TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Best novelty books for Christmas?

By Robert Nagle

Question: What low-cost novelty book(s) can you recommend as Christmas presents?

I love e-books (our latest Kindle news is here); I just don’t buy them as gifts. But I do enjoy buying physical books for people. A decade ago, I used to worry that a book I’d buy would be something a person had already read. Nowadays, though, I no longer worry so much; there’s just an endless variety of great books out there, and the chances of buying something a friend or relative has already read or bought is virtually nil.

Yesterday I visited the local Half-Priced Books and headed straight to the $1 rack which was incredibly well-stocked for the holidays. I ended up buying a good $75 worth of books, both for myself and friends. I also wandered through the bookstore and found lots of books which were visually interesting. In a week or so I plan to buy bargain books at half.com. But online buying differs radically from in-store buying. When inside the store, you notice things. You’re more likely to give certain books attention–not only because of packaging but also price and book description. Imagine browsing through Amazon.com for $1 books (actually $4 if you include shipping). It sounds fatiguing. Every time you press a hyperlink, you experience a two second delay while Amazon loads the new page along with its weekly promotions (”Buy the new Kindle!”).

Over the years, I’ve stumbled across quite a number of books which are surprising and fantastic and great books for novelty value alone. I call them novelty books. Either they are smartly written or contain unusual content or look appealing or stop you in your tracks at the bookstore or library. (Many of these, by the way, would make terrible ebooks!) Often, if I stumble upon a number of copies of the same book on the dollar rack, I’ll buy multiple copies and just give them as Christmas presents (as I did a few years ago with 10 Fun Things to Do Before You Die ). Below you is my list of favorite low-priced novelty books that grabbed me at bookstores. Feel free to add your own favorites.

• How to Create a Flawless Universe in Just Eight Days . This anti-book consists of lots of doodles by a cartoonist imagining himself as God creating the universe, along with lots of random notes: sketches for possible alternatives to human beings and star shapes (”Giving the sun a big smiley face can be a huge mistake.”) The book has no copyright, no author and exists more as a conceptual book than an actual book. On one page called “Correcting Chaos,” the author offers workarounds/corrections for his creative mistakes from prior days, but mysteriously the page is ripped out, along with the handwritten scrawl: has anyone seen these pages? I really need them, it’s all going wrong –where are those pages I WILL PAY GOOD MONEY FOR THEM).
• Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody by Will Cuppy. Funny and short biographical sketches of famous people written in 1950. Reminiscent of Thurber.
• 10 Fun Things to Do Before You Die crazy guide to enjoying life by nun and bookstore owner, Karol Jackowski. I received a lot of compliments after I gave this gift to everybody for Christmas.
• Pop Up Book of Phobias by Gary Greenburg. In this hilarious book for adults, all kinds of frightening things jump out at you, including a gigantic dentist drill. Words cannot do justice to the experience of reading it; you have to see for yourself.
• Portable People by Paul West. West is known for writing experimental and esoteric fiction, but this book contains one page biographical sketches (full of inner monologues) of famous people.
• Golden Gate by Vikram Seth. I taught this book at my Contemporary American Letters class at Johns Hopkins. It is a delightful novel in verse (a la Pushkin) which my students loved. Tale of love and romance among young yuppies; okay, the plot wasn’t amazing, but it was clever and charming (and the verse itself was masterfully done and easy to read). Seth went on to bigger and better things, but his first literary venture had a lightness and charm one finds only rarely. (Although amazon doesn’t have low-priced editions of this book in stock, on half.com it’s available for $1 + $3 shipping).
• Book of Luminous Things by Czeslaw Milosz. I don’t read much poetry and it would not occur to me to give a poetry anthology as a gift.  But this book contains some wonderful gems, along with short reflections by Milosz. All the poems are short, witty and accessible; I would easily recommend this book to nonliterary friends.
• Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. Famous essay about comics written as a comic book.
• Educated Child: Parent’s Guide from Preschool through Eighth Grade by William Bennett. Ok, have you stopped laughing yet? I found this impressive volume on the dollar rack and found it to be the perfect present for my younger brother (who is a parent of 4 children). This simple guide offers tips on how parents can improve the learning atmosphere for their children, along with grade-specific suggestions. Perhaps if I read the whole thing, Bennett’s conservative philosophy will be apparent, but what I’ve seen so far seems uncontroversial and helpful.
• 3 Minutes or Less: Life Lessons from America’s Greatest Writers, by PEN/Faulkner Foundation. Collection of stories by famous writers, with no story longer than 3 pages. Talk about short attention spans! Actually, the short form forces great writers to focus on simple kinds of storytelling, often about childhood.
• Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker. Slim first novel by Baker depicting eight minutes at work, with all sorts of random ruminations, complete with footnotes. Memorable moments include using the hand dryer in the company’s bathroom.
• Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Extraordinary Book of Facts is a series of anthologies intended for reading while on the toilet. Jeez, can’t people just read a newspaper?
• Anything by Andrei Codrescu. This poet/storyteller writes all sorts of short pieces or NPR Radio and he publishes many of them in volumes. Check out Zombification, Hail Babylon or (my favorite) Ay, Cuba! A Socio-Erotic Journey .
• Paris Spleen by Baudelaire. Short prose poems to buy for your literary friends. I’m shocked at how little-known this book is.
• Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino. Oh, I see this book is now expensive again, but for a while, you could buy the books for a penny. Great imaginative exercise about the creation of the universe.
• Dot and the Line by Norton Juster. Illustrated novelty book for kids about a geometric romance by author of Phantom Tollbooth. Very short but funny. See also interviews here, here and here. And don’t forget its predecessor (which is a public domain ebook) Flatland by Edwin Abbott. See also Chuck Jones’ animation of this classic.
• Digital Video Production Cookbook: 100 Professional Techniques for Independent and Amateur Filmmakers by Chris Kenworthy. I dabble in video production, and this picture book illustrates basic information about setting up shots and how to pull off certain movie tricks. I came across this book while at a social event for Python programmers in Dallas. Instead of talking to people, I instead spent the entire time reading this book in the bookstore!
• Book of Lists/Guiness World Book of Records, etc. I don’t know how interesting these would be to read nowadays, but I read both books from cover to cover in middle school. It was an odd way of learning about history and society (I learned the spurious fact about Hitler having one testicle long before I learned about what really happened at Auschwitz).
• Disco Duck and other adventures in novelty music by Ace Collins. Perhaps it’s a generational thing, but I found this brief book about popular novelty songs not only interesting to read, but revealing about how certain songs are suddenly propelled to the tops of the charts.
• Influence: Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini. Not a novelty book per se, but I stumbled upon this book at a library in Albania and read it in a single night. I have since reread this book several times. It describes the principles of social psychology that salespeople use to influence your behavior and how to resist them. Expensive, but entertaining.
• Perfect Vacuum by Stanislaw Lem. Of course, anything by Lem is great imaginative fun, but this particular work consists of nothing but book reviews of imaginary books. It’s remarkable how closely Lem’s chapters actually resemble the type of reviews you’d find in literary periodicals today.
• New Guide to World Literature by Martin Seymour-Smith. Read my teleread post praising it. It’s about $20 though.
• Fables for our Time by James Thurber. Fun fairy tales with an edge. Sadly, his famous 1929 work Is Sex Necessary? is not in the public domain because of Walt Disney’s greed.

(Note: I am including Amazon.com links merely because amazon.com currently has the most reviews from readers, not because I endorse them. I invariably buy used books from half.com (where the prices are usually cheaper, especially if you buy multiple copies from the same seller).

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