Most Obscure Books That You Own

Everyone has something in their stack that no one else has. That weird little purchase that makes you feel special for being the only person who has heard of it. One of mine is a little pamphlet entitled The Complete Manual of Pirate Radio, which I bought to use for a high school project on freedom of speech and radio regulations. It's amatureish at best, but an interesting read.

My favorite hapaxes are Advaita Bodha Deepika: Lamp of Non-Dual Knowledge by Ramana Maharshi and China, India and the Ruins of Washington by Austin Coates. But I may have an advantage in this regard in that I once worked for a publisher and distributor of spiritual literature, so I have several books published in India. Tulasidasa's Shriramacharitamanasa: The Holy Lake of the Acts of Rama, anyone? Jeeze, I have 158 books unique to me, some of them surprisingly so. Let the esoterica games begin!

As I enter my books, I’m surprised at how many books I thought to be “obscure” often have several owners. And vice-versa.

One of my books with no other owners (yet) is You're the Top: A Love Song by Cole Porter. It's a fluffy, bargain bin book with the lyrics to the song set against black & white photography. I’ll buy just about anything for a buck but I really ended up liking this one—who knew there were seven refrains?

I also love Inside New York's Art World by Barbaralee Diamonstein. The title's fairly self-explanatory but the interviews are varied and insightful: Castelli, Lichtenstein, Rauschenberg, Pei and Nevelson, among others.

I'd say my two most obscure books are little hand-bound books from Papaveria Press, Catherynne M. Valente's Ghosts of Gunkanjima and Hal Duncan's Sonnets for Orpheus, which were made in editions of 20 and 26, respectively. Delightful books, both.

Double-checking my touchstones, I notice that a second of the 20 copies of the Valente is now accounted for on librarything. So that's 10% of the extant copies catalogued here :)

The most obscure book I own would probably be: The Influence of Vibration-Rotation Interaction and Cubic Anharmonicity of Line Intensities in Infrared Vibration-Rotation Bands of Linear Symmetric X-Y-X Molecules; Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University by Jack Holmes Waggoner, Jr.. It is a hard-bound edition from 1957 which smells of charcoal that I picked up in a used book store in Texas a few years ago. It looks like it was actually typed out by hand with a type-writer. Alternatively, I have an 1859 edition of Children's Scripture Question Book.

I remember having a meal with friends and discussing this very question. Mine was The Goalie`s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick by Peter Handke. Imagine my horror on learning it had been made into a film and both my friends had seen it !

Never mind, there`s still The Saragossa Manuscript and a great one about a man who turns into a statue which I don`t have to hand at the moment.

Likewise filmed, and now at the top of my NetFlix queue. Thanks for reminding me of this Gordian narrative knot!
Polish, 1965...

One that I own which no one else has is Dali and Surrealism by Dawn Ades. Before I entered it here it didn't strike me as an obscure book, but I've never found anyone else with a copy. It's just a basic overview of Salvadore Dali's work and its connection to the surrealist movement. Well written and astute, if not always highly insightful.

I have several of which I am the olny owner (like little souls - bwahahah!). My favorites are Great Cities of the World published by Hammond, and Jiggelo, by Briedenback (fun!).

Back in the late 70s, I found out that the University of Pennsylvania (Babylonian Section) was working a Sumerian Dictionary. They told me they were starting with the letter B because A was so difficult.

When B came out in 1984 I added it to my library and awaited further volumes.

Every year for the next few years I called to find out how they were coming along on Volume A. I usually got someone on the other end who sounded like a little old man telling me to leave them alone - they were working on it and would let me know when it was ready.

I finally gave up and B is the only volume I ever acquired. Now I see they've gone etext and the finished dictionary is available at

http://psd.museum.upenn.edu/epsd/nepsd-frame.html

I don't have them in Librarything at the moment, but I've got a little collection of occult theses, including At the Feet of the Master, and Light on the Path, which I doubt many, if any, other people posess.

Lee's Priceless Recipes - 3000 Secrets for the Home, Farm, Laboratory, Workshop and Every Department of Human Endeavor

It has every recipe the pioneer man or woman needed to homestead a place - wine, soap, dynamite...

It's been handed down in my husband's family since the 1800's.

Aw, man. I so wanted to purchase Hal Duncan's "Sonnets for Orpheus", but I was too poor, too long, and when I checked the other day all the copies had flown the coup!

I have a number of books that only I have listed. My favorites are Old Dead White Men's Philosophy and How to Tell a Naked Man What to Do. I picked both of them up on Bookmooch because the titles caught my eye.

Having worked in the Babylonian Section at the University Museum, I can tell you that you're missing a couple volumes of 'A' but nothing else; had it not gone digital you'd likely be waiting the rest of your life for a complete set... I wouldn't say it's finished, though, either. It's in a usable format, but it's always being updated and tweaked. Also, the phone tends to ring and ring; whoever answers is whoever could least stand the ringing.

I have quite a few books that no one else seems to own but my favorites are Uncle Sam's, which is a locally published historical novel, and The Art of the Infinate. I also have a few, such as Leonardo Da Vinci: Flights of the Mind or my Nancy Drew's, that I would expect to be more popular.

A good portion of my obscure works are dated textbooks that I enjoy but would be surprised to find in anyone else's library.

My most obscure works are probably my books by Alice Bailey, and Yogi Ramacharaka.