If my relatives’ bookshelves are any indication these are the only books that exist.
dakimel+33
NEED the Camptown book ASAP.
EPWordsnatcher+12
WOULD READ
bluebluebaby+8
there actually is a book about Stephen Foster called Doo-Dah! I am both proud and embarrassed to know this.
I_Sell_Books
But Stephen Foster was awesome!
cosmia+49
I don’t understand this new thing with titling books “An Oral History of __”? Isn’t oral history, like, talking?
The only way I will appreciate this is if it is used as a pun to name a book about blow jobs.
jhsaxena+21
I think you just came up with the best book idea I’ve ever heard.
aravisthequeen+26
It shouldn’t be. A gifted and trained oral historian is someone who doesn’t just interview and write shit down–they know how to ask the right questions in the right order, to draw out conclusions, to contextualize the interview, to provide the appropriate background information both for the subject and the reader. If it were just writing down interview everyone would do it–the gift of historians like Studs Terkel is an intimate knowledge of human nature and being a good listener blended with an ear for history and the sense to place the interview in the context it requires.
But people titling random things “An Oral History” of whatever doesn’t help.
Frumiosa+20
After I first saw “Mermaids” in 6th grade, I asked a friend what oral sex was. Just as innocent as I, her eyes got wide and she said, “Like….in front of everyone? Like when we have to do oral reports?” This seemed logical. Then later I asked another friend, one who was Experienced (second base!), and she not only knew, she taught me the word blowjob. And I couldn’t believe that was a thing that people actually did. So. Gross. Nineteen years and nine years of marriage later….I feel the same way. I love my husband, but blowjobs will never not be a labor of love.
hugpunch+4
The only oral history I’ve ever enjoyed reading was that of the house party scene in Clueless. Otherwise, they are annoying.
hugpunch+43
“Watch as Wife-Lady puts being a wife on the back burner, and focuses on being a lady, in Lady-Wife! (But don’t think she’ll let that back burner get out of control – she’s still the wife and the kitchen is her domain!)”
Orla+1
Sublime.
elsamac+25
Picturing the text of RRRG: An Oral History of Zombies by Zombies made me laugh surprisingly hard.
divingbeth+4
Although I feel a great opportunity was missed here! It shoulda been called GRR ARGH.
aravisthequeen+35
I would totally read both The Wife-Lady and The Lady-Wife. NO JUDGMENT.
Also “The Occupation’s Female Relative” [butcher/baker/candlestick maker’s] [daughter/wife/niece/mistress/cousin]
deleted7410012+40
“The Girl With That Thing You Find Intriguing”
thewhelk+67
The Habadasher’s Great Aunt: Book Four In The August Opal Cycle: A Mortimer Hereforth Mystery.
I_Sell_Books+1
I think we have that.
mbculver+35
I’m so down with “The Occupation’s Female Relative” and also “The Geographical Location Fancy Abstract Noun,” AKA the amazing new thriller, “The Sheboygan Conundrum.”
plumbb0b+3
The tagline to this book is ‘A romantic wish-fulfilment fantasy with literary pretensions’.
katienaum+26
I don’t need a guide to being self-conscious, I am self-taught :-/
maccrocodile+27
Could you give me some pointers? I might be doing it wrong.
meetapossum+80
My favorite Staff Recommendation I ever read was at The Strand for Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge:
“If you’ve ever gotten drunk and gambled away your wife, you’ll enjoy this sturdy psychological novel.”
vmartinipie+8
Damn that is a good staff pick blurb.
vmartinipie+56
You missed a book with only a woman’s back on the cover; any novel by a white dude from Brooklyn that will invariably have a description of learning to masturbate and which will be described in a cover blurb as “magisterial;” some book which uses the history of one item to describe the history of the whole world; and yet another (another?!) book by Dave Eggers.
