I love books. I have over a thousand, roughly and I was a bookseller for every single major chain that existed in the US except Hastings. Gods did I discover that one too late. So while trying to think of something to write tonight, I started going through books I’ve sold to people. I coiudl go on about the ones I loved. But what about the ones I hated? What about the ones that made my skin crawl or just weren’t right? Considering I have books that I’m proud to own that contain necrophiliacs and fascists(know your enemy people), what could be the books that I’m sorry i ever sold to people? Here’s my top 5:

5) Sex by Madonna: Let the hate flow now. Was it daring and transgressive? To the mainstream, yes. But the movie version of Exit to Eden was more transgressive, better priced, and a better view of kink. And it had a naked Vanilla Ice. Not to mention the thing was made like shit, which is why the thing is so expensive on the collectors market, because they all fell apart. It came wrapped in foil, and I’d have felt better selling condoms.

4)Mazes and Monsters by Rona Jaffe. Gods do I hate this book. One fothe worst things about 80’s nostalgia like Stranger Things and Ready Player One is how it turns being a nerd in the 80’s into something cool. Which absolves all the guys who used to kick my ass daily for being one of any responsibility. People forget what the Satanic Panic did to some of us. And Rona,who wrote this steaming pile, used a family tragedy(A young student who did an early version of LARP and disappeared) to make kids like me’s life worse. And she never bothered to find out what actually happened, or how a investigator found the guy flipping burgers in Maine six months later. Stopping her from having a book signing in my store in Waukegan is a point of pride for me.

3) A Child Called It by Dave Pelzer. If you think any of this is true, I bet you are in Qanon by now. Another one that fueled the Satanic Panic and had people believing Satanists were running daycare centers. I know Satanists. Most of them are stockbrokers. And don’t call them Pagans either. If you need a God to rail against, you don’t qualify. Why this book isn’t in the religious fiction section is beyond me.

2) The Anarchist’s Cookbook. I sold this book to people under protest. Not because I’m opposed to anarchists, I just find most of them entirely too strident and far too many are trust fund babies. My opposition to selling this was that the recipes are all wrong. I’d try to sell them the Poor Man James Bond series instead. Those recipes worked. And that’s all I’ll say about that.

1)The Turner Diaries by Andrew McDonald(actually William Pierce, founder of Aryan Nation) One of my worst days was having to sell this piece of racist garbage to a customer. It inspired so much hate, It isn’t even funny. When the next copy came in, due to automatic ordering systems, I hid it in the back for five years. If customers asked for it, I said we couldn’t get it. You can call me pro-censorship or an asshole, but I had to live with myself. And seeing what this country has become since, I’m not one bit sorry. I do own a copy, but that’s to remind me of what I fight against. And yeah, I stole that fucker.

That’s my worst five. Maybe I’ll come back tomorrow with my favorite five, or someone will tell me where the title comes from(its a hit song from the 80’s). Until then, sleep tight.