Listing to Port

1. There was once a small public library in Dorking which had a book that one could get lost in. Many books are said to have this property; however, this book had it to an unusual and somewhat dangerous degree. The average time lost in the book was approximately three days, after which point readers would emerge hungry, thirsty and glad that they had not left the gas on. After a number of deaths were attributed to the volume, it was thrown into a locked strongbox by a courageous librarian and dropped from a ferry into the North Sea. It is not recorded exactly which book it was, though I believe it was shelved with the large print doctor-nurse romance section.
2. In the private library of the Duke of Norfolk, for some years, there existed a set of small, yellow books entitled ‘The Trap, Volumes 1-10’. In this case, the title was entirely appropriate, since the books were engineered to violently snap shut on readers’ fingers. Their origin is unknown, but perhaps was some kind of practical joke. In any case, they no longer exist, having been added to a compost pile in 1872. One of the metal frames was preserved as a curiosity and may be viewed in the library to this day.
3. There was a book once that was banned from a bar at the request of its owner, who was tired of having the book come home mysteriously soaked in gin. It is possible that the book had help in its drinking exploits but if so then the real culprit seems to have gotten off scot-free. I believe this book still exists, but it smells a little and some of the pages are stuck together.
4. A Concise Atlas of Eastern Nevada, 1872. Possibly the world’s most pornographic atlas, owing to the unfortunate habit of its compiler, Fred Carson, of doodling various scenes of copulation in the blanker bits of maps. When challenged in court, Fred claimed that, firstly, doodling in the blank bits is an ancient map-making tradition and, secondly, he only ever drew things he had actually seen occurring at each location. These were not accepted as excuses by the court, which did its level best to eradicate all copies. However, it is believed that some issues still remain in the collections of local connoisseurs of that kind of thing.
5. Sidthorpe’s Comprehensive Encyclopaedia of Moles. Only a hundred copies of this tome were ever printed, the publishers rightly assuming that its audience would be limited. However, something peculiar must have happened during the printing process, because owners of the Comprehensive Encyclopaedia soon began complaining that the book would occasionally open by itself. Worse yet, if nobody was about a small grungy kind of goblin-thing would lean out of the book and unleash a thin stream of goblin-piss onto the nearest flat surface. All copies were pulped at the request of the book’s mortified author, one Mrs. Elizabeth Jane Sidthorpe. In later years she came to believe that the incident was punishment for pissing in a fairy ring as a small child.