.

Like the rest of us, NASA scientists know the uneasy claustrophobia of life on a finite, polluted planet. But they're going to do whatever it takes to find a way out of here...

<-- front cover

[multiple authors]:
[AUTOGRAPH ALBUM / COMMONPLACE BOOK].
Handwritten journal; England [Worcester?], 1833-35.

A collaborative blog for the quill-pen set: many artfully transcribed poems, epigrams, and musings, signed and dated by multiple contributors, and illustrated with occasional tipped-in engravings from other sources.

<-- p. 59 ["Few know the treasures in their own bosoms..."]

Hough, Walter:
FIRE-MAKING APPARATUS IN THE UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM
U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, 1928.

The author, a dedicated hands-on ethnologist, mastered every known pre-industrial technique of fire-making in order to write this monograph. Illustrated with drawings and photos.

<-- plates 10 & 11 (Malasian strike-a-lights and fire pistons)

Hurst, Sydney C.:
THE SILENT CITIES
E.P. Dutton and Co., New York, [1929].

Surfeit of slaughter organized in tidy rows: a comprehensive guide to British WWI memorials in France and Flanders, illustrated with photos and maps of 959 graveyards.

<-- pp. 272-273 (Somme)

n/a; Witold Janowski (design):
THE POLISH DOCUMENTARY FILM, 1961-2
Film Polski, Warszawa, [1962].

Bewitched by this catalogue's vivid graphic presentation, a vulnerable reader might lose an hour poring over descriptions of state-sanctioned travelogues and grim industrial shorts. (Text in English.)

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Van Yelyr, R.G.:
THE WHIP AND THE ROD
Gerald R. Swan, London, 1948.

Flagellation and religion; flogging as punishment for crime; the birch in education; medical aspects of flagellation; the future of corporal punishment; etc.

<-- frontis and title page

n/a:
INTERNATIONAL CLOUD ATLAS.
World Meteorological Organization, Geneva, 1956.

A nebulous subject expressed with Swiss precision: elegant, authoritative, and uniquely beautiful.

<-- Plate 35 (Opaque sheet of Altocumulus)

Wallace, Jane:
MASTURBATION: A WOMEN'S HANDBOOK
Side Hill Press, Brooklyn, 1976.

This fervid defense of female onanism is illustrated with very frank drawings of genitals.

<-- title page

n/a:
SURVIVAL IN LIKELY TARGET AREAS
Queen's Printer, Ottawa, 1962.

The duotone illustrations in this civil defense pamphlet offer a campy yet panic-inducing preview of what's in store when the H-bombs go off: doomed commuters huddling under bus seats; irradiated survivors squirming in the rubble; desperate families fighting fires; etc.

<-- front cover

Rooney, Dawn F.:
BETEL CHEWING TRADITIONS IN SOUTH-EAST ASIA
Oxford University Press, Kuala Lumpur, 1993.

Which is rarer: an English-language book on the habit of chewing betel nut, or a dilapidated bookman who admits to being a reformed daily user?

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[Morgan, Harry (comp.)]:
MORE RUGBY SONGS
Sphere Books Ltd., [London], 1968.

Prodigiously profane, if lacking in scholarly credibility.

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Lueck, Roger H. (ed.):
THE CANNED FOOD REFERENCE MANUAL
American Can Co., Hamilton, ON, 1943.

"A convenient and reliable reference text for those professional people who must deal intimately with commercially canned foods in the normal pursuit of their daily duties."

<-- pp. 226-227 (Views of the Testing Kitchen)

n/a:
DB AUSLANDKURSBUCH WINTER 1965/66.
Deutschen Bundesbahn, Essen, 1965.

With this comprehensive Euro-rail timetable and a pinch of imagination, you can ride a well-appointed express from Strasbourg to Paris; a haunted sleeper from Budapest to Bucharest; or a glacial milk run across Finland (Pieksämäki, Lapinlahti, Kontiomäki...).

<-- front cover

Hewat, A. Fergus, and G.L. Malcolm-Smith:
HEWAT'S EXAMINATION OF THE URINE AND OTHER CLINICAL SIDE-ROOM METHODS
7th Ed.; E. & S. Livingstone, Edinburgh, 1932.

A consideration of all the icky effluences, including pus, blood, sputum, feces, etc.; in compact vest-pocket format, convenient for carrying along on housecalls.

<-- front cover