Someone wrote them, but did anyone read them?

THE books in a library don't merely reflect the taste of those who selected them; they also reflect the tenor of the times when they first saw print. Some books, of course, seem timeless, or are able to transcend the changes wrought by time. These are the classics, and Dartmouth's library system has them all: from Aristotle to Augustine, Descartes to Darwin, Sophocles to Shakespeare, Milton to Marx.

Obviously, the classics are not all that Dartmouth's libraries contain. In the stacks of Baker are hundreds, nay thousands, of books confined to a particular point in time and/or a very particular interest and audience. Mary Ellen Donovan browsed Baker for books that would suggest the variety of what's in store there, and she found a number of interesting (well, queer) titles. Besides some scary 19th-century temperance tracts, there were titles such as The History of the Umbrella, Fashions in "Eyeglasses, Why Do MenExist?, and Gloves and Their Annals. Presumably, someone once considered these books important and perhaps someone still does, but for various reasons Donovan selected several others for "review."

The following ten books and their descriptions certainly are not representative of the entire Baker collection. Nonetheless, they do give an inkling of what's there to be found - and of the changing tastes and interests the acquisitions officers have sought to meet during the library's long history.

THE KISS AND ITS HISTORY

by Christopher Nyroptranslated by 'William, F. HarveySands & Co., 1901. 189 pp.

NOT long ago, a chapped-lipped young man wrote to Ann Landers complaining that the previous night his date had "kept herself glued to my face for four hours. If I had had a stuffed-up nose I would have suffocated." Kiss expert Nyrop apparently has never had such an unpleasant experience. Sure, he admits, kissing can sometimes be perilous; in the preface, in fact, he goes so far as to say he considers it his "duty to caution my readers emphatically, and at the very outset, as to the dangers of even reading about kissing." The dangers aside, though, Nyrop obviously thinks kissing is great fun, and in waxing eloquent about such juicy topics as "rosebud lips," "maidens sweet," and even the relatively dry and boring "parent's kiss," he gives new meaning to the shopworn phrase, "kiss and tell."

Baffled about precisely what a kiss is? "One of the first requisites for a kiss is a mouth," Nyrop tells the reader. "A kiss is produced by a kind of sucking movement of the muscles of the lips, accompanied by a weaker or louder sound." Of loud kisses, Nyrop notes that among the most popular are the wet, sloppy kind that sound "just like when a cow drags her hind foot out of a swamp."

DOGS OF WAR

by John M. BebanScribner's, 1946. unpaged.

CONTRARY to popular belief, those who served in Vietnam are not America's most unappreciated veterans. Equally unappreciated - nay, more so - are those brave, trusty members of the canine corps John M. Behan memorializes in Dogs ofWar. During World War II, Behan reminds us, dogs saved the lives of more than 2,500 people in the Swiss Alps alone, and dogs were so crucially courageous on Bougainville that six were awarded commendations. Then, on Iwo Jima one particularly brave German Shepherd named Caesar got shot in the back several times, yet still managed to nearly chew off "a Jap's weapon arm, forcing him to drop a hand-grenade."

There are also numerous photographs of dead dogs, wounded dogs, dogs wearing slings, dogs in attack poses, dogs alertly standing by American soldiers of the two- footed sort, and even dogs looking at training manuals.

GLOSSARY OF FOOTBALL

LANGUAGEby Bill ShefskiRunning Press, 1978. 120 pp.

STANDING around by the tailgate prior to the game, do you ever get the feeling that you're losing track of the Conversation? After a quick reading of Shefski's book, you'll be able to grasp in full the meaning of all those often-heard football terms that previously mystified you. Arcane terms like cheerleader ("a person - usually a young woman - who leads the cheering of the fans seated in the stands," p. 34), clock (mechanical or electronic device used to time a game," p. 25), and rules ("laws governing the conduct of a game," p. 93).

Yes, this book clears up even such confusing terms as media ("newspaper reporters and broadcasters who cover a team or league and report the news about practices and games to the public," p. 68), pro (an athlete who plays football for money; a professional," p. 84) and tie ("a game in which both teams have an equal number of points," p. 108). Once you've mastered the jargon ("specialized language of the players, coaches and others working with the team," p. 62) you'll definitely come off as a winner ("a player whose heroic capabilities frequently emerge in crucial situations," p. 119).

FOOTBALL AND HOW TO WATCH IT

by Percy D. HaughtonLittle, Brown, 1922. 227 pp.

WHAT you do first, Harvard Coach Haughton says, is have a hearty lunch, a lunch that includes lots of libation. Then you stroll over to the stadium, and "after a thorough bumping about among people who all seem to be unusually large and good-naturedly rough," you sit your bottom down on the 50-yard-line seat you managed to finagle weeks before. Then you watch whatever preliminary practice and activity is happening on the field at the time, and then after that you wait for the game to begin.

"In this interim," Haughton says, "look about you. Behold the serried tiers of

humanity, every seat occupied by an intensely partisan spectator. Observe the color and effect of flags, ladies' hats and the flowers worn by both men and women slightly dimmed by a film of smoke from thousands of cigars and cigarettes. It is a most impressive spectacle." It's because of prosaic padding like this that I much preferred Haughton's book to Lou Little's How to Watch Football, also in the stacks.

THE BOOK OF POLITENESS

by Mme. CelnartAllen & Ticknor, 1833. 214 pp.

