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The Skinny: What Every Skinny Woman Knows About Dieting and Won't Tell You! (1999)

By: Patricia Marx and Susan Sistrom, aka the New Yorker's Susan Orlean, acclaimed author of The Orchid Thief)

The Plot: From the jacket: "Do skinny women skip breakfast? Taint half their portions with salt, pepper—or Clorox—to make sure they don't eat it? You bet they do. You'll get the inside story on the dieting tricks, shortcuts, and closely guarded secrets of women who stay a perfect size 6 ... forever. From using depression to lose weight (God makes you miserable for a reason) to the calories you unintentionally consume in cough syrup ... or by licking a stamp, everything you really need to know about losing weight is right here in the first anti-diet diet book."

Excerpts: "Weigh yourself constantly or never." "Don't go to buffets. If you must go, don't eat anything." "Eat all you want, but never swallow. Spit always." "If you must buy popcorn, place it on the floor by your feet so that someone will accidentally kick it over."

Rave Reviews: "Proudly incorrect (and borderline disturbing), The Skinny tips the scales in favor of amusement.—Clarissa Cruz, Entertainment Weekly

Reasons Why This Book Is Worse Than Terrorism, According to Angry Amazon Readers: "Dangerous. Sad. Frightening. Chills me to the bone;" "Sick Book By Unhealthy Women;" "Socially irresponsible;" "Tips on self-destruction."

Price on Amazon: $2.97

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The Apprentice (1996)

By: Lewis "Scooter" Libby
The Plot: "I can't really tell you what it is about, again, without running afoul of the family newspaper code. Suffice to say there is a lot of what you might, for want of a better term, call animal husbandry involved. But not the kind they teach at your 4-H Club. At least I hope not,"—David Rossie, Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin, 2005
Excerpt: "At age ten the madam put the child in a cage with a bear trained to couple with young girls so the girls would be frigid and not fall in love with their patrons."
"At length he walked around to the deer's head and, reaching into his pants, struggled for a moment and then pulled out his penis. He began to piss in the snow just in front of the deer's nostrils."
"He asked if they should fuck the deer."
(See more, gleefully reprinted by the New Yorker.)
Rave Reviews: His "storytelling skill neatly mixes conspiratorial murmurs with a boy's emotional turmoil."—The New York Times Book Review
Last Laugh: An autographed copy of the book went on sale at Amazon.com for $2,400.
Price on Amazon: $.28

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