David Wallechinsky - The Book of Lists

In her youth, Angelou worked as a cook and a waitress, and as the first black female fare-collector with the San Francisco Streetcar Company. In the 1950s she became a nightclub performer, specialising in calypso songs and dances. She also performed in Porgy and Bess on a 22-country tour of Europe and Africa organised by the US State Department in 1954 and 1955. During the 1960s Angelou was northern coordinator of Dr Martin Luther King Jr’s Southern Christian Leadership Council, associate editor of an English-language newspaper in Cairo, features editor of a paper in Ghana and assistant administrator at the University of Ghana. She acted in Jean Genet’s play The Blacks , wrote songs for B. B. King, wrote and produced educational television series, and acted on Broadway (for one night in 1973) and on television — as Kunta Kinte’s grandmother in Roots , in 1977. In 1972 she wrote the script for Georgia, Georgia , the first original screenplay by a black woman to be produced. She continues to be a popular lecturer, as well as a university professor.

One of the least-used dictionaries in the world, this slim 62-page booklet translates Italian into the language of the Greenland Eskimos. Collectors of obscure dictionaries will also appreciate Vladimir Marku’s seminal work Fjalori I Naftës (1995), which translates 25,000 oil industry-related terms from English into Albanian.

An important contribution to the history of fishhooks. Some of the chapter titles: II. ‘The Character of Sturgeon Hooks’; IV. ‘Hooks in Eastern Europe’; and VII. ‘Life Story of Hooks of the Samolov Type’.

Capranica. Cambridge, MA.: The MIT Press, 1965.

This monograph details the responses of caged bullfrogs to the recorded sound of mating calls of 34 kinds of frogs and toads. The author’s academic career was made possible by a fellowship awarded by Bell Telephone Laboratories.

A guide to and from seasickness by the medical director of the New York Intestinal Sanitarium.

At last, a fully illustrated filmography of every movie in which a chicken — living, dead or cooked — appears. Films in which the words ‘chicken’, ‘hen’ or ‘rooster’ are mentioned are also included.

Buchanan, one of Scotland’s greatest scholars and historians, died in poverty in 1582. This publication was part of a series which included Phrenological Studies of the Skull and Endocranial Cast of Sir Thomas Browne of Norwich by Sir Arthur Keith and The Relations of Shoulder Blade Types to Problems of Mental and Physical Adaptability by William Washington Graves.

This 15-page diatribe contends that the Beatles were agents of communism, sent to America to subvert its youth through mass hypnosis ‘The Beatles’ ability to make teenagers take off their clothes and riot is labouratory tested and approved’, states Noebel. He supports his theory with no less than 168 footnotes.

The publication of this study was made possible by the generosity of an anonymous donor.

An excellent textbook by a master ice sculptor. Weising gives instructions for carving such items as Tablets of the Ten Commandments Delivered by Moses (for bar mitzvahs); Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer; and the Travellers Insurance Company Tower in Hartford, CT.

Stockholm: Statens Ethnografiska Museum, 1949.

A survey of cultures in which people commonly rest while standing by placing one foot on or near the knee of the other leg. Contains 15 photographs from Africa, Sri Lanka, Romania, Australia and Bolivia, as well as a fold-out locator map of Africa.

Readers who are drawn to dirty books might also enjoy Smut: An Anatomy of Dirt by Christian Engnensberger (New York: Seabury, 1972); The Kingdom of Dust by J. Gordon Ogden (Chicago: Popular Mechanics, 1912); and All About Mud by Oliver R. Selfrige (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1978).

A detailed and surprisingly readable study by an ornithologist resident in Costa Rica. A 12-page bibliography is included for serious students. Less pacific readers might prefer Birds Fighting by Stuart Smith and Erik Hosking (London: Faber and Faber, 1955), which includes numerous photos of real birds attacking stuffed birds.

A fully illustrated account of the history of jousting tournaments in the United States, with emphasis on modern contests, records, rules and heroes.

A nuts-and-bolts account including advertising tips and postal rules and regulations, as well as discussion of such difficult topics as ‘Should a lady healer employ a gentleman assistant?’

Burton presents the cases of 70 people from New York and Los Angeles who have dreamed about Woody Allen. Fans of books on people who dream about famous people will also want to track down Dreams about H.M. the Queen by Brian Masters (Frogmore, St Albans, Herts: Mayflower, 1973), a collection of dreams about Queen Elizabeth II and other members of the British royal family; I Dream of Madonna by Kay Turner (San Francisco: Collins, 1993); Dreams of Bill by Judith Anderson-Miller and Bruce Joshua Miller (New York: Citadel Press, 1994), a collection of dreams about Bill Clinton; and Dreaming of Diana: The Dreams Diana, Princess of Wales, Inspired by Rita Frances (London: Robson Books, 1998).

A review of the lives of eight little-known sisters, including Sarianna Browning, Sarah Disraeli and Sophia Thoreau, as well as two known sisters of English writers, Dorothy Wordsworth and Mary Lamb.

This book, written in 1923, examines the unusual custom of curing the disease of scrofula, a form of tuberculosis, by being touched by the King of France or the King of England. The practice died out after 1825.