Caballero Bonald, José M.:
ANDALUSIAN DANCES.
Editorial Noguer, Barcelona, 1957.

Spanish melodrama on the dance floor: a bewitching combination of corny and erotic. With 60 pages of gravure photos, and a thorough descriptive text in English.

<-- Plates 6 & 7, "Two mobile poses"

Stoddard, Edward:
HOW TO REMEMBER NAMES AND FACES
Nelson Doubleday, Garden City, NY, 1958.

Not just a booklet, but a "progress kit," with 15 mugshot practice cards of unremarkable fictional characters (grocer, accountant, secretary, etc.) whose identities you can memorize in your spare time.

<-- front cover, with practice cards

Ayoob, Massad F.:
FUNDAMENTALS OF MODERN POLICE IMPACT WEAPONS
Police Bookshelf, Concord, NH, 1984.

Techniques of applied brutality with batons, saps, flashlights, etc.; with numerous photo-demonstrations by instructors costumed like the Village People.

<-- front cover

"The TV Vet":
TV VET BOOK FOR PIG FARMERS
Farming Press Ltd., Ipswich, 1979.

All the glamour of veterinary television in convenient book form: descriptions of over 50 swine ailments (joint-ill; vomiting and wasting disease; pig-pox; prolapsed anus; etc.), illustrated with appalling photos.

<-- front cover

Sparer, Fred:
HOW TO BUILD MOBILE HOME PARKS
Trail-R-Club of America, Beverly Hills, 1971.

The philosophy and implementation of domestic impermanence in the automotive age. 700+ pages long, and packed with hundreds of photos, blueprints, government regulations, etc.

<-- front cover

n/a:
HEMPHILL BANNER PARTS CATALOG FOR SOLID PATTERN MACHINE MODEL SCP-TS
Hemphill Company, Pawtucket, R.I., 1953.

Curious about the configuration and technical nomenclature of commercial sock-weaving machinery? With the help of these highly detailed schematics, you can identify every tooth sprocket, ratchet brake, tension spring, lever wire...

<-- Index to Plates, Rear View

n/a:
SNOW-FLAKES: A CHAPTER FROM THE BOOK OF NATURE.
American Tract Society, Boston, 1863.

Viewed through a magnifying glass, the snowflake reveals a multifaceted religious metaphor: purity, grace, weakness, etc. With a dozen perfect monochrome plates of snow crystals.

<-- decorative half-title

Wilke, Hermann:
DEIN "JA" ZUM LEIBE! [Your "Yes" to the Body!]
Verlag Deutsche Leibeszucht, Berlin, 1939.

Family nudism in the wholesome sunshine of the fatherland. German text; with 90 photos of naked bodies exercising on sand dunes, meadows, and ski slopes.

<-- pp. 86-87

Clarke, Jeanne:
PAPUA NEW GUINEA COOKERY
Macmillan Co. of Australia, South Melbourne, 1977.

Despite a promising photo-sequence on how to skin a crocodile, the emphasis is vegetarian (sago, manioc, banana).

<-- front cover

Minnich, Jerry:
THE EARTHWORM BOOK
Rodale Press, Emmaus, PA, 1977.

High-brow example of the "raise your own worms" genre. Includes a historical overview of human/worm relations; many technical graphs; and a 66-page bibliography.

<-- front cover

Collins, Frank D.:
POPULAR SPORTS, THEIR ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT
Rand McNally & Co., Chicago, 1935.

The history of sports, served as digestible trivia tidbits with Ripleyesque illustrations; the definition stretched to include car racing, cock fighting, and dice throwing.

<-- front cover

Bowen, Godfrey:
WOOL AWAY: THE ART AND TECHNIQUE OF SHEARING
Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., New York, 1974.

The romance of shearing; how to control the sheep; cutters and combs; sticky, sandy, or wet sheep; shearing competitions; etc. Originally published in New Zealand.

<-- front cover

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.

<-- front cover

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..."]