Literary Oddities

For all my bibliophile friends out there, you probably know about ABE Books, an excellent source for used and out-of-print tomes. Their slogan is "A Passion for Books" and I thoroughly approve of their mission to sell those many dusty volumes to people who can give them loving homes.

Anyway, they have recently instituted a special room of books (if you can follow my imagination as I consider their website to be an old Victorian house converted to a used bookstore) most likely tucked away in their dusty attic. But isn't that where you always find the best stuff, when you're perusing through a used bookstore or a "junque-store" or a funky antique mall? If there's an upstairs, THAT'S where you go to find the oddities!

Anyway, their attic room is called the Weird Book Room, and it most definitely full of, well, weird books. Books you would find in an attic, in other words! Indeed, when you peruse some of the off-beat titles, you wonder How On Earth someone ever A) came up with that idea, and B) sold that idea to a publisher! You've got titles like Toilet Paper Origami, 50 Sad Chairs, The Great Pantyhose Craft Book, and my personal favorite The Pop-Up Book of Phobias. So hie thee hence, check out their attic room, and ponder the absurdities that our presses have conjured up.