I've just finished building a set of bookshelves to house our mass-market paperbacks. Part of this involved moving a light switch and concealing the new switchbox's location. The best way to make the work invisible was to cover the switchbox with the spines of books glued to a two-by-four.
But which books? Running a paperback through a bandsaw is an act of high desecration for someone like me -- the sort of person Anne Fadiman calls a "courtly lover" of books, who cringes at a bent spine or dog-eared page. Only the most horrendous dreck is worthy of such treatment. But in order for the work to be invisible, the titles needed to blend in with the selection of used mass-market sci-fi and thrillers already on my shelves.
What would you choose? What books wouldn't cause embarassment -- either to own, or to have demolished?
Posted by Ben Brumfield at December 11, 2006 02:36 PMI have a wonderful old pornographic pulp novel called "The Satanic Orgy" which I picked up somewhere, probably a junk shop, for a few cents. It's actually not a bad book. Has this grandiose, slightly Lovecraftish feel to it. Obviously someone had to pay the bills.
Anyway, I suggest you go find several of these -- the more embarrassing the titles the better -- and use them. The trick is you can put a little alarm on them, so that anyone who actually tries to pull them off the shelves (and reveal your dark bibliocide) will be so embarrassed that they'll never talk. You can just walk in and say something like, "So, I see you've found my...little secret." If you'd wring your hands and talk like Dr. Strangelove the effect would be complete.
Good luck.
Posted by: Alan Hogue at December 30, 2006 08:00 PMPS: My dictionary disapproves of your spelling of "embarrassment".
Have a wonderful year, Ben.
Posted by: Alan Hogue at December 30, 2006 08:13 PMThanks -- I ended up settling on an assortment of Tom Clancy spin-offs: Op-Center and NetForce (the latter of which apparently is a video game tie-in).
They match the thrillers pretty well, and are so artlessly horrible that it was satisfying to cut them up. Plus, they were free. If you like, I'll post a picture.
Posted by: Ben Brumfield at January 2, 2007 08:33 AM