What was your favorite book ever, and why?

[turbo]

Is that why you sometimes see pages with "This page intentionally left blank" written on them?"

In legal documents or training manuals, for example, it is considered bad form to leave a page blank without notification. Paradoxically, once you print the notice, the page is no longer blank. Hmmm...

 

[lisab]

Is that why you sometimes see pages with "This page intentionally left blank" written on them?"

Should be followed by, "The previous message was unintentionally ironic."

 

[BobG]

No. Not written pages, actual physical pages. Each page is half of a double that is bound at its centre.

Books need to have an even number of pages or it is tricky to bind them. In fact, often the numbe of pages is divisible by 4 (or, I think, even sixteen) because the pages are bundled.

Physically, the number of pages should be divisible by 8 and definitely an even number since books are printed double-sided. But the title page, copyright/publishing info page, dedication page, and special thanks (or blank page behind the dedication page) are always unnumbered and aren't counted in the number of pages. There could occasionally be other miscellaneous unnumbered, uncounted pages as well, usually inserted at the front as an extra title page, etc to get the physical number of pages divisible by 8.

You could also have blank, unnumbered, uncounted pages at the end of the book, as well. Publishers just prefer not to do that. I think it's perceived as looking amateurish, as there's no logical reason for not doing so. For a professionally designed book, in which the incredible surprise ending came on the very last page, you can easily say, "That book was great from cover to cover - especially the copyright page!" Getting stuck with 7 blank pages at the end would be perceived as particularly amateurish. It would be hard to say the book was great from cover to cover. You'd have to stick your two-year-old's best finger paintings at the end to fill up the empty space.

 

[Astronuc]

I have many favorites depending on the subject.

One of my most favorites is Douglas Adams's HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Another is Barbara Sandford's Myths & Modern Man. Perhaps one of the best books ever written on the subject.
See - https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=2274563

 

[turbo]

Be Here Now was another favorite book. I gave away the first two copies I bought, to people who I thought would appreciate them.

It's important to remember that we live in the present, not in the past or the future, and Alpert's book drives that home (gently). Motivations based on our pasts or on our (perceived) futures can severely detract from our perception of the present.

 

[BobG]

Uh oh

I think Phillip M. Parker's sequel, titled https://www.amazon.com/dp/0497477742/?tag=pfamazon01-20 may be even more interesting. Even the title boggles the mind.

Is that a typo? Is there some reason he excluded weights between 13.1 and 18 ounces? How is it that he happened to write so many books in one year and all on the outlook of various products in India?

Still, Phillip M. Parker is the most published author in the history of the Solar System, having published over 200,000 books. He dominates the worst seller list with sales for most of his books ranging from 1 to a few dozen, but makes money at it (it's amazing how many of his books sell for exactly $495).

 

[baywax]

Be Here Now was another favorite book. I gave away the first two copies I bought, to people who I thought would appreciate them.

It's important to remember that we live in the present, not in the past or the future, and Alpert's book drives that home (gently). Motivations based on our pasts or on our (perceived) futures can severely detract from our perception of the present.

Electric KoolAid Acid Test (Ken Kesey... great American writer)

One of the things in the book is pertinent to everyone... when the merry pranksters were painting the bus Ken gets some on him and swears and is mad about messing his clothes. One of the merry pranksters says "hey man, if you're going to get into it... you got to get some on ya..." (paraphrasing)

But Turbo, Be Here Now is kool too! I've met Richard who is now Baba Ram Dass and very... in the moment!

 

[Math Is Hard]

I've been saving up to get Ivan https://www.amazon.com/dp/049747672X/?tag=pfamazon01-20.

Last night, I was reading about Parker's automatic book generation techniques and choices subject matter. I found myself eventually falling down the Google rabbit hole to read about niche marketing. In particular, I found this very interesting Wired article about "The Long Tail".

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html

Forget squeezing millions from a few megahits at the top of the charts. The future of entertainment is in the millions of niche markets at the shallow end of the bitstream.

Though he's not an entertainer, that's what he's all about. He's providing a massive variety of print-on-demand books on narrow, obscure topics.

 

[BobG]

The best part of Napster was that you could return to a specific user if you found you had downloaded more than one song from the same user. Then you could browse that user's inventory and start downloading songs at random.

The recommendations on Amazon always catch my attention, but, not being a compulsive buyer, they probably don't quite come at the right time to capitalize - unless I need another item to push me above the super saver shipping boundary. Then the recommendations can work pretty well. Just not as well as the ability to obtain some free samples.