In Celebration Of World Book Day
Seeing as I keep getting friends wishing me happy World Book Day (something I barely knew existed because authors never hear about anything in the publishing world unless it’s really bad news), here’s a list of the books Arthur Bryant is happy promoting on this auspicious occasion. They stand on the shelves behind his desk at the Peculiar Crimes Unit.
As you know, Mr Bryant uses his collection of rare, abstruse and deeply peculiar books to help him solve cases. (NB: Not all of these titles are imaginary; I’ll leave you to work out which ones are real.)
Bats of the British Isles
The Everyman Book of Wartime First Aid(with haddock bone bookmark)
Common Folk Remedies of the Onka-Wooka Tribe
How To Perform Occult Rites Using Everyday Kitchen Items
Incurable & Unnatural Vices of the Third Sex
Fifty Thrifty Cheese Recipes
Nachtkultur and Metatropism
How to Spot German and Italian Aircraft
Whither Wicca?The Future of Pagan Cults
The Apocryphal Books of the Dead
Tibetan skulls And Their Supernatural Uses
Mystical diagrams of Solomon’s Temple (Colouring-In Edition)
Criminal records from Newgate Gaol (32 volumes)
Kabalistic Pentagrams of the Absolute
Seymour’s British Witchcraft and Demonology(Rare, limited edition)
RAF Slang Made Easy(Uncensored paperback edition)
The East Anglican Book of Civil Magicke
Gardening Secrets of Curates’ Wives(Privately circulated volume)
The Oxford Handbook of Criminology (first edition)
Mayhew’s London Characters and Crooks
J.R. Hanslet’s All of Them Witches
Deitleff’s Psychic Experience in the Weimar Republic
Another Fifty Thrifty Cheese Recipes
Brackleson’sStoat-Breeding for Intermediates
The Luddite’s Guide to the Internet
Me & Chaos Theory, written by Arthur himself
The History Of Gog And Magog
Dental Evidence in Body Identification (Volume One: Bridgework)
The Vanished Rivers of London
The Mammoth Book of Druid Lore
Great Boiler Explosions Of The Ukraine
The British Catalogue of Victorian Naval Signals
The Fall of Jonathan Wild, Thief-Taker
Tribal Scarification (Volume 3: M-R)
London’s Most Notorious Highwaymen
Ordinance survey map Of London 1911 edition
Malleus Maleficarum(The Witches’ Hammer), 1486 edition
The East Anglia Witches: An Investigation into the Nature of Evil
The 1645 Omens of the Apocalypse
Grow Your Own Hemp
The Beano Christmas Annual, 1968
‘Laugh, I Thought I’d Die’: Reincarnation and Comedy
Victorian Water Closets: A Social History
Sumerian Religious Beliefs and Legends
Colonic Exercises for Asthmatics
Shazam! The Adventures of Captain Marvel
Mend Your Own Pipes!
Pornography and Paganism
Courtship Rituals of Papua New Guinea
Code-Breaking in Braille
A History of Welsh Vivisection
The Secret Life of London’s Public Houses
Yoruba Proverbs
The Anatomy of Melancholia
Further Thrifty Cheese Recipes (Edam and Red Leicester only)
Embalming Under Lenin
Cormorant-Sexing for Beginners
The Apocalypsis Revelata, Volume II
A Complete History of the Trouser-Press
Financial Accounts for the Swedish Mining Board, Years 1745–53
The Pictorial Guide to Chairman Mao Alarm Clocks
A copy of Letts Schoolboy Diary for 1952
Secret Codes & Urban Semiotics in Viennese Street Names
An Informal History of the Black Death
Intestinal Parasites Volume Two
British Boundary Lines; 1066-1700
A Guide To The Cumberland Pencil Museum
Greek Rural Postmen And Their Cancellation Numbers
The Pictorial Dictionary Of Barbed Wire
Collectable Spoons of the Third Reich
Patient files for the Royal Bethlehem Hospital, Moorgate, 1723-33
The Time Out Guide to Alternative London, 1971
‘Mind The Ghosts’ – The London Underground & The Spirit World
Conjuring & Tricks With Cards Vols 1-6
Mortar and Mortality; Who Died In Your House? (1923 edition)
Intestinal Funguses Volume 3
A User’s Guide to Norwegian Sewing Machines
The Complete Compendium of Lice
Cross-Stitching in the Time of Edward The Confessor
Hungarian-British Trade Fairs of the 1950s
The International Handbook of Underwater Acoustics
Across Europe With A Kangaroo
The complete works of Edward Bulwer-Lytton in Braille
Churchill’s Favourite Engineering Problems
Recreating Renaissance Masterpieces with Cheese
Bombproofing For Beginners
An Informal History of Cow-Staining
Stipendiary Justice in 19thCentury Wales
Unusual Punishments for Sodomy Vol.13: Northern Portugal
How To Cook Bats
‘Take My Wife, Please’: Negotiation Techniques In Abduction Cases
15 comments on “In Celebration Of World Book Day”
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Oddly, I have copies of ‘The Lost Rivers Of London’, by Nicholas Barton, and the 1968 ‘Beano’ annual. Both damn good reads, too. I had ‘Beano’ and ‘Dandy’ annuals every year, along with the very odd ‘Doctor Who’ annual, until I was about 12.
