Author: Holly

The Taming cover

The Taming

Friday Fiction 16 comments

The Taming
Deveraux
1989

Submitter: If your idea of a romantic hero is a dude with anger management issues, zero people skills, and a bad case of lice, then here is the book for you! This is the tale of a lady who marries an impoverished misogynist and scrubs his entire castle. Despite the fact that he does not maintain his estate, she is somehow able to produce elaborate multi-course feasts. There’s a ghost, too, so maybe any kind of realism was too much to expect.

Also, we’re an academic library. Every book its reader notwithstanding, how in the name of S.R. Ranganathan did this get into our collection?

[Images, below:] 1 cheesy book cover with bad font (for a good 10 minutes, I thought the title was The Famine); 1 page of lice; 1 page of the most disgusting living-dining room situation in print; and 1 page of a downright miraculous meal.

Holly: Oh, Jude. Jude Deveraux was super popular back in the day. The cover DOES look like The Famine!

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Sneak it Through cover

Smuggling Made Easy

Vice Patrol 16 comments

Sneak it Through : Smuggling Made Easier
Michael Connor
1984
Paladin Press

Submitter: This book was found on shelf by one of our library clerks and brought to my attention. A surprising purchase, and my only guess is a collection development librarian had watched too many episodes of Magnum, P.I., Remington Steele, and or the A-team. However, its value to a public library seems limited even with the published date of 1984. For those like us in the northern climates, will enjoy the snow on the car roof trick.

Holly: Because, as the back cover says, “You never know what you might want to smuggle when times get tough!”

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Christmas Tree Crafts cover

Christmas Tree Crap, I mean Crafts

Craptastic Crafts and Hobbies 4 comments

Christmas Tree Crafts
Tichenor
1975

I was a year old when this book was published. That makes it 47 years old this year. I’m all for holiday craft books for kids, but this one is old and tired. There are giant chunks of pages falling out. Some kid, probably 47 years ago, colored on many of the templates in this copy. That kid probably has these hand-made ornaments on her tree to this very day, and her grandkids think they’re sooo old and weird, but dang it, she loves them. Especially the Christmas frog (see below).

Happy Holidays, everyone!

Holly

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Favorite Mormon Meat Recipes cover

Mormon Meat

You Ate What? 16 comments

Favorite Mormon Recipes
Meats Edition Including Seafoods and Poultry
2000 Favorite Recipes
Montgomery Second Branch of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
1966

Submitter: While weeding the cookbook section, I spied this sad spiral bound book being held together with a prayer. There is one thing I hate about cookbooks and that is a lack of pictures. In the case of this book- there were about 4 black and white photos in total for all 380+ pages. Incidentally there were no secret Jello recipes from Joseph Smith.

Holly: The Frankfurter-Kraut Noodle Ring, pictured below, reminds me of a dish my Polish family makes called haluski. We don’t Jello mold it, though. Missed opportunity.

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Christy cover

Tape and Prayer

Condition/Processing Fail 4 comments

Christy
Marshall LeSourd
1967

Submitter: While assisting a rural library with their weeding, we came across Christy. The solo librarian could not believe that it was still on the shelf. She was horrified. It was last checked out in 1995. This little library has done an excellent job of serving its citizens of 353. They use catalog cards and do everything manually, so it is hard to keep up! Someone must have thought that Christy could be brought back to life!

Holly: Poor Christy is being held together with about a pound of tape and a prayer – which is appropriate, since this book is popular with Christian homeschoolers in my community. My library’s copy has circulated 43 times since 2007 when our current copy was added, most recently one year ago today. It would even be worth buying a new copy if ours was in bad shape. Clearly it is not that popular in Submitter’s library, though, if they have a copy in this kind of condition that hasn’t gone out since 1995. I think they’re safe weeding it and letting it go. Different strokes for different folks! I am curious about the tape job, actually. You can no longer see any title from the spine and there’s no call number sticker either. Even the title on the cover is so faint you have to look closely to see what book it is. Maybe it would have circulated if anyone could tell what book it was while browsing.

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From the beginning - cover

From the Beginning

But it's Historical! 17 comments

The Atlas of World History: From the Beginning to Alexander the Great
McEvedy
1970

Submitter: Weeding my high school library, where the non fiction books average an age of 1986, I found this in the history section. I flipped through it and it seemed pretty decent for being published in 1970 and White American centric, but then I saw this map and read the text accompanying it. It seems pretty racist even for 1970s.

Holly: Ouch, 1986? You have your work cut out for you, Submitter. Good catch on this one.

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How to Eat Like a Republican cover

Republican Cooking

You Ate What? 10 comments

How to Eat Like a Republican: Or, Hold the Mayo, Muffy – I’m Feeling Miracle Whipped Tonight
Townsend
2014

Submitter: This book was just weeded at my public library. It was weeded for low checkouts and there’s a reason why. It’s trying too hard to be funny and the recipes don’t look good at all.

Holly: I bet if you replaced “Republican” with any other group of people, political or not, you’d get the same basic recipes submitted. It’s definitely tongue-in-cheek, and I bet there are libraries where this kind of thing circulates well. I agree that the recipes look kind of dumb. For me, that’s actually what makes it funny! Some of the reviews on GoodReads are pretty funny too.

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