If I were a book...

[No one]

A whale of a tale.
A not so holy grail.
The pale veil,
that masks the frail,
stale, king of fail.

[Recusant]

Where is the rampaging? The pillaging? The tumultuous destruction? The wrath? The fury? The preface does not include any comparable barbarian parallels.

That would be a different book-- a caricature of the lowest common denominator of barbarian.

Neither is one entirely defined by any one noun.  In any case I would consider rejection of the ethos of the civilization with which one is confronted as the most essential quality of the barbarian. Rampaging and pillaging and such, merely window dressing. 

[MarcusA]

A chrestomathy of practical items, random "interesting" bits of science, occasional fragments of fiction, and some pictures. Illustrations are sadly almost entirely missing from contemporary books.

If I were a book, I'd be a picture book and make the kids laugh.

[billy rubin]

A chrestomathy of practical items, random "interesting" bits of science, occasional fragments of fiction, and some pictures. Illustrations are sadly almost entirely missing from contemporary books.

If I were a book, I'd be a picture book and make the kids laugh.

marcus, you have valuable redeeming qualities.

your posting is hard for me to keep up with, but always worth reading/

[Icarus]

There is a book that I have read parts of, hundreds,even thousands of times, The book is called; Smoley's Tables of Slopes and Rises. Only really old folks who have been in the engineering business will have ever heard of it.

Before hand held calculators, it was a time consuming process to do simple trig problems. Like when a structural element was designed into a diagonal or rotated position. It was important to know the dimensions of such an element. That problem occurred frequently in civil and mechanical engineering and many  other applications.

Smoley's was and still is, a book that lists the dimensions of tens of thousands of combinations of rise and run slopes and rises. My $12 dollar hand held calculator can do those problems much faster than thumbing through the book, like the old timers, me included,  had to do.

I am not sure that any of my HAF peers are old enough to have ever had to do calculations the hard way, or have chosen to refer to the slope and rise bible from Mr.Smoley.

What the hell? Design programs on my computer, like Solidworksor Autocad can do the math with blazing speed and accuracy. I was born 60 yeqrs to soon.

[MarcusA]

If I were a book, I'd engineer an idea.

[MarcusA]

If I were a book, I'd be a mystery.

[Tank]

No you'd be an irritating comic book

[MarcusA]

No you'd be an irritating comic book

If I were a book, I'd reply.

[MarcusA]

If I were a book, I'd be a book of nonsense.

[billy rubin]

if i wrre a book, wyeth would illustrate me.

[MarcusA]

If I were a book, write me up in black and white.

[MarcusA]

If I were a book, I'd be despairing.

[The Magic Pudding.]

I wish I could find a good book to live in
Wish I could find a good book
Well if I could find a real good book
I'd never have to come out and look at
What they've done to my song

[No one]

A book of the damned, for the damned, by the damned.
Despicable, detestable, loathsome, execrable.
Hated, berated.
Refused, rejected, simply not tolerated
Out, damned book; out, say they!