Madman's Library

[Miss Lockheart]

The Complete Compilation of IW's vol 2

Finally it's here!! Every single invented word or phrase you could ever want to know, or remember should you be in the mood for nostalgia. Beware, this book is a pop-up version, in the sense that memories may pop up from nowhere....

[Zotar]

Compendium of Cliche`s

A book containing fortune cookie sayings, overused proverbs, and common sense.

The book is jinxed to cause the reader to be unnaturally wise yet vastly unpopular (to the point of encountering hostility), which historically is a very steriotypical combination. The book also causes the possessor to be put in situations where fortune cookie wisdom is the most useful, and yet at the same time, the most harmful.

The cover bears the disclaimer, "Nobody like's a wise-guy."



Dripping Sarcasm for Dummies

This book is a quick reference guide to snappy, smart and often scathingly sarcastic remarks. The book is about the size of a pocket field guide, only 4 inches tall with 200 pages. When opened, it always falls open to a reply (or two or three) relevant to the discussion at hand at the time the book is opened.

This book is jinxed to cause the reader to be thrust into situations where sarcasm could incite anger or hostility and therefore, be the least helpful. The book appears to also have a compulsory enchantment that removes the possessor's inhibitions of sarcasm, releasing the flood.

This book also bears the disclaimer, "Nobody likes a wise-guy."



One-Liners of Doom

A joke book that always falls open to a one-line joke relevant to any current conversation being had in the vicinity of the person opening the book. Unfortuneatly, the jokes are very seldom funny, and the book seems to sap the reader's willpower, charisma, and confidence as he or she tells a joke, causing the joke to "die" before it finishes.

The curse on the book also causes the possessor to be drawn to persons with not much of a sense of humor.

Interestingly, a disclaimer on the cover reads, "Where is a wise-guy when you NEED one?"


*The above three books are found on the same shelf and are written by the same author. When a reader possesses all three, that person will be popular, wise, AND funny, the life of any party.

*When three readers who each possess one of the books are in the same room, an outsider might witness a sort of comedic act where the "Wise Man" gets scoffed, the "Joker" always seems to be deflated, and the "Scoffer" always seems to get knocked on his rump, to great amusement.

[Miss Lockheart]

The book of Buttered Toast Logic (formerly known as the book of Sod's Law but renamed due a libel case brought by Sod in 1992)

An insightful discussion that covers some of the most frustrating pessimistic truths and ironies witnessed by man. Did the worst happen to you? Then you probably feature in this book. Also contains a heated debate as to the actual definition of irony compared to the phenomenon of unfortunate incidents (previously known as Sod's Law but renamed due to said libel case) , for which you will find mathematic equations that truly confirm that if it can go wrong, it will go wrong, and how deliciously humorous that can be, for irony always wins out.

[Zotar]

Wait? Was That My Life?

This book appears to be you own autobiography. However, this book is enchanted. The more you read your own life story, the less of it you will actually remember.
But if you read it backwards (the very text reverses and rearranges to serve this purpose when you start at the end), you will in fact remember more of your life than you ever thought possible. You may even get memories that belong to someone else.

The book doesn't predict the future, it merely summarizes your life up to the moment you picked up the book.

This book (when read backwards) has been used theraputically as a cure for Alzheimer's as well as various psychological ailments pertaining to repressed memories.

When read forwards, the book has been known to cause those very same ailments.

Upon finishing, the book adds a closing statement at the end, detailing the moment you picked up the book and what happened when you read it. At this point most readers who read the book forwards will forget that they were reading a book at all.

[JET73L]

Everything's Better With Penguins
Translates any work of fiction or history into the same book, but with penguins. Comes with a free small penguin that drinks, eats chilled fish, and has been trained to act snarky depite having no voice. The back of the book recommends the author's previous bpook, Everything's Better with E.T.s (caveat: works inly with history books).

[Zotar]

Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?

As soon as you open the book, a person you know disappears and a picture of that person appears on the title page. The book becomes a story in the first person describing that person's experiences while being a character in the story itself. That person will only reappear in reality once you finish the book. The book is always 2000 pages long, not counting the non-story pages.

It is unclear as to whether the book creates an entirely new universe for the story events to take place, or simply takes that person elsewhere. The story takes place in a different location every time, and is of course never the same story twice.

There is a similar book called Where in the World is [Blank-blank]? In which the person the book effects will probably return home and even encounter the reader before the reader is finished reading, leaving the plot unresolved. (For example: Some where, there is a person who was supposed to be saved but wasn't).

