Tuesday, December 26, 2006

The Angry Raisins and other Urban Legends about Books

Is it really true that Steinbeck's the Grapes of Wrath was published in Japanese with the title, the Angry Raisins? According to the urban legend-busting website, Snopes.com, the status of that book rumor is "false."

Will Bounce fabric softener sheets pressed between the pages of a musty book make it smell better? According to Snopes, "Well, kinda." Don't try it on a valuable book though... and please, not on library books.

Really weird reference question: did "an international cookbook compiled by California home economics teachers include a recipe for "Stuffed Camel?" Answer: "True!" The Snopes article goes on to explain that the recipe might be a joke and compares it to the "recipe" for elephant stew that kids learn in elementary school, but it leaves out the punch line which was something about adding ten rabbits to the stew is optional because some people don't like hare in their food. (That is high humor if you are in fourth grade, remember?)

For more, interesting, bookish urban legends, go to snopes.com and type in "books" to learn if a young reader committed suicide having learned the plot of the last Harry Potter book, or if a woman who used the rest room at a funeral home and signed the guest book inherited the fortune of the deceased and so on.

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