This is where I’ll be sharing the collection of fictional books I have inexplicably compiled. Each one will have the cover and catalog information. Requests and suggestions are absolutely welcome! Here are the hard-and-fast rules I will ignore as I see fit:
1) The book must originate in a work of fiction. No fictional editions of real books.
2) There must be some canonical image or description of the book to go off of. I won’t be making anything from whole cloth.
TITLE: Misery's Return
AUTHOR: Paul Sheldon
ORIGIN: Misery (novel, 1987, written by Stephen King)
Misery's Return is arguably the most well-known of Paul Sheldon's best-selling Misery Chastain series of Victorian-era romance novels, due as much to the horrifying circumstances of its writing as to the story itself. Reportedly wishing to focus on more "serious" literature, Sheldon had ended the previous book in the series, Misery's Child, with the series protagonist dying in childbirth. Following a car accident in Colorado, however, Sheldon went missing for a period of several months. Sheldon has been reticent to share precise details, but reportedly he was held prisoner by a deranged fan of his work who, infuriated by Sheldon's attempt to end the series, forced him to write Misery's Return, in which Misery was revealed to have merely fallen into a death-like coma due to a bee sting allergy. Upon publication following Sheldon's escape, the book became an instant best-seller and has been acclaimed as Sheldon's best work.
This cover comes from the first mass market paperback edition of Misery's Return, and proved to be somewhat controversial among Sheldon's fans as the man on the cover does not match the descriptions of either Geoffrey nor Ian, the series's male leads, and actually looks like "kind of a weenie."
I. Fiction — Romance (historical) — Love triangles
II. Trashy novels — Bodice rippers — Bosoms (heaving)
III. Successes (resented) — Forced continuations — Not quite dead
IV. Plot points — Goals — Or else
An unusual one that I can post something that originates in a book without needing to dip into an adaptation! This comes from Misery's first paperback edition, published by Signet in 1988. It came with the above cover as a secondary one underneath the book's actual cover, though sadly the book does not credit the artist and so neither can I.
The gentleman on the cover is, of course, author and noted beefcake Stephen King.
Any of the Misery books by Paul Sheldon! I'm his number one fan! -A. W.
i've got just the thing for you, mysterious anonymous Paul Sheldon fan, and am in no way fulfilling your request because i'm afraid of what will happen if i don't
TITLE: The Shawshank Prison ledger
PRIMARY BOOKKEEPER: Andrew Dufresne
ORIGIN: The Shawshank Redemption (movie, 1994, directed and written by Frank Darabont, based on a story by Stephen King)
This ledger contains the complete financial records of Shawshank State Prison from 1947 to 1966. The records were primarily kept by inmate Andrew Dufresne, a former bank vice president serving two consecutive life sentences for the murders of his wife and her lover. The records also include evidence of the financial crimes perpetrated by the prison's warden, Samuel Norton, including embezzlement, money laundering, and misappropriation of funds. Along with other evidence of wrongdoing, the ledger was delivered to the offices of the Portland Daily Bugle who turned them over to the district attorney and broke the story of the prison's corruption in August, 1966 (see archives), shortly after the escape and disappearance of Mr. Dufresne. Warden Norton was found in his office, dead of a self-inflicted wound, before he could be taken into custody.
I. Account books and ledgers — Financial records — Jails and prisons
II. Bookkeeping and accountancy — Financial crimes — Incriminating evidence
III. Plot resolutions — Sweet revenge — Ruination
This is another original prop from our good friends over at Propstore Auction. It appears to be pretty thorough, including more than nineteen years' worth of realistic handwritten records in pen and pencil. It also included a paper and fabric bookmark of the Beatitudes which I trimmed out, because I didn't actually see it in any of the shots of the ledger in the movie.
"Toon Kills Man" (Los Angeles Chronicle, August 15, 1947)
HEADLINE: "Toon Kills Man" (August 15, 1947)
TITLE: Los Angeles Chronicle
ORIGIN: Who Framed Roger Rabbit (movie, directed by Robert Zemeckis, 1988)
The murder of Marvin Acme, owner of the Acme Corporation and of Toontown, was a watershed moment in Hollywood history and in human-toon relations. Though photos taken by private investigator Eddie Valiant of Acme playing patty-cake with Jessica Rabbit, wife of Maroon Cartoon Studios star Roger Rabbit, implicated Roger as the culprit (as chronicled here), further investigation by Valiant revealed that the actual murderer was Judge Doom, under whose jurisdiction Toontown fell. Doom — who turned out to be a toon disguised as a human and whose true identity has never been discovered — killed Acme as part of a plot to gain ownership of Toontown, with the intent of destroying it to build a new freeway via his company Cloverleaf Industries. This issue is notable not only for the event that it covers and its false accusation against Roger Rabbit, but also for contradicting its own subheadline by accidentally providing evidence of the existence of Acme's will, which he long had stated would leave Toontown to the toons themselves.
