looking for unusual books

[In the Nick of Time]

I am looking for how-to-books about how to get into an adventurous or unusual career, maybe something old fashioned that people don't realize exists anymore. I am also looking for books about how to become a hobo or live nomadically in remote places. I heard of a book called The Last Frontiers on Earth published by Loompanics, but I don't know if it's a how-to-book and since it was published more tha 20 years ago, I don't know if it's relevant. Also, I once saw a website that sold books claimg to teach people how to get hired doing such things as mining for diamonds in Africa, becoming a mercenary, working, as a fisherman in Alaska, etc. I would also be interested in reading controversial travel guides such as where to find brothels or resturants that serve taboo food, such as horse and dog meat. I am looking for plaaces that resemble the old fasioned Chinatowns you see in old silent movies, with opium dens, hidden gambilng parlors, and adventure around every corner. It seems that there was much more iadventure in the past than there is today. Hopefully, somewhere in the world such things still exist and hopefully somewhere there are how-to-books explaining how to do them. Loompanics no longer exists and I never had a catalogue from them so I don't know if they had any books about the topics I listed above. If not, maybe a company similar to loompanics publishes such books. I heard that Loompanics used to also sell books by other publishers besides the ones that they published themselves. I looked at the Paladin Press website but they didn't seem to have what I was looking for. If anyone can give me the names of specific books or help me in any way it would be greatly appreciated.

[Nemesix]

interesting, wish i could help but i dont know any books like that

[davey_crockshit]

living nomadically in remote places, being a hobo: i have seen sites on this, don't remember any specifically. google is your friend.

alaska fishing: the seattle paper usually has an ad or two looking for people to do this. its mostly for cannery work, but i may have seen some for actual fishing. couldnt hurt to check the online editions once in a while.

taboo foods: the koreans dont talk about it much, but cat and dog is still served over there. france for horsemeat, just about anyplace in asia for silkworm larvae fried up and served in a paper cup by street vendors.

mercenary work: military experience needed. special forces experience strongly preferred. a complete lack of morals always a plus.

teaching english in a foreign country: a friend of mine does this. used to be, a bachelors degree in anything would just about guarantee a position. i think theyre pickier now. i suppose it would depend on the school you were applying to.

brothels: go to bangkok. its called that for a reason. you can probably find an opium den or two there also.

adventure: defined as someone else having a hell of a hard time a thousand miles away. seek at your peril.

[DIzzIE]

Yeah, Loompanics really was the proverbial cat's pajamas for this sort of thing. I have the final edition of their catalog (before they shut down a few years ago), though I don't have it on me, and it'll take me a while to dig it up, but once I do I'll post a comprehensive list of books in it that might fit what you're looking for...though actually finding them will be a tad challenging, and who knows, maybe a digital copy will be found by then as well. You can also browse at least the titles of some of the Loompanics books by looking at the sidebar here (http://www.loompanics.com/authormonth/index.htm). And yes, Paladin Press has as of late almost entirely focused on combat to the exclusion of all other fringe genres (or so they've told me :tongue:).

Meanwhile, off the top of my head the book that I would recommend about nomadism is The Human Cougar by "Morain" put out by an obscure publisher, Prometheus Books, in the early 80s. It's more of a sociological type study of the archetypal American nomad or 'human cougar', but a good read nonetheless.

Something you didn't mention but that you might be interested in is seasteading (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasteading). Two books about that are Sea-Steading: A Life of Hope and Freedom on the Last Viable Frontier and Voyaging on a Small Income.

As for being a hobo, check out Evasion (http://www.rorta.net/textfiles/evasion.pdf) and Off the Map, published by CrimethInc, as well as Surviving on the Streets by Ace Backwords, put out by Loompanics (though I didn't really like that last one, as it seemingly left way too many tips out and replaced them with idiocies, though it did provide some more or less usable tips as well).

With regard to brothels, I have a (probably way dated) list of 'friendly' massage parlors and the like across the US that I'll try to dig up.

Regarding 'taboo' foods, like davey said, from what I've heard, you can still find dog and horse meat sold in Korea easily enough (called gaegogi and malgogi, respectively); there's no need to go to a "secret" restaurant to go to and whisper a hush-hush order (at least not for dog or horse), plenty of other countries deal in it as well. Though this might unfortunately all be changing soon due to bullshit Western moralizing that's seeping in like a cancerous poison.

But really, these are hardly 'exotic' animals. If one were so inclined one could easily procure canine meat. The real difficulty would arise in needing to have the dog on a choice diet, rather than just knocking off the neighbor's dog or what not, as one shouldn't expect a dog that's been raised on a diet of whatever nasty preservative-laden shit is offered at the supermarket to provide prime canine meat (in other words, if you do try eating a random dog without specialized breeding or diet, don't be put off from canine meat if it tastes like shit, 'you are what you eat' after all).

Incidentally, I've also heard that if you go to Asian take-out type places, you can ask them for a native menu that'll be in their native tongue and contain native dishes that differ from the ones they offer to non-natives (lots of restaurants in fact have 'secret' menu items that aren't listed on the official menus, we have a thread about that here (http://forum.rorta.net/showthread.php?t=758)).

[Uologan]

This may not be exactly what you were looking for but it sure would help in an endeavor to live like a hobo, surviving on your whits and getting a free meal.

The Modern Con Man
By Todd Robbins

http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Con-Man-Something-Nothing/dp/159691453X

[In the Nick of Time]

I wanted to thank everyone who responded to my question, especially Dizzie and Uologan for giving me titles of specific books. The reason why I'm starting a new thread is because when I try to post a reply to my own thread it won't work. I type in my userword and password, just like I do when I start a new thread, but for some reason it won't register. If anyone can help me out and tell me what I should do, let me know. Thanks.

[DIzzIE]

I wanted to thank everyone who responded to my question, especially Dizzie and Uologan for giving me titles of specific books. The reason why I'm starting a new thread is because when I try to post a reply to my own thread it won't work. I type in my userword and password, just like I do when I start a new thread, but for some reason it won't register. If anyone can help me out and tell me what I should do, let me know. Thanks.

Has anyone else been having this problem?

Try deleting the cookie you may have from RORTA and then restarting the browser. The problem may also occur if you're using a web proxy like Anonymizer or perhaps an AOL browser. If clearing the RORTA cookie doesn't work, try loading the forum using another browser like Firefox, and/or using a different proxy like TOR.