Bizarrely, Two Bizarre Book Books Debut Simultaneoulsy

Bizarre Books is a book that has been designed as a compendium of classic oddities - books that are either weird in and of their own right (How To Abandon Ship) or books that have become weird-seeming because their titles and/or authors evoke a response in the modern reader that would not have troubled their original audience (Scouts In Bondage). It was first published in the UK as Fish Who Answer The Telephone. It has a wonderfully colorful cover, but the interior is entirely black and white. Great quantity of titles, low quality of reproduction.


Above is another book that covers precisely the same territory: Scouts In Bondage and other Violations of Literary Propriety, which has a two-color cover, yet is in full color inside. Compounding the confusion, the cover of the original Scouts In Bondage appears on the cover of Bizarre Books. Scouts In Bondage and other Violations of Literary Propriety has great quality pictures of the tomes, but a relatively low number of books to peruse.

Bizarre Books lists many more qualifying books, including one of my favorites, Handbook for the Limbless:


But Scouts In Bondage has gorgeous color pictures for each of its selections, i.e.:

They're about fifteen bucks apiece, and if you like this kind of nonsense, you better go for them both.