True to storybook cliche`s, the person the stories focus on, never dies within the story itself, sometimes adding miraculous moments into the plot-line just to protect the person affected.

[JET73L]

Stop/Reset
A book devoted to teaching the art of setting markers at particular times, then returning to that time with your knowledge of what happened between setting the marker and activating it. Skill levels progress from limited uses, to any number of uses one at a time, to as many as three different markers for a single person. t the final skill level, it's theorized that one might even become adept enough to set the marker to activate and effectively cancel any possibility of death by unnatural causes.

[Zotar]

The Book Of Unnecessary Joy

This book details various ways to lift the mood in particularly somber places and situations. Anything from decorating vacant lots, dark alleyways or cemeteries, to sharing cheerful anecdotes at a boring staff meeting, or telling jokes at a funeral. Readers have been known to 'explode' with cheerfulness at parties and events where there are a lot of people. Simply holding the book will cause the reader's mood to improve dramatically.

This book once caused a mysterious incident at a court hearing where a reader was on trial for 'harassing' a cop while being pulled over for speeding. That particular reader told a very long winded and cheerful story about that very indecent, detailing even the cop's own thoughts and reactions, which he shouldn't have even known.

This book was brought forth as evidence that the reader was not in his right mind. The judge, while reading the cover of the book, was “emotionally” swayed to release the defendant of all charges. This book spent at least a year in that judge's possession, impeding the Justice System, before we finally tracked it down.

Strangely enough, confiscation of the book does not cause depression or dejection.

[JET73L]

101 1/2 Elephant Jokes
A horribly depressing book. We think it's a book containing 101 and one half elephant jokes, but nobody's ever reacheched the 1/2 joke before being consumed with the severe apathy and depression that comes with reading the book.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to Continental Europe
Appears to be a perfectly ordinary book, but written completely backwards, in mirror writing. No known link to either edition of The Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy (Andromeda or otherwise) in the library.

[Zotar]

The Cure for Cheerfulness: One Simple Method

This book describes a simple method for killing the atmosphere of any buoyant occasion, but the book doesn't even need to be opened to fulfill the promise of the title. It is cursed to overstimulate the brains of all in a radius of 5 meters at first inducing euphoria and then a subsequent migraine headache followed by a period of depression.

It took us archivists weeks to figure out what was happening to us when we were in the vicinity of the shelf the book was on. The man who recovered and relocated the book is currently receiving depression consoling as well as copious usage of The Book Of Unnecessary Joy which seems to be having a positive effect.



Reference THIS!

A sentient and spiteful book, providing obscure knowledge written in Ottendorf cipher codes that require pages from thousands of books within Madman's Library. Sometimes the pages required to decipher a page of text are swapped for wordy incantations used to jinx those books, the copyright pages or even the authors' home addresses.

The only way we were able to figure out what was inside was through the book SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS! which gives us hints at the vital usefulness of the knowledge inside, and the The Book of Bad Reviews.

Reference THIS! is the only book to receive a good review from The book of Bad Reviews.

When written down in a portion greater than a single sentence, the deciphered text reverts to code, as if the book expects us to only read a single sentence a day.

Our team hasn't made it past the dedication page.

The book likes to laugh at us.

We are trying to find a book called Revealing That Which is Hidden that would help us, but it seems to have been hidden.



This is Not a Subliminal Message

This book at first appears to be a guide to "subliminal advertising" or the art of planting random thought seeds in a person's mind that cause them to want to buy a certain product, without them actually being aware or fully conscious of the advertising. The subject matter of the advertisement itself could have nothing to do with the product being advertised.

But the book has a darker side. The book itself has a subliminal influence on the reader, causing the reader to behave in a certain way, or to pursue a certain objective relentlessly, or even to develop hypochondria (a condition where the victim only believes he or she is developing symptoms and the body will act accordingly).

One reader was actually convinced that he would become the president if he could only win the lottery. He used the same numbers every time he bought a lottery ticket.

Another reader believed he was actually a highly evolved Ape. This reader happened to be Charles Darwin, who subsequently learned how to brainwash nearly a whole world.

(And yes I'm embedding a political statement into a fictional forum game. :P)



How to Get Lost in a Place You Know Well

Contains maps and floor plans to places you've gone to often or studied thoroughly, but the maps mislead and send you off in the opposite direction of the place you want to go. Without realizing it, you forget all of you prior navigational knowledge while the book is open. Your sense of direction is temporarily wiped as well.