If you're having trouble sleeping, try reading The Trombone in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance or Prehistoric Sandals from Northeastern Arizona, writes Michael Parsons.
If they don't do the trick, then A Study of Hospital Waiting Lists in Cardiff, 1953-1954 should cure even the most chronic insomnia. These oddly named volumes are examples of a new cult in the traditionally sedate world of book collecting - searching for bizarre titles.
A London bookseller, Brian Lake, is the proprietor of Jarndyce Books which well-heeled customers seeking a first edition of Dickens might visit. But he also devotes a window to his private collection of books with titles which appeal to lovers of double-entendres, schoolboy humour or the plain crazy. They include Handbook for the Limbless, Play with Your Own Marbles and Fish Who Answer the Telephone. Lake's collection has long delighted connoisseurs - and his shop has become something of a tourist attraction as it is located opposite the entrance to the British Museum.
For sheer, glorious English eccentricity it would be hard to find wackier titles than: Truncheons - Their Romance and Reality and The Art of Faking Exhibition Poultry. These and hundreds of other authenticated titles can be found in Bizarre Books a best-selling guide by Mr Lake and fellow-author Russell Ash (Jarndyce Books, £6.99 in UK). It's a fascinating catalogue of publishing howlers from The Romance of Leprosy to Songs of a Chartered Accountant. It is constantly being updated and its authors welcome suggestions for inclusion in the next edition.
Other booksellers are developing a similar sideline to their main business. Roger Treglown, a dealer from Macclesfield in Cheshire, is visiting Dublin for the PBFA Book Fair in the Coach House, Dublin Castle this weekend. He is a leading specialist in books about chess, but if you're looking for a truly unique and inexpensive gift that will guarantee a smile he can offer such crackers as The History of the Concrete Roofing Tile or Lady Loverley's Chatter.
There are some very odd titles of Irish interest. How the Irish Became White might be useful reading in light of the current debate on immigration. America inevitably produced Beyond Shannon and Sean: An Enlightened Guide to Irish Baby Naming (by the improbably named Linda Rosenkrantz Pamela Redmond Satran), after which you'll probably need Irish Girl and Boy Paper Dolls. An Irish clergyman, the Rev Dr John Irwin Brown, writing under the pseudonym Cuey-na-Gael, had huge success in the early 20th century with An Irishman's Difficulties with the Dutch Language, first published in Rotterdam in 1908.
But here's a novel idea. Anyone fancy the challenge of putting together a collection of 32 works of fiction (children's included) each with a title containing the name of an Irish county? Life is too short, you may say. And you would probably be right.
Leinster looks promising. Kildare and Wexford provide rich pickings thanks to the fictitious doctor and detective. But that would be too easy. Look instead for a rare American novel called The Little Brown Jug at Kildare. A direct hit for the Model County with Wexford, a "historical romance". Bull's-eye also for neighbouring Kilkenny - appropriate for a Western with a sharp-shooting hero. From a surprisingly limited choice the potboiler Nightmare in Dublin ill serves one of the world's great literary cities. It was a relief to find The Adventures of Shay Mouse: The Mouse from Longford. Back to a romantic theme with The Wild Rose of Meath and, happily, The Marriage of Barry Wicklow.
Moving north to Ulster the mood sours with Death in Donegal Bay. On a cheerier note Antrim's Orange is not about politics but the "sweet story of a boy and the orange his Granny gave him". And don't be offended by The Cavan Breed - it's just another story about cowboys. The thriller Derry Down Death could have killed two birds - but from a wide selection Go Down, Moses is probably the best choice and the only book with any real literary merit in this whole mad venture. But thank God for American romantic weepies - a genre which delivered Lisa Beth of Monaghan: An Irish Love Story. And getting desperate now, a lucky find in the children's section was Tyrone the Horrible.
Connacht delivered The Tides of Sligo, an Irish-American author's political thriller set against the background of Lord Mountbatten's murder. Mayo Sergeant is a "suspense" from the 1960s about a "young man from Ohio seeking the golden shores in Southern California". Half-Three in Galway takes us back to romance and afternoon tea.
And finally to Munster, which relied heavily on youth fiction and provided the strangest offering with the mind-boggling Mermaids Don't Run Track: What is Coach Waterford's Secret? - by a prolific American children's author, who is certainly inventive as she is responsible also for the truly ghastly Leprechauns Don't Play Basketball. Moving swiftly south, we find The Adventures of Danny the Cork Man followed by Kerry the Fire Engine Dog - a children's classic from 1940s America. No surprise to find A Long Way to Tipperary, a teen pulp-fiction tome from Australia. Far more sophisticated is Poor Clare, a rather posh English novel that's not about a nun.
But there are big gaps. The search could lead to a lifelong obsession and possibly recourse to Teach Yourself Alcoholism. To recap, the missing counties are Armagh, Carlow, Fermanagh, Laois, Leitrim, Limerick, Louth, Offaly, Roscommon and Westmeath. Aspiring novelists seeking fame - of a sort - please note.