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A review by outcolder
Frog Raising for Pleasure and Profit and Other Bizarre Books by Brian Lake
3.0
Inexplicably, the Austrian National Library has two copies of this book, one of which I read in one sitting in the large reading room there this morning. The seriousness of the setting, surrounded by students, scholars and more than one anti-social lunatic, made the work seem even more ridiculous by comparison. After too many pages of Beavis and Butthead reactions to mainly Victorian titles, the authors finally get down to business with a section about books with an extremely narrow focus. For example, there is a book analyzing car accidents involving moose. While others in that reading room, deep within a Hapsburg Palace, typed notes about scholarly topics into their laptops, yours truly was scribbling, “The Strange Story of False Teeth” by John Woodforde and other titles of questionable erudition. “Wall Paintings by Snake Charmers in Tanganyika” also made my list.
Necessarily subjective, the compilers mentioned more than one title that I legitimately find interesting, and at least one I had only recently seen cited in a book I’ve just read. So if my life plan is to join the lunatics who hang around National Libraries, I seem to be winning.
I have to qualify my Beavis and Butthead crack, though, since I often giggle at funny names and unintended double-entendres, as much as anyone with monkey ancestors. One of the authors mentioned in a list of awkward names, Ludwig von Baldass, has been honored with a street name here in Vienna, and consequently an U-Bahn station, a photo of which has been my Facebook banner picture for a few weeks... so glass houses, etc. There were a few times while reading when I had to suppress laughter so as not to disturb the ambitious readers around me. Kudos to those responsible for this edition at a time when library catalogs and used bookstore inventories were not searchable from home. A milestone in bibliomania, long may Bizarre Books be preserved in temperature controlled, low humidity compact shelving.
Necessarily subjective, the compilers mentioned more than one title that I legitimately find interesting, and at least one I had only recently seen cited in a book I’ve just read. So if my life plan is to join the lunatics who hang around National Libraries, I seem to be winning.
I have to qualify my Beavis and Butthead crack, though, since I often giggle at funny names and unintended double-entendres, as much as anyone with monkey ancestors. One of the authors mentioned in a list of awkward names, Ludwig von Baldass, has been honored with a street name here in Vienna, and consequently an U-Bahn station, a photo of which has been my Facebook banner picture for a few weeks... so glass houses, etc. There were a few times while reading when I had to suppress laughter so as not to disturb the ambitious readers around me. Kudos to those responsible for this edition at a time when library catalogs and used bookstore inventories were not searchable from home. A milestone in bibliomania, long may Bizarre Books be preserved in temperature controlled, low humidity compact shelving.