5 Great Books That Nobody Will Publish

Trigger warning: This post contains jokes. If you’re easily offended, read at your own peril.

I’m currently trying to brainstorm ideas for new book projects to pitch, and I’ve come up with a lovely list of titles that absolutely no one will ever want to publish. But I guarantee that you want to read them. Not the actual books, but the elevator pitches for the books. Most of them are unpublishable for a reason.

Past the Post: Simulacralism

This is a book that takes Catholicism to a new level, pushing past the already ausgespielt tropes of post-postmodernism to look beyond the beyond. Here, in the collapsible lacunae of madness, we look towards the eschatological horizon to that time when the real becomes universal and there is death! by which Christ reconciles all things to Himself and makes them new.

Give Birth Like a Man: The Bulldyke’s Guide to Cranking Them Out

Most birthing books are for pussies. They contain advice like “Picture the cervix as a morning-glory slowly opening to the sun!” “Discover your inner fertility goddess!” “Give birth surrounded by a soft pink light, listening to Enya in a pool full of lotus flowers.” Screw that. This is a birthing book that does not fanny about. It tells you everything you need to get in, get out, and get the job done. If Rocky was going to have a baby, this would be his Mickey Goldmill.

The Recovering Stoic’s Guide to Enduring the Passions

So apparently emotions are a good thing. Unfortunately, most books on the subject assume that you’re already swimming in a swamp of sentiment, and that what you really need to learn is how to exercise rudimentary willpower and attain basic rational functioning. But what if you aleady relate to your emotional life like Stalin related to the Russian people? Then this book is for you. It answers important questions like “Why do I have to have emotions anyway?” and “Is it possible that sometimes experiencing the baser passions may not be wholly incommensurable with the excellence proper to Man?”

Wee Willie Wombat and the Big Bad Culture War

A children’s book about a frightened but courageous wombat in America. Nobody knows how to categorize him. Is he left, or right? A Republican, or a Democrat? And what is he hiding in that pouch? Faced with suspicion from taxonimists, mainstream media and border control officers alike, the wombat is forced to wrestle with shame and internalized wombaphobia as he strives to find his true identity in a world where everyone is determined to instrumentalize him for their competing political agendas.

Symposia: Women & Gold, Gods & Monsters and Beauty & Madness

Three sequels to the wildly successful Eros & Thanatos, my first book of philosophical dramas which has sold like almost two dozen copies (mostly to John Demetry, who thinks its brill.) For some reason the taglines “Plato meets Euripides in a postmodern coffee shop” and “Page-turning existential dialectics! Now with 3000% more supernatural horror,” haven’t attracted the huge following that I anticipated. But seriously, E&T is my favourite thing that I’ve ever written, and if more of you read it I’ll be able to justify finishing the next one.

Image: Detail from Black Ice, one of the illustrations for Women & Gold. Melinda Selmys 2015