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Encyclopedia of Bad Taste

10 best books like Encyclopedia of Bad Taste (Jane Stern): 100 Hair-Raising Little Horror Stories, The Rise and Fall of Alexandria: Birthplace of the Modern Mind, Hollow Earth: The Long and Curious History of Imagining Strange Lands, Fantastical Creatures, Advanced Civilizations, and Marvelous Machines Below the Earth's Surface, The Shakespeare Miscellany, 100 Malicious Little Mysteries, In Paul Klee's Enchanted Garden, Viva la Repartee: Clever Comebacks and Witty Retorts from History's Great Wits and Wordsmiths, The Superior Person's Book of Words, Non Campus Mentis: World History According to College Students, Your Call Is Important to Us: The Truth About Bullshit

100 Hair-Raising Little Horror Stories
AuthorAl Sarrantonio
ISBN1402709757
Scared? You will be! Feel your nerves jangle and chills run up and down your spine thanks to the hair-raising genius of Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, E. F. Benson, H. P. Lovecraft, Fritz Leiber, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Stephen Crane, Charles Dickens, Robert Barr, and many others who know well how to manipulate...
The Rise and Fall of Alexandria: Birthplace of the Modern Mind
AuthorJustin Pollard
ISBN0670037974
The astonishing story of the ancient city that invented the modern world

Founded by Alexander the Great and built by Greek pharaohs, the city of Alexandria at its height dwarfed both Athens and Rome. It was the marvel of its age—legendary for its vast palaces, safe harbors, and magnificent...
Hollow Earth: The Long and Curious History of Imagining Strange Lands, Fantastical Creatures, Advanced Civilizations, and Marvelous Machines Below the Earth's Surface
AuthorDavid Standish
ISBN0306813734
Beliefs in mysterious underworlds are as old as humanity. But the idea that the earth has a hollow interior was first proposed as a scientific theory in 1691 by Sir Edmond Halley (of comet fame), who also suggested that there might be life down there as well. Hollow Earth traces the many surprising, marvelous,...
The Shakespeare Miscellany
AuthorDavid Crystal
ISBN1585677167
Once again, Crystal uses his wit and humour alongside his fantastic wealth of knowledge and academic style.
This text is full of lots of interesting facts - 'miscellany' is exactly what it is! A perfect 'dip in' book for lovers of Shakespeare. The text does not cover Shakespeare's plays, but it is...
100 Malicious Little Mysteries
AuthorIsaac Asimov
ISBN1402711018
Charmingly insidious and satisfyingly devious, these 100 baffling little mysteries—selected by such prominent authors as Isaac Asimov—are just the thing to suit your most malevolent mood. These tales come from the pen of many well-known writers in the field, including Michael Gilbert, Edward...
In Paul Klee's Enchanted Garden
AuthorAudun Eckhoff
ISBN3775721010
Many call Paul Klee a magician. He was no such thing; he did not conjure up anything. He was a creator who found beauty in the world around him, wrote one of Klee's students from the legendary Bauhaus. The Swiss-born painter, like many of his contemporaries--Kandinsky among them--was interested in Transcendentalism...
Viva la Repartee: Clever Comebacks and Witty Retorts from History's Great Wits and Wordsmiths
AuthorMardy Grothe
ISBN0060789484
For most of us, that perfect retort or witty reply often escapes us when we need it most, only to come to mind with perfect clarity when it's too late to be useful. The twentieth-century writer Heywood Broun described this all-too-common phenomenon when he wrote "Repartee is what we wish we'd said."

In...
The Superior Person's Book of Words
AuthorPeter Bowler
At first glance, Peter Bowler appears to represent the position I mocked in an earlier post, that command of a larger vocabulary is a means to social advancement, and can be acquired by reading a book full of fancy words. Fortunately, closer reading of his introduction to this short, amusing, book reveals...
Non Campus Mentis: World History According to College Students
AuthorAnders Henriksson
ISBN0761122745
Mangled Moments of Western Civilization from Term Papers & Blue Book Exams

Did You Know:
Cesar was assassinated on the Yikes of March when he is reported to have said, "Me too, Brutus!"
Stalin, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Truman were known as the "Big Three"
Rasputin was a pheasant...
Your Call Is Important to Us: The Truth About Bullshit
AuthorLaura Penny
ISBN1400081041
“There is so much bullshit that one hardly knows where to begin...”

