Bizarre and Interesting Books

In addition to the job I hold as a reference intern at a university in New York, I am an intern at a synagogue library. My job, in essence, is to fix it, along with one other intern. We are at present combing through the books in the library to make sure they have proper call numbers and to determine if we think they are in the right place. Along the way, we have found some odd books. I would like to keep a running list of the strangest, or most interesting, books we find.

Interesting:

• A special edition copy of Ani Maamin by Elie Wiesel, number 339 of the set, autographed by Wiesel himself (and the illustrator).
• A first edition of The Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel with actual physical prints of the pictures inside shoved into the book (how they never fell out is beyond me).
  

Interesting and Odd:

• Choosing a Sex Ethic: A Jewish Inquiry, by Eugene B. Borowitz. I don't think I need to explain why this is a little strange (or perhaps just interesting).

Just flat out strange:

• This is actually our favorite oddity that we've found so far. It is called Escape From the Holocaust by Kenneth Roseman and it is part of a larger series by that author. The series is the Do-It-Yourself Jewish Adventure Series. That's right: it's a choose-your-own-adventure book about the Holocaust. Other books in the series include: Jeremiah's Promise, where you are a young Holocaust survivor who has emigrated to Palestine in 1945; The Tenth of Av, in which it is the year 70, Roman soldiers have besieged Jerusalem, and you must choose whether to stay and fight or escape with the followers of Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai; and my personal favorite, The Cardinal's Snuffbox, which takes place during the Spanish Inquisition and has you making choices about whether you will leave Spain, convert, or probably die for being a Jew. I intend to find all of these books (since we only have Escape From the Holocaust) and read them. Hopefully a review will be forthcoming.

The odd things you find sometimes...
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