Tuesday, September 26, 2006

V. v. v. busy

Give me a little break, Jose! and Thad! I have been busy all week. It was my birthday week and, let me tell you, it was WILD! and CRAZY! I'll post about it later, but right now I will say that last night I went to Barnes and Noble because I got a gift card and I wanted to make use of it. Here are two titles that I came across in the World History section whilst seeking a book on Turkish history (which I did not find):

The Not So Little Book of Dung

Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World

Yes, these are real titles. And, I might add, there were multiple copies of each. I'm not just talking about two, either. I mean there were like a dozen each. Oh, and while I was browsing in the European History section, I came across The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation, which doesn't have a weird title or subject, the only point of interest being that it was written by the same guy who wrote Cod and there was a line on the back cover proclaiming, "Like his celebrated Cod..."

I guess that a biography of the fish that changed the world must be a real gem. I mean, it was celebrated.

It sounds pretty boring to me, but if you like that, check out Salt: A World History, same author.

That dung book had better be good too, but I don't know how it could top the History of Farts.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I expect there to be a very good reason as to why there were so many copies of these books on the shelf.

Sara said...

I'm sayin'.

Jada said...

ain't nothin' wrong with a book about cod.

Tim Stewart said...

When I see the stuff that gets published nowadays, I groan, yeah, but I also breathe a sigh of relief. I mean, if this salty codstuff can get on the shelves of the big stores, then surely even humble I have a shot at getting a book published and sold somewhere, even if it's in a mom-n-pop feed-store-slash-magazine-rack in North Liberty, Iowa.

And for the record, I got nothin against feed, magazines, liberty, or Iowa.

Sara said...

The thing is, these books are apparently very appealing to a large crowd of people.

Well, we do live in Austin. The people here are trademark WEIRD.