The headless woman cover illustration thing drives me bananas.
cuminafterall+57
Bring it to a Boil: The Surprising Story of Skin Infections and What They Can Tell Us About Life On Earth
You’re Doing It Wrong: How Literally Every Other Person in Every Other Country is Smarter, Happier, Richer, and More Attractive Than You and Your Compatriots
thewhelk+28
“Better Living Through Self-Loathing.”
thebellewitch+10
In France, do they have books about how like, Serbians, are better human beings? (Or any other country – I don’t know, I’m just moving in a easterly direction)
aravisthequeen+54
I love the idea of different countries reading books about how other countries are better. Like in Poland everyone is reading “Dutch Women Don’t Turn Into Their Mothers” and people in Botswana are reading “Blue Skies: What Senegal Teaches Us About Life and Love” and in Peru people are reading “Argentina, Mi Amo: How I Changed My Life And Started Anew.”
thebellewitch+18
I feel like this could be a dissertation (or maybe just a Tumblr). We could link every country in the world via self-help books.
tragicallyludicrous+7
The Dutch don’t think that anyone could teach them about anything, except for food.
The English are minorly obsessed with how everything is better in Scandinavia, though.
TLO+17
What about books with “book club” in the title? I hear if you have a book club meeting about one of those books, the walls bend and the windows shatter and everyone dies (maybe).
mbculver+3
Actually, my neighborhood book club started umpteen years ago with a novel about a book club, whose full title I can’t remember to save my life. Happily no one died, but the walls might’ve bent just a bit.
PaigePoo+15
I can’t stop laughing at “Clown for Anything”. Perfection.
mkpatter+9
Not enough books that are meant to look like the Twilight or Girl With a Dragon Tattoo covers to trick you into reading them.
EPWordsnatcher+12
Oh, like The Night Garden Hose ISN’T a Fifty Shades of Gray ripoff.
mkpatter+4
Ah yes, that is the other series whose covers publishers like to mimic!
ToTheIsLand+3
On the non-fiction side, the ones which want you to think it’s a Malcolm Gladwell book, or a Mary Roach.
mbculver+5
My library has “YA” versions of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights that totally look like Twilight-type flotsam, and I sincerely hope that many 14-year-olds have been Tricked by Marketing into reading them.
Ardo Omer+1
I totes want “How I Wrote This Book”
Diet_of_Worms
The Woman With The Slightly Unusual Accessory
BBPratt
I love the books with the history of one item to describe the history of the whole world!
KCKohan
ohhhh i wish the subtitle for These Nuts. was “How My Career as an Arborologist Came to Fruition as a Double-Entendre.” awkward phraseology, but puns!
Bittersweet
Actually, my neighborhood book club started umpteen years ago with a novel about a book club, whose full title I can't remember to save my life. Happily no one died, but the walls might've bent just a bit.
Bittersweet
My library has "YA" versions of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights that totally look like Twilight-type flotsam, and I sincerely hope that many 14-year-olds have been Tricked by Marketing into reading them.
If my relatives’ bookshelves are any indication these are the only books that exist.
NEED the Camptown book ASAP.
WOULD READ
there actually is a book about Stephen Foster called Doo-Dah! I am both proud and embarrassed to know this.
But Stephen Foster was awesome!
I don’t understand this new thing with titling books “An Oral History of __”? Isn’t oral history, like, talking?
The only way I will appreciate this is if it is used as a pun to name a book about blow jobs.
I think you just came up with the best book idea I’ve ever heard.
It shouldn’t be. A gifted and trained oral historian is someone who doesn’t just interview and write shit down–they know how to ask the right questions in the right order, to draw out conclusions, to contextualize the interview, to provide the appropriate background information both for the subject and the reader. If it were just writing down interview everyone would do it–the gift of historians like Studs Terkel is an intimate knowledge of human nature and being a good listener blended with an ear for history and the sense to place the interview in the context it requires.
But people titling random things “An Oral History” of whatever doesn’t help.
After I first saw “Mermaids” in 6th grade, I asked a friend what oral sex was. Just as innocent as I, her eyes got wide and she said, “Like….in front of everyone? Like when we have to do oral reports?” This seemed logical. Then later I asked another friend, one who was Experienced (second base!), and she not only knew, she taught me the word blowjob. And I couldn’t believe that was a thing that people actually did. So. Gross. Nineteen years and nine years of marriage later….I feel the same way. I love my husband, but blowjobs will never not be a labor of love.
The only oral history I’ve ever enjoyed reading was that of the house party scene in Clueless. Otherwise, they are annoying.
“Watch as Wife-Lady puts being a wife on the back burner, and focuses on being a lady, in Lady-Wife! (But don’t think she’ll let that back burner get out of control – she’s still the wife and the kitchen is her domain!)”