OH, how much simpler life in the early 19th century must have been! How much quieter, too! For virtually every difficult situation one can possibly imagine, Mme. Celnart has a simple solution: Don't talk about it. Iffriends take ill, visit them, of course, but never mention that they're sick. If a person dies, go to the funeral and present your calling card, but never mention the deceased. If your maid appears to be pregnant, don't bring the topic up; just get rid of her. If visitors arrive at your house looking thirsty, don't offer them a drink; ignore them. Unless, that is, they are so rude as to pass out in your parlor. Then offer them lemon water.

While tight-lippedness is, in Mme. Celnart's view, a supreme virtue to be upheld by all persons at all times, she is particularly intolerant of garrulity among the ladies. Men, she says, may on certain

occasions be permitted to voice opinions and to discuss such crass matters as politics and jobs, but women must "never, never indulge in freedom of speech."

THE ROMANCE OF THE SHOE

by Thomas WrightC. J. Farncombe & Sons, 1922. 323 PP

IN the world according to Thomas Wright, nothing is so important as what one wears on one's feet. It has been said," he comments, "that it is the mind that makes the man. This is a mistake, it is the boot." As Wright sees things, all the world's evils can be traced to improper footwear, especially footwear of the sort that forces the big toe out of position. Hence, Wright has a rather grandiose image of "the shoemaker."

The ancient shoemaker, he says, was known for "his youthful buoyancy of spirit, his abandon, and his passion for liberty

. . . He laughs even in his sleep. He is addicted to sport, whippets and pigeons being particularly to his taste." Moreover, "the old stitchmen were a fine, dignified, patriarchal race. They were intellectual giants - a class by themselves." All this somehow leads Wright to the conclusion that "the shoemaker is a revolutionary . . . the most ardent of radicals." Present-day shoemakers, says Wright, may be divided

"into two broad classes, first, the men whose failings are so obvious that comment is unnecessary; secondly the reflective men," who, "whether religionist or freethinker," represent all that is positive and uplifting in the human spirit and hold forth hope for all us crippled by bunions, fallen arches, and the like.

Another of Wright's books is The Romance of The Lace Pillow.

THE FILMS OF JANE FONDAby George Haddad-GarciaCitadel Press, 1981. 256 pp.

SEE Jane. See Jane in Hurry Sundown. See Jane in Julia. See Jane in Klute. See Jane in The Electric Horseman. See Jane in TheChina Syndrome. See Jane in The Game IsOver. See Jane in A Doll's House. See Jane - lots of her - in Barharella. See Jane - lots of her again - in Spirits of the Dead. See Jane in the arms of Robert Redford, Jason Robards, Jon Voight, Donald Sutherland, and many, many others. See Jane in bed with Robert Redford, Jason Robards, Jon Voight, Donald Sutherland, and many, many others. See Jane wearing a holster and pointing a pistol. See Jane wearing push-up bras. See Jane wearing an ugly shag hairdo. See Jane wearing a holster and pointing a pistol while still wearing push-up bras and that awful hairdo. See Jan;: metamorphose before your very own eyes. See Jane wearing antiwar buttons, hard hats, No Nukes T-shirts, no bra, and a Farrah Fawcett wig. See Jane on one Page, see Jane on the next, and see Jane on still the next one after that. When you've finally seen enough of Jane, read the section called "Jane Fonda and the Future." As the author concludes, since Jane is only 43 years old it s a pretty safe bet that you haven't seen the last of her yet.

HOW TO GET STRONGby William BlaikieHarper & Bros., 1885. 295 pp

LONG before Jack Kennedy paired athleticism and patriotism by forming the President's Council on Physical Fitness, William Blaikie was already worrying that rampant flab, poor muscle tone, and general wimpishness among Americans would cause the United States to appear weak in the eyes of the world. So for members of both sexes Blaikie recommends a simple regimen: Begin each day with a mere hour or two of weight-lifting; later in the day walk at least five miles, preferably at a brisk pace; and then before bed don your lightest clothes and run two miles, no slower than at a seven-minute-per-mile pace.

Also, Blaikie suggests that members of the "weaker sex" build up their skinny arms one at a time as follows: "Bind one arm in a sling, and keep it utterly idle for a month, and meanwhile ply the other busily with heavy work, such as swinging a hammer, axe or dumb-bell."

THE ART OF BUNDLINGby Dana DotenCountryman Press, 1938. 190 pp.

IF you are of old New England stock, says the author, "you have bundling blood in you." Bundling, for those not familiar with this once popular pastime, is what unmarried couples used to do back in the days when it was a far walk from his place to hers, so far as to necessitate that fellas spend the night with their sweeties when they came to court. To bundle literally means "to lie or sleep together in the same bed without undressing," and it was often accomplished with the help of a bundling board, a wooden plank placed between the young lovers as a precaution against excessive cuddling, heavy petting, or worse. The author expresses doubts as to whether bundling was always an effective defense against lust, but expresses equal doubt as to whether it led to lewd activity as often as alleged.

I suppose it would be foolishly naive to hope that bundling could ever make a comeback. Nonetheless, bringing back bundling might be worth considering. For, as the following poem makes clear, bundling, while perhaps not safe, at least had the advantage of being energy efficient:

Since in bed a man and a maid,May bundle and be chaste,It does no good to burn out wood,It is a needless waste.

THE DURABLE FIG LEAFby Mark StrageWilliam Morrow, 1980. 317 pp.

I wish I had been able to read this book before arriving in Hanover for freshman week in 1972, as I believe it would have made much of what I saw in the next four years a mite more understandable. The subtitle, A Historical, Cultural, Medical,Social, Literary, and Iconographic Account ofMan's Relations With His Penis, tells it all. M.E.D.