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Weird or Wonderful? Books in the ISU Library Collection


This guide is meant to be a starting point for learning more about and exploring some of the more unusual resources in our library collection. The books highlighted here are a mix of new and old, and were discovered by library staff. The intent is to spark curiosity and hopefully encourage reading things that you might not otherwise have stumbled across.

Weird & Wonderful: Selected Books

Meal
Breath
Killing Commendatore
The Emily Dickinson Reader
Flattened Fauna
The Manly Art of Knitting
The Anatomy of Disgust
The Goblin Emperor
Undefeated
Bomb
Ghosts
Why Does Asparagus Make Your Pee Smell?
Rick Baker
All Systems Red
The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America
Honor Thy Label
Infrastructure
Toxic Legacy
NeuroScience Fiction
How Buildings Learn
Our First Book
Touch the Universe
Get Your War On
The Book of Hope
English As She Is Spoke
This Book Really Sucks!
Gideon the Ninth
You Look Like a Thing and I Love You
Generation Occupy
The End of Everything
Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates
The Icepick Surgeon
Crap Taxidermy
Hummingbirds
How to Do Nothing
The Sound of Things to Come

Are you interested in finding more books similar to the ones showcased on this guide? Here are some ideas for finding more:

Search for the subject of "trivia" in Quick Search.

Pick a topic of interest and add the word "miscellanea" to your search - e.g., Physics miscellanea, China miscellanea, Beer miscellanea, God miscellanea.

Other possible keywords to try: Controversies, questions, "popular works."

This guide was made to accompany the 2022 book display:
Weird -or- Wonderful?

We hope you discover something new and interesting!

Please direct any questions to:
Lorrie Pellack & Erin Thomas

 

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