Memorable Books...

Ooo, a book thread. i love books .

I'm a big reader! This is a great idea! I'll share some links later on tonight!

Ray Bradbury got his wings on Tuesday, June 5th. He was 91.

I love books.
I have been currently reading Ellen Hopkins.
AHHH. Love her. I like how I can relate.

I know, I know, a book about the history of grocery stores and food items and random facts about food and stores seems dull. Well, it's not, it is one of my favorite books of all time actually. This is just an incredibly fun book, filled with weird facts and history and while, yes, it's a bit dated at this point and you can find pretty much all this same information from Wikipedia or something, it's still more fun to actually hold a book in your hand and sit down and just read it.

So, here we have the start of the "Big Secrets" books way back in the mid '80s. From what I can remember (and read from the cover up there) this particular installment includes: The secret formula for Coca-Cola (keep in mind, this book doesn't just say "mix all this stuff together", it talks a lot more about differences in flavorings in cola flavored pops, how some are more lemony and such), how different brands of playing cards are marked and why certain brands are preferred by casinos, what the different Rorschach test answers make people think about you, weird little things on US money you probably never noticed (though, as this book is from the '80s, you would need to find old bills to see these things), what is the secret recipe for KFCs chicken (also talking about the history of it and how it has changed throughout the years). If I remember correctly this book also talked about the TAT test in which you are shown drawings of people in some highly dramatic looking scene and asked to tell what's happening in it. This supposedly tricks you into expressing things that you wouldn't normally come out and tell a psychiatrist. The idea of that freaked me out. The CAT test (kids version of the test) was even more freaky (as I was a kid when I read this book). It used pictures of animals illustrated in the standard storybook style and the children being shown the illustrations did the same thing as the adults did with their version of the test. This was supposed to get kids to talk about things going on in their life (bad things, of course) that they wouldn't otherwise be able to express (abuse or neglect or whatever). Now, this REALLY freaked me out. I was a very, very logical child and I remembered things I saw on TV or whatever, if someone showed me pictures of little animals doing something, I would more than likely just tell you what it looked like they were doing, I didn't need to have experienced whatever it was myself in order to do so. The fact that describing a picture of a tiger chasing a monkey in just the wrong way would cause doctors to wrongly think my parents were subjecting me to ritual satanic abuse or something and would then send me to foster care absolutely terrified me as a kid. And that was all thanks to this book. Yes, I was a bit of a nutty kid.

Urban legends are, of course, a huge thing at this point, not only people that still believe them, but also people that know that they are not true and still appreciate them for what they are. The internet in general and snopes.com in particular has lead the way in spreading the UL word (though TV hasn't been far behind), but waaaay back in the early '80s UL's got an early shot of publicity in the form of this book, and yes indeed I was reading it.

Urban legends are creepy, that's their attraction, the idea that our normal, brightly lit, day-to-day life could easily take a turn into a turn into the dark and dangerous. That girl you offered a ride home to may just "live" in a cemetery … your night babysitting could end up with a psycho-killer hiding upstairs. Even the less outright horrific ULs tend to be unpleasant, your fried chicken could end up being a fried rat … that cookie / cake recipe you asked for may end up costing you hundreds of dollars … and every time you hurt yourself those paramedics are just going to laugh and laugh. That said, most ULs also tend to be morality tales. If something REALLY bad happens to a person, chances are they were doing something wrong which brought it upon themselves. If they aren't straight up morality tales they are usually at the very least cautionary tales. If you are going to look for a deal on your winter coat this year, do be careful, those countries where the "less expensive" ones are manufactured are just teaming with deadly snakes you know!

Now, there are two ways to explore the dark recesses of urban legends and one way is more popular than the others. You can simply tell a bunch of stories that everyone knows isn't true. People love this way of doing it as it's basically sitting around a campfire telling creepy stories, this of course is the more popular way of dealing with ULs. The other way is how this book (and how Snopes) handles them, and in my opinion is much more interesting. Instead of simply telling a creepy story, Brunvand really gets into the history of the legend, looking for where it stared, looking at different versions of the story and discussing the societal reasons for the legend. This, however, causes a problem for readers who are simply looking for a collection of creepy stories to tell their friends the next time they are on a long drive through the dark mountains. The fact that this book was written by a college professor means that there will be some lengthy and deep discussions about these legends (and page after page of footnotes, which you will not want to skip as they are quite interesting as well).

The urban legend audience has expanded quite a bit since 1981, and much like anything else that grows from a small cult audience into the harsh glare of the mainstream a lot of the newly found fans aren't going to be into all the details the way the original fans were and as such this book isn't viewed quite as highly as it once was. But don't let the dumbing down of the audience tarnish the reputation of this book. This book is what got me interested in urban legends and it's why I can spot them as easily as I can. UL's aren't just "creepy stories", they are creepy stories that try to change your mind about something, they use fear to shape your opinions on people, society and the world around you, but if all you do is read a collection of scary stories that some people believe are true, you will never realise that. This book (and the others by this author) can change that, as long as you are willing to put up with all the "boring" parts.