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Guide Picks - Books on Shams, Scams and Oddities
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Learned pigs, flea circuses, self-crucifiers, dog-faced boys and fireproof women comprise the peculiar subject matter of this selection of great books on shams, scams and oddities — human and inhuman — throughout history.
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1) Jay's Journal of Anomalies
by Ricky Jay, 2001. The history of conjurers, cheats, hustlers, hoaxsters and sideshow showmen is magician Ricky Jay's metier. In this handsomely illustrated bound volume of his quarterly "Journal of Anomalies," Jay affectionately skewers automated chess-players, prestidigitating dentists, levitating humans and the like. Endlessly entertaining.
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2) Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women
by Ricky Jay, 1998. Period photographs and original posters and playbills illustrate Ricky Jay's further explorations into such unnatural wonders as mind readers, singing mice, calculating swine and fireproof women. First published in the mid-'80s, "Learned Pigs" remains a collector's item.
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3) The Feejee Mermaid: And Other Essays in Natural and Unnatural History
by Jan Bondeson, 1999. Do fish and frogs (and money!) sometimes rain from the sky? Did P.T. Barnum once have possession of a real mermaid's remains? Can living creatures spontaneously spring from nothingness? Jan Bondeson's collection of essays explores the "unnatural history" of animal myths and folktales of antiquity and early modernity.
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4) The Two-Headed Boy & Other Medical Marvels
by Jan Bondeson, 2000. More incomparably odd essays from physician and antiquarian enthusiast Jan Bondeson. Egg-laying women, cat-eating Englishmen and frog-swallowing Frenchmen comprise Bondeson's subject matter in this volume, along with more "commonplace" human anomalies such as giants, dwarves and people with tails.
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5) Freak Show: Presenting Human Oddities for Amusement and Profit
by Robert Bogdan, 1990. This is a serious cultural study of the history and significance of human sideshow attractions. Meet real life circus freaks such as Jo-Jo, The Dog-Faced Boy and Marinelli, The Man Snake, not to mention remarkable showmen like P.T. Barnum who not only exploited these societal misfits but provided them means to survive in an inhospitable world.
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