I. Periodicals — Newspapers — Los Angeles (1900-1949)
II. Archives — Crime reporting — Homicide
III. Plot points — A clue! — Zoom in
Another special request, from one of my all-time favorite movies! This is another original prop sold by PropstoreAuction in spring 2025. Note that Jessica looks pretty different here from how she actually looks in the movie, because they changed her design between filming the live-action footage and animating the toon characters. Interestingly, though, the photo prints we see close up in the film show a Jessica much closer to her final iconic form, likely because they filmed this shot later specifically to better match her updated design.
Also of note is the fact that, other than the headlines, captions, and introductory paragraph, all the text appears to be copy from a real newspaper, though from completely unrelated real-world stories. In addition, apparently some people spell (and pronounce?) the word "drought" as "drouth," which was news to me.
TITLE: How to Cook for Forty Humans
AUTHOR: Unknown Rigellian gourmand
ORIGIN: The Simpsons (television series, episode 2x3, "The Simpsons Halloween Special," aka "Treehouse of Horror," segment "Hungry Are the Damned," 1990)
A cookbook from Rigel IV, written specifically if you are... serving humans. The recipes within will give those humans the perfect flavor, helping them to grow large with food, in order to properly prepare them as the guests of honor at the Grand Feast. If they pause eating long enough between courses, perhaps you will be able to chew the fat with them. Be aware, though, some unfortunately placed space dust and the astonishing coincidence that the English and Rigellian languages are exactly the same may give your humans the unfortunate idea that you want to actually eat them! Truly a ridiculous and insulting thought.
I. Reference — Cookbooks — Normal human food
II. Plot twists — Misunderstandings — Wordplay trouble
III. Parodies — Twilight Zone — Untwist the twist
Ooh, been hanging onto this one for a while. This of course is a parody of the previously featured To Serve Man (in which the aliens DO actually want to eat the humans), and comes from the very first "Treehouse of Horror" episode of The Simpsons. This specific segment is also the one that introduced the alien characters Kang and Kodos, who would go on to be staples of Simpsons Halloweens for decades to come (and ALSO featured Serak the Preparer, voiced by none other than James Earl Jones!) And, because I'm me, I also produced the space-dust-obscured versions that led to Lisa's erroneous conclusions about her hosts. I did standardize them, though, as the exact colors, fonts, and positions of the words changed from shot to shot.
TITLE: The Corpse Danced at Midnight
AUTHOR: Jessica Fletcher (writing as J.B. Fletcher)
ORIGIN: Murder She Wrote (television series, episode 1x1, “The Murder of Sherlock Holmes," 1984)
The bestselling debut novel by celebrated mystery author Jessica "J.B." Fletcher. Formerly a substitute English teacher, Fletcher wrote The Corpse Danced at Midnight as a way to pass the time after the death of her husband, Frank. Though she never intended to actually publish the book — her nephew set the manuscript to a publisher without her knowledge — it quickly became a bestseller and led to Fletcher publishing at least forty additional mystery novels over the next twenty years. She also developed a reputation as a keen detective in her own right, solving the many, many murders that seem to occur wherever she goes and that made her home town of Cabot Cove, Maine (population 3,560) into the per-capita murder capital of the world.
While a film adaptation of The Corpse Danced at Midnight (with added violence and nudity) was optioned shortly after its publication, the film's production was halted by the untimely murder of the film's producer by its lead actress. The only other known adaptation of the novel is an audiobook for the blind, read by Fletcher herself.
SPOILERS: It was the pregnant ballerina, with the poison.
I. Fiction — Mystery — Dance-themed
II. Successes (accidental) — Inadvertent publication — Who would want to read something I wrote?
III. Character illumination — Establishing moments — Skills and abilities
This is another one from a property that I am well aware of, due to having existed in the late '80s and early '90s, but that I have never really engaged in to any great degree. It was a special request from a friend who is, contrary to all appearances, actually a little old lady at heart. I got the artwork from some bootleg merchandise on TeePublic, as it was the only reasonably high-quality image I could find, but heaven knows where they got it from. The text and the book I recreated myself, though as you can see from the screenshots below mine has had a few additional decades of wear and tear.
