Cool books we can never sell(?), part 2

Although I'm posting this week's installment of "Cool books we can never sell," I'll admit I'm skeptical about this title since I'm sorely tempted to buy it for myself. The book: a used copy of the 1979 publication of UFO... Contact From the Pleiades, Vol 1.

The dust jacket informs the curious reader that:

"By the time you reach the final chapter in this Photo-Journal, you will have reached an exciting new level of awareness concerning the previously 'most impenetrable' mystery of our time... UFO's [sic]. Has the 'most impenetrable' mystery of this century been solved? Can we now replace the term UFO with known... IFO... Identified Flying Object? Only you can decide."

On the facing page is a Certificate of Authenticity guaranteeing this as a "specially bound First Edition" printed with the "highest grade color inks on the best imported 12" x 24" 100lb. Quintessence stock for the finest color reproduction".

If the high quality of the volume isn't enough in itself, its contents are of equal substance. There are pages of scientific evaluation of data, including analysis of the results of "Photogrammetric" tests, a process that involved the use of a Microdensitometer (shown below).

It's quite scientific.

However, if you don't have a scientific bent, there is a human - er, alien - interest as well, in the inclusion of select quotations from a few of the Pleiadian cosmonauts. Although PTAAH has a few choice words for earthlings, including the (inadvertant?) revelation that as of 1975, the Pleiadians were not yet authorized to interfere in human affairs, it is SEMJASE who steals the show, demonstrating a masterful blend ecological compassion, scientific knowledge and mysticism, as well as providing a hint of more to come (Volume 2, anyone?):

"You call us extraterrestrials or star-men, and you attribute to us superhuman powers even though you do not know us. Regarding this, we are men, like you, but our knowledge and our understanding exceeds yours considerably, especially in the technical field."

"We do not reach to an end of the universe, for such does not exist."

"Within a short time I will get a new beamship, which you will be allowed to photograph closely, to get better pictures."

Cool books we'll never sell

Our used book buyers mostly see the same thing day in and day out: once-popular fiction, the Shipping News, old travel guides, the Road Less Traveled, and so on. We buy hundreds of books each day with confidence that they'll sell, but on some books we take a chance and hope for the best. Sure, we get excited sometimes, like when a great batch of quality cookbooks arrives, or when someone brings us all of Haruki Murakami's books in good condition. Still, used book buying is usually more rote than seat-of-your-pants kind of work.

But there's an interesting type of used book we see on occasion: cool books we'll never sell.

I got one today: After Dinner Science by Kenneth Swezey (circa 1950). The book has no dust-jacket, no blurbs; it' s not being reviewed on the radio or being pushed by Oprah; it's a "science" book, but the casual browser will never pluck this worn spine off the shelves. You can see what they're missing.

(If you can't read the copy, click to enlarge; the photo above is from the experiment entitled "Boil Your Coffee with Ice," and the photo at right is entitled "Sympathetic Milk Bottles.")

These books come in sometimes, and we have nowhere to put them: we don't see enough of them to merit a section, but they would get lost in the stacks. Mostly they kick around the counter until enough staffers have had a chortle, then they go out to the bins or the free box.

A few month's ago, there was a great book from the 1960s on professional rat catchers. And Le Petomane comes in from time to time. And there was the final Might magazine we stumbled on a while back. Want the Might magazine or After Dinner Science? First one to email me (pete at greenapplebooks DOT com) can have either or both; free if you can pick them up, $5 to ship. Really, we just want to match books to people who will love them.

MISSED CONNECTION:
Oh, and there's another Green Apple "Missed Connection" on Craigslist that works too well with today's Science theme to ignore. Is it physics or chemistry?