All good reading for a dark and stormy night. There’s always a laugh when Arthur’s books are listed. Hard to believe some of them are actual titles.
Can anyone tell me where I can get Recreating Renaissance Masterpieces with Cheese?
Collectable Spoons of the Third Reich made me laugh. I grew up in a house with teaspoons marked with eagles and swastikas in everyday use, which I didn’t even think about until a visitor reacted with what I’m going to describe as ‘surprise.’ Unfortunately we weren’t Nazi spies, one of my grandfathers spent some time collecting souvenirs in Germany in the mid-forties. Much less interesting.
Best title on my bookshelf at the moment is, ‘The Day Jesus Rode Into Croydon’
Several would lend themselves for witches’ costumes from the pound shop for primary school children. Maybe even the bat books would past muster.
This one is for real. I own the 1942 first edition:
Headhunting in the Solomon Islands, by Caroline Mytinger.
I have ECCENTRIC LIVES AND PECULIAR NOTIONS, subtitled Flat Earthers, Head Drillers, Urologists, Frantic Lovers, Welsh Druids, Finders of Lost Tribes, and Other Obsessed Individuals, by John Michell, published by Black Dog and Leventhal. Other titles from him include A Little History of Astro-Archaeology and Megalithomania.
I seem to have a book on trepanation and another on knitting Somerset farmers’ smocks.
I’m very fond of my firsts of two books by the great Dr. Dingwall:-
1. Artificial cranial deformation
2. Male infibulation
By Dr. Cockayne (no less) – Anglo Saxon Leechdoms and Wortcunning
And The Acute Abdomen in Rhyme
All essential reading for the curious collector…
I nearly bought A Partial History of Funereal Violin Music but, being incomplete, I thought I might feel disappointed.
I really wish I could spend a few hours with a good light, a comfy chair, and Arthur’s library. I’ll bet The Acute Abdomen in Rhyme that Chazza has is a mnemonic book for medical students.
That Somerset knitting book boggles my mind because smocks aren’t knitted almost by definition, but I think we’ve been round this one before.
I am surprised Arthur doesn’t have a book on Nose Hair Maintenance for the Elderly Gent.
In connection with Mr. Pearson’s Head-hunting book, I read somewhere that, during the last war, Islanders in the Pacific, and tribes in places like Papua, New Guinea, who had been head-hunters, in the past, and who had been persuaded to drop that quaint custom, were told, by, I believe, the US and Australian authorities, that they could take it up again, and no action would be taken against them, so long as those heads were Japanese.
Ian, my husband agrees with you and says that the headhunting title sounds very familiar. His understanding was that the practice was neither advocated nor condemned but would be ignored as long as the heads involved were Japanese.
I have a copy of ‘Knitting with Dog Hair’; always meant to try it, but never did. Had actual samples included. Then a cyberfriend in the Yukon Territory sent me a pair of mittens actually knitted from dog hair; I can only imagine what they’d smell like when wet. Well, like wet dog, I suppose.