What Imaginary Books Are You Aware Of & Which Do You Wish Were Real? (6/28/20)

[Marc]

Fictitious grimoires, novels, ancient tomes, etc. What are some of the most famous imaginary books you know about? Do you wish any of them were real?

[Sam]

Marc wrote: "Fictitious grimoires, novels, ancient tomes, etc. What are some of the most famous imaginary books you know about? Do you wish any of them were real?"

The Necronomicon would top my list. As for the second question, the answer is a no except in my most misanthropic moods.

[Marc]

Sam wrote: "The Necronomicon would top my list..."
Same here, Sam!

The King in Yellow, a fictional play that drives readers mad (part of The King in Yellow and Other Horror Stories and made popular most recently by the first season of HBO's True Detective series) and A Night Time Smoke (from the graphic novel series Saga, Vol. 1) are the two that spring to mind first for me.

So many fictional books, so little time. If only I could find my way to The Borges Memorial Non-Lending Library of Imaginary Books...

[Whitney]

The Necronomicon and King in Yellow were the first that came to my mind, and, no - do not wish they were real!

Two that I would like to have would be the actual Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe, and the Junior Woodchuck Guidebook from the Donald Duck comics. No matter what situation the nephews were in, the Woodchuck guide would always have the solution; from building a fire to fending off Martian invaders. When I was on a survey crew, clever improvisations would always be referred to as "Woodchucking".

As an aside, when "The Fault in Our Stars" was popular, booksellers were reporting multiple people requesting "An Imperial Affliction", the fictitious book from the book and movie.

[Bretnie]

Whitney, that's so funny about The Fault in Our Stars! And YES to the actual Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe!

The first thing that came to mind was the fictional book by Julian Carax, The Shadow of the Wind, which is the subject of the actual book The Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. Although really, want I want even more is a real-life Cemetery of Forgotten Books.

The Fault in Our Stars trend reminds me of The Princess Bride and how a lot of people apparently thought "S. Morgenstern" was a real person and really wrote an epic novel that William Goldberg edited.

The handbook theme made me think of Gary Shteyngart's The Russian Debutante's Handbook, which would be a fascinating handbook.

[Robert]

On Belle and Sebastian's fourth album Fold Your Hands, You Walk Like a Peasant, The girls (from the now defunct group Múm)on the album sleeve are holding two books. One is called Beyond the Sunrise and the Other is I Fought in a War. Since I am a fan of the band, I would have bought those books in an instant.

[Hugh]

Then there are the books within books. A.S. Byatt's Babel Tower quotes extensively from a book one of her characters is writing about an imaginary community inspired by Fourier's ideas. Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin does something similar. I am not sure these count as imaginary since in both cases parts of them were actually created, though not as full length books in their own right.