TITLE: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
AUTHORS: The field researchers and editors of Megadodo Publications
ORIGIN: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radio series, episode "Fit the First," 1978, created and written by Douglas Adams)
EDITION: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (movie, 2005, directed by Garth Jennings)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is one of the most remarkable, certainly the most successful, books ever to come out of the great publishing corporations of Ursa Minor—more popular than the Celestial Home Care Omnibus, better selling than Fifty-three More Things to Do in Zero Gravity, and more controversial than Oolon Coluphid’s trilogy of philosophical blockbusters, Where God Went Wrong, Some More of God’s Greatest Mistakes and Who Is This God Person Anyway?
In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, the Hitchhiker’s Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects.
First, it is slightly cheaper; and second, it has the words DON’T PANIC inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover.
I. Reference — Encyclopedias — Life, the universe, and everything
II. Compendia of all knowledge — Technological — Definitively inaccurate
III. Plot navigators — Tomes of exposition — World-building infodumps
IV. Books as characters — Narrators — Fourth wall breaking
I know, I know, the movie is at best controversial among Hitchhiker's Guide fans, but it was easier to get a decent picture of its Guide than most other versions. The radio show and subsequent books obviously don't have actual images of the Guide, and the various video games, comics, computer programs, illustrated editions, etc., all only have illustrations from which I would have to create a live-action replica, and that's, like, a lot of work, man. And when you get right down to it, avoiding work is what Douglas Adams would've wanted. There is also the early '80s BBC TV series, but I couldn't find a nice clear image of its Guide that wasn't a fan-made replica (though I do hope to get one of these eventually! I've already made an image of its case, just not the Guide itself.)
Anyway, what I ended up with here is actually a combination of one of the original props made for the movie by Asylum Models & Effects, Ltd. and a screenshot to layer on all the scratches and scuffs we see on Ford's copy from the movie. Technically speaking, this is actually the back cover of the movie's Guide, but that's the side that has the iconic "Don't Panic" on it, which I obviously had to have. It opens to reveal a screen that displays the "pages" of the Guide, with little speakers for the Guide's voice as played by Stephen Fry (the only reasonable replacement for the late Peter Jones).
The book's description above is, of course, entirely Douglas Adams.
How about the Orange Catholic Bible? It is (from the reader's perspective) a multicultural religious work from Frank Herbert's Dune universe.
Oh, interesting! I admit I've only read the first book (and quite a while ago at that) and haven't seen the movies, but I'll add it to the to-dod list. Thanks for the idea!
Original art by @foldingfittedsheets. Check out their Commissionpalooza!
TITLE: Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooie
AUTHOR: Mabel Syrup
ORIGIN: Calvin and Hobbes (comic strip; July 10, 1988; created by Bill Watterson)
The charming childhood story of Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooie, which tells the memorable story of... a hamster named Huey and a kablooie that is gooey, is beloved by children and known by parents the world over. The book is perfect for reading at bedtime, as long as the reader remembers to do all the squeaky voices, gooshy sound effects, and of course the Happy Hamster Hop, and refrains from making Hamster Huey speak very sarcastically, do everything very fast, or get decapitated. Your child will surely love this book just as much the thousandth time they hear it as they did the first, and will demand to hear it a thousand and first time, regardless of whether or not you want to read it over and over and over and over.
If you enjoyed Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooie, be on the lookout for Mabel Syrup's upcoming sequel, Commander Coriander Salamander and 'er Singlehander Bellylander! And if you didn't enjoy Hamster Huey... you may also want to be on the lookout for it, just in case. [Donated by Calvin's dad, who says "Just keep it, please. I'll tell him his tiger ate it or something."]
I. Children's books — Character Name and the Noun Phrase — Kablooies (gooey)
II. Favorite books — Bedtime stories — Read it to me again, and again, and again....
III. Running gags — Just a funny title — Left to the imagination
Hahahaaa, so this one might be where I've finally gone off the deep end with this project. As any right-minded person who was a child in the late '80s and early '90s, I love Calvin and Hobbes, so I've wanted to include Calvin's favorite book for a while. Unfortunately, the cover is only actually shown in the strip once, and it's... not very detailed, as you can see below. So, since I couldn't find an available image of a hamster that I liked and have rather limited art skills, I decided to commission actual artist and Tumblr user @foldingfittedsheets to create artwork that could at least more or less pass for the image from the strip that I could then add a title to and bookify. Apparently intrigued by my... let's go with "niche" request, they accepted the commission and produced the absolutely delightful Wattersonian artwork that you can see in its unadulterated state below. If you like their artwork and would like to commission some of your own, their Commissionpalooza is still open!
