Books about Oddities from Amazon.com

This fascinating collection explores the unusual and often bizarre persons, attitudes, and events of the Civil War. Illustrated and indexed

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Price: $4.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]

They say you can't judge a book by its cover—but its title can tell you more than you ever needed to know!

Amazing, illuminating, and gut-bustingly funny, Bizarre Books is the wonderfully twisted product of more than two decades of determined searching in forgotten corners of out-of-the-way libraries and through the literary detritus of eclectic private collections. It is certain to delight every true fan of trivia and the patently absurd.

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Price: $6.19 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Takes an irreverent look at the sports world’s best balance of power and speed

Discover interesting players and amusing moments in hockey history

Written by the author of nine titles in the Most Wanted series, including books on baseball, football, wrestling, golf, tennis, basketball, the Olympics, and Hollywood, as well as Golf!: Great Moments & Dubious Achievements in Golf History

The history of hockey is filled with the bizarre, the unexpected, and the hard to believe. Hockey’s Most Wanted chronicles seven hundred of the most outrageous players, coaches, and owners in hockey history. In humorous detail, Floyd Conner describes hockey’s top ten strange plays, inept players, bizarre nicknames, craziest fans, colorful characters, unlikely heroes, odious owners, worst coaches, beleaguered officials, most brutal fights, and more. Learn why Dave Reece was nicknamed "The Human Sieve" and find out which goalie once gave up fifteen goals in a game. Meet the player who was whistled for a record 67 penalty minutes in a single game and another who played in the National Hockey League for five years before scoring his first goal. Imagine scoring the winning goal in the seventh and deciding game of the Stanley Cup—for the opposing team—or how it felt to be the defenseman traded for a net. You can find all this and more in Hockey’s Most Wanted, a book that every hockey fan will enjoy..
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For those on both sides of the dreaded dentist's chair, James Wynbrandt has written a witty, colorful, and richly informative history of the art and science of dentistry To all of those dental patients whose whine rises in tandem with that of the drill, take note: You would do well to stifle your terror and instead offer thanks to Apollonia, the patron saint of toothache sufferers, that you face only fleeting discomfort rather than the disfiguring distress, or slow agonizing death oft meted out by dental-care providers of the past. The transition from yesterday's ignorance, misapprehension, and superstition to the enlightened and nerve-deadened protocols of today has been a long, slow, and very painful process. For example, did you know that: *Among the toothache remedies favored by Pierre Fauchard, the father of dentistry, was rinsing the mouth liberally with one's own urine. *George Washington never had wooden teeth. However, his chronic dental problems may have impacted the outcome of the American Revolution. *Soldiers in the Civil War needed at least two opposing front teeth to rip open powder envelopes. Some men called up for induction had their front teeth extracted to avoid service. *Teeth were harvested from as many as fifty thousand corpses after the Battle of Waterloo, a huge crop later used for dentures and transplants that became known as "Waterloo Teeth.".
Price: $9.41 [Notify me when price goes down.]

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Ripley's Believe It or Not! Amusement Park Oddities & Trivia is an uncanny journey through the weird, wacky, and absolutely true world of amusement parks, rides and attractions! Tired of the traditional ho-hum trivia book? Rejoice, here's one that's unique, enjoyable, accurate AND edgy! With a bit of history, a bit of trivia and a lot of totally unbelievable facts, this is a first of its kind book for the amusement industry. With more than 350 Believe It or Nots! inside its pages, and 50-plus original illustrations by Ripley's official cartoonist John Graziano, nearly half of the book is dedicated to the bizarre, colorful and entertaining universe of amusement parks, rides and attractions. The other half features chapters on the Walt Disney parks, roller coasters, Ferris wheels, carousels, entertainers and park food! Nearly 100 different amusement and theme parks, waterparks, attractions, zoos and aquariums are represented in these colorful pages, not to mention the 14 pages packed with astounding roller coaster Believe It or Nots! A comprehensive index permits readers to quickly discover the oddities of their favorite park..
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Discover Alabama's curious underside with this oddly entertaining little guide! Travelers with a taste for the bizarre, tacky, and hilarious can visit the Coon Dog Cemetery, learn about the cattle-mutilation mystery, view the world's largest boll weevil, and feast on Drunken Chicken (marinated in Schlitz). Only a true Southerner could capture the essence of these and other authentic Alabama phenomena, and Andy Duncan does his home state proud.
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Price: $5.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The good, the bad, and the ugly through the ages

* Delivers little known facts and clever commentary on the people, the battles, the wars, the literature and the media, and miscellaneous facts from ancient times to the present

* Arranged in over sixty top-ten lists, with hundreds of stories assembled here for the first time

* Covers Warfare around the globe

In 1944 U.S. Army Lieutenant General Leslie J. McNair was accidentally killed by USAAF bombers that dropped their bombs short of the target thus becoming the highest ranking American casualty of World War II. Union General Daniel Sickles was the first person to be successfully acquitted of murder by plea of temporary insanity after he shot and killed the son of "Star-Spangled Banner" composer Francis Scott key in cold blood. Ten years before Custer’s infamous last stand, U.S. cavalry captain William J. Fetterman disobeyed orders and led his eighty-man detachment in pursuit of a band of Sioux Indians. Neither he nor his men returned. In the United States, Benedict Arnold’s name is synonymous with treason, but in Russia Andrei Vlasov holds that dubious distinction. After being captured by the Germans during World War II, he led an army of former Soviet POWs against the Red Army. Famous men of the arts and letters, such as Maurice Chevalier and Jean-Paul Sartre, openly collaborated with the Axis during World War II, yet managed to escape punishment after the war. Entertainer Martha Raye was so beloved by the troops that she earned an honorary commission as "Colonel Maggie" and was allowed to be buried at Fort Bragg’s military cemetery. James Bond creator Ian Fleming graduated from Sandhurst and was a naval intelligence officer in World War II. During the Thirty Years’ War, Count Tilly lost control of his troops after capturing Magdeburg. After three days of looting, they had killed 25,000 of the city’s 30,000 inhabitants.

MILITARY HISTORY’S MOST WANTED chronicles 700 of the most outlandish commanders, battles, and accomplishments in military history. Its seventy lists include warfare’s top ten winners, losers, traitors, entertainers, war novels, and movies. Military historians, buffs, and enthusiasts will enjoy this often irreverent and controversial look at the professions of arms..
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"If you are one of that benighted handful of people who isn't wise to Charles Osgood's incisive and humorous look at the foibles of your fellow men, here is your chance to catch up. Try not to foul up again!"
--Walter Cronkite

Charles Osgood, one of America's favorite news personalities, offers a hilarious compendium of anecdotes from the last seventy years of presidential campaigns.

With anecdotes from Harry Truman to JFK to George W. Bush, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the White House captures the wit and humor of the campaign trail. Culled from speeches, interviews, press conferences, as well as articles written by and about the candidates--no source is left untapped.

From Bob Dole telling reporters after a loss in the primary that "I slept like a baby--every two hours I woke up and cried," and Barry Goldwater's comment that his talkative opponent Hubert Humphreys "has been clocked at 275 words a minute with gusts up to 340," to Adlai Stevenson declaring that "If I talk over the people's head, Ike must be talking under their feet," this is the go-to source for campaign humor.

Just when America most needs a good laugh, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the White House makes the seemingly endless race to the presidency a lot more fun..
Price: $11.90 [Notify me when price goes down.]