Taking no prisoners, author Laura Penny dissects—no, disembowels—the culture of globalized, supersized, consumerized bullshit, from Bush’s White House, with its “wallpaper of phony populist sloganeering,”...
The Mammoth Book of Pirates: Over 25 True Tales of Devilry and Daring by the Most Infamous Pirates of All Time
AuthorJon E. Lewis
ISBN0786717297
Awash with skullduggery, malice, terror, and opportunism, here are 28 first-hand memoirs and contemporary reports of the most famous pirates to sail the seven seas, including Blackbeard, Captain Kidd, ‘Calico Jack' Rackham, Anne Bonney, and Jean Lafitte. These range from the Golden Age of piracy,...
The Complete Costume History / Vollständige Kostümgeschichte / Le Costume Historique
AuthorAuguste Racinet
ISBN3822821934
Originally published in France between 1876 and 1888, Auguste Racinet's Le Costume Historique was the most wide-ranging and intelligent study of clothing ever published. Covering the world history of costume, dress, and style from antiquity through the end of the 19th century, the great work --...
'Isms & 'Ologies: All the Movements, Ideologies and Doctrines That Have Shaped Our World
AuthorArthur Goldwag
ISBN0307279073
Have you ever wondered about the difference between Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism and which influenced the other? Do you know where Post-modernism stops and Post-structuralism begins? Would you like to? From Platonism to New Historicism, humankind is constantly coming up with fresh schools...
Schott's Almanac 2007
AuthorBen Schott
ISBN1596911719
Schott's Almanac redefines the traditional almanac to present a record of the year just past and is designed to be read, not merely consulted. Practical and entertaining, it tells the real stories of 2006, from the winner of American Idol to the Supreme Court nominations (including how different...
Aztec & Maya: The Complete Illustrated History
AuthorCharles Phillips
ISBN1435105265
Aztec & Maya: The Complete Illustrated History details the greatest civilizations of ancient Central America with 1000 photographs, paintings, and maps. Uncovers the rise and fall of the many different empires of Mexico and Central America – their political and military campaigns, their...
The Devil's Picnic
AuthorTaras Grescoe
ISBN1582344299
Not exactly what I'd thought it would be, but that worked out fine. As it turns out, Grescoe is far less concerned with forbidden foods than he is with why they might be prohibited. Which means, in this case, that he's largely talking about current (as of 2005, at least) laws much more so than, say, ancient...
Women of the Raj
AuthorMargaret MacMillan
ISBN0500278989
In the nineteenth century, at the height of colonialism, the British ruled India under a government known as the Raj. British men and women left their homes and traveled to this mysterious, beautiful country–where they attempted to replicate their own society. In this fascinating portrait, Margaret...
Vampira: Dark Goddess of Horror
AuthorW. Scott Poole
ISBN1593765436
The new book from award-winning historian W. Scott Poole is a whip-smart piece of pop culture detailing the story of cult horror figure Vampira that actually tells the much wider story of 1950s America and its treatment of women and sex, as well as capturing a fascinating swath of Los Angeles history.

In...
Populuxe: The Look and Life of America in the '50s and '60s, from Tailfins and TV Dinners to Barbie Dolls and Fallout Shelters
AuthorThomas Hine
ISBN1567313167
"Populuxe" - populism, popularity and luxury is the word coined by the author to express the atmosphere of American society during the decade 1954-1964.The book examines the new luxury products created at this time and the lifestyle they represent, so giving a tour of this era when the United States...
Expletive Deleted: A Good Look at Bad Language
AuthorRuth Wajnryb
ISBN0743274342
Have we always "sworn like sailors"? Has creative cursing developed because we can't just slug people when they make us angry? And if such verbal aggression is universal, why is it that some languages (Japanese, for instance) supposedly do not contain any nasty words? Throughout the twentieth century...
Saul Bass: A Life in Film and Design
AuthorJennifer Bass
ISBN1856697525
This is the first book to be published on one of the greatest American designers of the 20th Century, who was as famous for his work in film as for his corporate identity and graphic work. With more than 1,400 illustrations, many of them never published before and written by the leading design historian...
The Xenophobe's Guide to the Germans
AuthorStefan Zeidenitz
ISBN1902825292
Quite a hilarious read... yes, it sterotypes Germany and Germans but so what, there's a lot of truth and reality in it, and I think the authors really hit a nerve here and there. Made me laugh out loud quite a few times, here are some tidbits:

About obsesssions... "The Germans love their cars more...
The People's Almanac Presents the Book of Lists
AuthorDavid Wallechinsky
ISBN0688031838
Lists. Dontcha love 'em? You've got an item, then another item, and then some more items! All the items are similar, but at the same time, hey, they're different. And they come in an order, which may or may not mean something. Wow.

I'm afraid I'm already running out of ideas for explaining why lists...
Interior Desecrations: Hideous Homes from the Horrible '70s
AuthorJames Lileks
ISBN1400046408
"Sweet smoking Jesus, what was the matter with these people?"
Who knows? But we do need to accept the fact that otherwise sensible American housewives who would never grind a quaalude into their morning coffee or sleep with their tennis instructor nevertheless went daft during the 1970s and performed...
Satanic Panic: Pop-Cultural Paranoia in the 1980s
AuthorKier-la Janisse
In the 1980s, it seemed impossible to escape Satan’s supposed influence. Everywhere you turned, there were warnings about a widespread evil conspiracy to indoctrinate the vulnerable through the media they consumed. This percolating cultural hysteria, now known as the “Satanic Panic,”...
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