The only canonical image:
@foldingfittedsheets's amazing original art before I mucked with it:
TITLE: From Outer Space
AUTHOR: Jose Chung
ORIGIN: The X-Files (television show, episode 3x20, “Jose Chung's From Outer Space,” 1996)
A "nonfiction science fiction" novel by celebrated thriller author Jose Chung, From Outer Space tells a fictionalized account of the alien abduction of two teenagers in Klass County, Washington. Based upon extensive interviews with the victims, an eyewitness, the discoverer of a dead alien body, the local police, and one of the primary FBI investigators, Chung discovers multiple conflicting stories that involve a fake alien abduction interrupted by a real alien abduction, a bestial creature named "Lord Kinbote," multiple levels of hypnosis and false memories, a real autopsy of a false alien, an Air Force cover-up, a reincarnated souls sex orgy at the center of the Earth, mysterious "men in black" (one of whom may or may not be Alex Trebek), and the consumption of an entire sweet potato pie. While some aspects of the story seem certain, the full truth of what happened to those two teens that night may never be known.
I. Fiction — Science fiction — Alien abductions
II. True crime — Unreliable narrators — It was definitely aliens
III. Metanarratives — Self-parody — An outsider's perspective
Not too much to say about this one! Other than the screenshot of the alien head this was a full digital recreation by me (and even the alien head went through several filters to make it look better at this resolution.)
Screenshot:
I do wish we could more clearly make out the back cover copy. I wonder if it's anything actually pertinent or just some lorem ipsum. Basically I want there to be more official in-universe descriptions of these books so that I don't have to do as much work.
DESCRIPTION: Penny's Computer Book
CREATOR: Unknown, possibly Penny herself
ORIGIN: Inspector Gadget (television show, pilot episode "The Winter Olympics", 1982)
A highly-advanced computer disguised as a book, owned by Penny, niece of the famous police investigator Inspector Gadget. The inside contains controls and screens that allow the user to do any number of remarkable feats. While some of them may now seem commonplace in the age of smartphones — video calling, GPS mapping, language translation, accessing databases, information retrieval — they were truly unprecedented in the early 1980s. In addition, the book had numerous capabilities that remain impressive today, including the ability to emit laser beams and powerful sonic pulses, scanning for and jamming electrical signals, hacking into nearly any computer, and the ability to remotely take over electrical and mechanical systems such as robots, elevators, trains, and helicopters. In addition, it has several known peripherals, including a digital camera, a typewriter, and tracker-transmitters. It is also highly resilient, able to survive long drops and being fully submerged in water.
While it does open and have separate pages like a real book, only the controls in the very center are seen and used. The other pages' contents, if any, are unknown. Similarly, the function of the screen and keypad on the book's cover remains a mystery, but may be a place to enter a security code for access.
I. Not actually books — Computers — Do-anything devices
II. Reference — Information access points — Basically the internet
III. Plot navigators — Deus ex libro — Advanced technology
This was a special request from my esteemed patroness (the Right Honourable Lady Catherine de Bourgh my wife), and is a milestone as the first of these books I actually spent money on. Since it only appeared in the original cartoon I had to recreate it in "real life," and while I was able to find a book (from my day job's archives) and a screen (my Kindle) that worked, I couldn't find any proper images online for the keypad (white, square keys, straight sides, flat top with a finger recess), so I ended up ordering a handful so I could take the picture myself, because I am crazy.
Anyway, as with much 1980s TV animation, the appearance of Penny's book has been inconsistent, sometimes even within a single scene. Sometimes it has just a plain blue cover with no electronic doodads, sometimes the keypad is 5x5, sometimes 3x4, but this version seems to be the most common, particularly in close-ups.
Screenshots:
The inside:
(Those green buttons were consistently numbers, though they changed up what the last couple were. Sometimes they were 1-12, sometimes 1-10 and then two random symbols, sometimes (like here) 1-9, 0, and two random symbols. In this case a period and... a lower case n in cursive? A stylized Greek letter eta (η)? Who knows.)
