1d ago

What’s the rarest/weirdest book you own?

I have volume 1 of Kim Il Sung’s works in English - printed in North Korea in the 70’s. I don’t know if the Foreign Languages Publishing House survived long enough for a Volume 2. They did put out some of Jong’s thoughts on film, if I recall correctly.

This is probably the prize of my collection. I have a first American printing of Lolita, which unfortunately has a bit of cat vomit stain on it or might be in that spot.

27 comments

the year was 2002 and I was hacking and slashing in Dynasty Warriors 3, one of the GOAT PS2 titles. my bro and I got intrigued by china breaking up and thought thought Lu Bu and Zhang Fei were badasses so we said hey jeeves what other Dynasty Warriors media is there? Soon I discovered a massive novel in four volumes - the romance of the three kingdoms - and thought damn that's fat for a game tie-in novel this Moss Roberts guy must love the games like we do to translate this gigachonker
naturally I bought a copy. the covers and box sheath colored in an unsalable brown only a university press could sign off on, with nearly phonebook-thin paper and typesetting that wasnt always perfectly square on the page, but I ate it up. i got my Han Dissolution on and discovered gandalf, napoleon and macguyver in chinese form: the inestimable Zhuge Liang
I wish i knew where that set got to, but yeah an unabridged chinese epic attributed to some guy called Luo from the 16th cent. is mine

Oh! Here’s another delightful one - this was like $1 at Habitat for Humanity.
- My GF is Zulu. This fascinates me. They have lots of superstitions like this in Africa but for the most part Christianity drove it out of them so it's pretty lost.
  
  The Zulu were badass. I cheer for them every time I see that weird movie. I’ll have to read this one very soon - African history is so goddamn hard to find resources on.
  Like, I have a whole ass BA in history. While pursuing my BA, I wanted to take a class on African history. I watched for classes on African history for at least four years at a larger university. There were never any “history of the African continent.” Never any history of Nigeria or history of the Mali empire or whatever. Everything I have I’ve pieced together has been through immense personal effort - which makes me angry. Why is African history neglected? Why is African linguistics so neglected, when click languages are the coolest thing that have ever existed? Why is Timbuktu a mythical place instead of being recognized as what was the Library of its time, that the people who saved it from whatever fucked up Salafist group attacked aren’t recognized as genuine Saints - why is African history so neglected?
  A favorite personal exercise is to ask people to name 5 African counties unprompted -this is a test that almost every single person I have directly posed this question to has failed. Chad maybe, “the Congo”, Uganda. My ex had some passion for Algeria/the FLN so could name them, although I’m the only one that bothered reading Fanon.
- That's pretty neat.

My partner and I stumbled across first edition Ticknor & Fields printings (1867) of Henry Longfellow's translations of Inferno and Purgatorio at a used bookstore a couple years back. Got them for a song since they were missing the Paradiso to complete the set.
The owner said that they had been sitting in his storage for 15 years as part of an estate donation he got and he finally had the chance to go through it. When he found them he tore apart the rest of the boxes looking for the Paradiso but it just wasn't there.
Now its our white whale. Every used bookstore we go in we scour the classics/oldest/rare book section looking to complete the set.

My rarest that I still own is a full collection of Shakespeare works from the early 1800s bound in leather. It is absolutely beautiful but isn't worth much because the leather binding isn't original. I did have a signed leather bound copy of Ender's Game that was 1 of 2000 or something. I bought it for $200 brand new and sold it for $1500 a few years ago, though.
- Itching to know if they included Two Noble Kinsman or any other of the apocrypha.
  
  I'll try to remember to look into that tonight

I found a book non ironically titled "psychopathology of the deeply retarded". And it's not about Reddit users! It's a 70s academic text for professionals dealing with mentally deficient children 💀
- Sounds like a photo of the cover would be an excellent image macro or a retort in a comment thread.
  
  Yes that was my thought too! Sadly it is in french ("psychopathologie des débiles profonds") so not usable everywhere

I have a Japanese book on methods for committing suicide.

Protestant Prayer book in Lithuanian, printed in 1912 in Tilsiter, now Sovetsk, Kaliningrad. My grandparents had many more books like this one, but ended up burning most of them when they were moving to another house and Soviet repressions were getting scary.

The main scripture of Eckankar, the Shariyat-Ki-Sugmad.

I have a manuscript in Latin that was passed down in the family. The content seems to be some religious stuff when a family friend who understands Latin took a look at it. No one in the family actually bothered to understand what's written in it.
Maybe I will bring it to someone who could translate it when I have time on the future.
- I’m bored, curious, and able to pierce my way enough through Latin kinda sorta if you have uploads you’d like to dm or post in public. Undoubtedly there’s geeks online that are far better than me if you allow us a peek.
  (Or - I love that kind of stuff being preserved and am peer pressuring you into uploading when you have the spoons for it.)
  
  I will try to take a few pictures of it when I have a chance. We haven't opened it for years, because the book is is pretty bad shape. The binding (which is not original binding as far as I can tell) is about to fall apart. It's currently on the bookshelf squeezed between a few book to prevent it from crumbling.
  We were even planning at one point to digitalize it and donate it to a library (or some organization that can restore and preserve old book). But the family debate about it when this conversation come up because it's something that has been passed down for generations already.
- Would love a picture, that sounds really cool

I have a copy of the Codex Seraphinianus (not the original printing, but a facsimile edition that came out a decade or two ago). It’s as odd as it sounds.

2 volume bookplate signed set of Will Eisner's "A Contract With God". #33 of 125.

Damn, wish I could go get a picture of them but I have 1930 ish prints of Dante's Paradisio, Purgatorio, and Inferno. The specific print is relatively sought after and there is only one more in circulation. Doesn't have the dust covers like mine do though. Got them from a local collector. I also have a physics textbook from 1820 and a good few others I couldn't name. If I still remember when I get home in a few hours I'll update