Sublime.
Picturing the text of RRRG: An Oral History of Zombies by Zombies made me laugh surprisingly hard.
Although I feel a great opportunity was missed here! It shoulda been called GRR ARGH.
I would totally read both The Wife-Lady and The Lady-Wife. NO JUDGMENT.
Also “The Occupation’s Female Relative” [butcher/baker/candlestick maker’s] [daughter/wife/niece/mistress/cousin]
“The Girl With That Thing You Find Intriguing”
The Habadasher’s Great Aunt: Book Four In The August Opal Cycle: A Mortimer Hereforth Mystery.
I think we have that.
I’m so down with “The Occupation’s Female Relative” and also “The Geographical Location Fancy Abstract Noun,” AKA the amazing new thriller, “The Sheboygan Conundrum.”
The tagline to this book is ‘A romantic wish-fulfilment fantasy with literary pretensions’.
I don’t need a guide to being self-conscious, I am self-taught :-/
Could you give me some pointers? I might be doing it wrong.
My favorite Staff Recommendation I ever read was at The Strand for Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge:
“If you’ve ever gotten drunk and gambled away your wife, you’ll enjoy this sturdy psychological novel.”
Damn that is a good staff pick blurb.
You missed a book with only a woman’s back on the cover; any novel by a white dude from Brooklyn that will invariably have a description of learning to masturbate and which will be described in a cover blurb as “magisterial;” some book which uses the history of one item to describe the history of the whole world; and yet another (another?!) book by Dave Eggers.
ooooh, also, “YA book about non-white female protagonist with white girl on the cover” — like these: http://www.yalsa.ala.org/thehub/2012/12/10/it-mat…
The headless woman cover illustration thing drives me bananas.
Bring it to a Boil: The Surprising Story of Skin Infections and What They Can Tell Us About Life On Earth
You’re Doing It Wrong: How Literally Every Other Person in Every Other Country is Smarter, Happier, Richer, and More Attractive Than You and Your Compatriots
“Better Living Through Self-Loathing.”
In France, do they have books about how like, Serbians, are better human beings? (Or any other country – I don’t know, I’m just moving in a easterly direction)
I love the idea of different countries reading books about how other countries are better. Like in Poland everyone is reading “Dutch Women Don’t Turn Into Their Mothers” and people in Botswana are reading “Blue Skies: What Senegal Teaches Us About Life and Love” and in Peru people are reading “Argentina, Mi Amo: How I Changed My Life And Started Anew.”
I feel like this could be a dissertation (or maybe just a Tumblr). We could link every country in the world via self-help books.
The Dutch don’t think that anyone could teach them about anything, except for food.
The English are minorly obsessed with how everything is better in Scandinavia, though.
What about books with “book club” in the title? I hear if you have a book club meeting about one of those books, the walls bend and the windows shatter and everyone dies (maybe).
Actually, my neighborhood book club started umpteen years ago with a novel about a book club, whose full title I can’t remember to save my life. Happily no one died, but the walls might’ve bent just a bit.
I can’t stop laughing at “Clown for Anything”. Perfection.
Not enough books that are meant to look like the Twilight or Girl With a Dragon Tattoo covers to trick you into reading them.
Oh, like The Night Garden Hose ISN’T a Fifty Shades of Gray ripoff.
Ah yes, that is the other series whose covers publishers like to mimic!
On the non-fiction side, the ones which want you to think it’s a Malcolm Gladwell book, or a Mary Roach.
My library has “YA” versions of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights that totally look like Twilight-type flotsam, and I sincerely hope that many 14-year-olds have been Tricked by Marketing into reading them.
I totes want “How I Wrote This Book”
The Woman With The Slightly Unusual Accessory
I love the books with the history of one item to describe the history of the whole world!
ohhhh i wish the subtitle for These Nuts. was “How My Career as an Arborologist Came to Fruition as a Double-Entendre.” awkward phraseology, but puns!
Actually, my neighborhood book club started umpteen years ago with a novel about a book club, whose full title I can't remember to save my life. Happily no one died, but the walls might've bent just a bit.
My library has "YA" versions of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights that totally look like Twilight-type flotsam, and I sincerely hope that many 14-year-olds have been Tricked by Marketing into reading them.