TITLE: Twelve Landmarks of London
AUTHOR: Natalia "The Flying Swan" Kozlova
ORIGIN: Paddington 2 (movie, 2018, directed by Paul King, and written by Paul King and Simon Farnaby)
Natalia Kozlova was the greatest showwoman of her generation, best known for the trapeze artistry that earned her the nickname "The Flying Swan." She was also a great artist, creating a one-of-a-kind pop-up book for each city she visited in her travels. She was killed by her circus's magician, who coveted the fortune she had amassed due to gifts from her many admirers. Unfortunately for him, her strongbox contained only this book, her pop-up tribute to London, which he left behind while evading pursuit. Many years later, Kozlova's great-granddaughter gave the book to an antique dealer to sell on commission, whereupon it was stolen by the magician's grandson, the formerly famous actor Phoenix Buchanan, who believed it to be the key to finding the still-missing fortune. Buchanan's schemes were foiled by a young bear named Paddington Brown — framed by Buchanan for the theft — and his family, at which point the book was seized by London police as evidence. We are grateful for their cooperation and surprisingly lax security for allowing us to add this book to our collection.
I. Picture books — Real places — London
II. Children’s books — Pop-up books — Famous landmarks
III. Works of art — Mementos — Secret messages
IV. Plot triggers — Treasure maps — Scavenger hunts
This is one of the actual props made for the movie that was put up for auction in 2023, lightly edited by me to fix wear and tear from production. This particular book only actually contains two scenes (Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament); presumably other books were created that contained the other scenes shown in the movie, including Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, the Tower Bridge, and St. Paul's Cathedral. All of the books were designed and built by David Hawcock of Hawcock Books. At that link you can see a very neat video showing off the pop-up designs, including an apparently unused prototype for a pop-up of Paddington Station.
(Incidentally, the cover just has the title London, but in the movie Madame Kozlova calls it Twelve Landmarks of London. As that's the more interesting and distinctive title, that's the one I'm going with.)
TITLE: Isle of Naboombu
AUTHOR: Unknown
ORIGIN: Bedknobs and Broomsticks (movie, 1971, directed by Robert Stevenson, and screenplay by Bill Walsh and Don DaGradi)
Many centuries ago, the great wizard Astoroth imprisoned and experimented on animals to make them more humanlike. His creations rebelled, killing him and stealing the Star of Astoroth, a medallion inscribed with the five mystical words that comprise the spell of Substitutiary Locomotion, which imbues inanimate objects with a life force of their own. The animals all fled to the island of Naboombu, where they set up their own kingdom in which no humans are allowed. Reportedly, a shipwrecked Asian sailor in the 1600s saw the legendary island ruled by talking animals while adrift in the Pacific, but the story could not be confirmed. The island appears on no charts, and despite lifetimes of searching by motivated individuals has never been found, and it has even been stated to exist in a different world entirely from this one.
Anyway, this children's picture book, found in an English mansion in 1940, contains up-to-date information on the island, its inhabitants (down to individuals), laws and customs, and a fully accurate rendition of the Star of Astoroth, despite having been published 36 years earlier.
I. Picture books — Animals (funny) — Mostly African
II. Children's books — Fantasy lands — Real after all
III. Plot navigators — Tomes of exposition — Inexplicably attained knowledge
This is an image of the original prop from the movie, held by the Walt Disney Archives and occasionally put on display at, for instance, the biennial D23 official Disney fan convention. This specific image came from Twitter user Turbomac, who has apparently deleted their account since I found their picture.
Incidentally, these "muslin books" were a real thing in children's books from the time period. You can see a real-life example here, including a back-cover ad for more books in the series.
TITLE: Six Feet Under Par: A Chip Driver Mystery
AUTHOR: Brent Norwalk
ORIGIN: The Good Place (television show, episode 4x6, “Chapter 45: A Chip Driver Mystery,” 2019)
Half spy novel, half murder mystery, half submarine adventure, half erotic memoir, half political thriller, half golf tutorial, and half commentary on society, this masterful work by posthumous would've-been-bestselling author Brent Norwalk stars Chip Driver —detective, golf player, Chicago Bears quarterback, and the world's strongest president — as he investigates the murder of the beautiful Scarlet Pakistan, who had brown eyes as brown as the brownest crayon and legs like Jessica Rabbit from that movie. After he solves it on page 10, the rest of the book is there too. Any sexist and/or racist resemblance to other residents of The Good Place, not-living or dead, is purely coincidental.
I. Fiction — Mystery — Sports-themed
II. Vanity projects — Ego stroking (self) — Thinly-veiled fictionalization
III. Character illumination — Extreme entitlement — Completely unearned
This is an original prop, taken from the official NBC Good Place Instagram (via Ted Danson's Twitter, which I'm not linking to because of the fascism [Twitter's, not Ted's]), which also shows a few interior pages that have both passages from the books and bits of the episode script written as prose, with the show's characters reacting to the passages.
