“There’s not really a version of this that totally makes sense,” Gordon said. Gordon began to entertain conspiracy theories, including about the possible existence of a “person at some warehouse somewhere that’s putting the wrong bar code on everything.”īut what would be a warehouse employee’s motivations for falsifying stock numbers of an obscure, out-of-print dating humour book from 1995? The 2006 reprint amends the cover text to read, “Early Humor from the Author of ‘The Da Vinci Code,’” and recasts the author as “Dan Brown Formerly Writing As Danielle Brown.”ĭata from NPD BookScan, which has tracked book sales data since the early 2000s, shows that the 2006 edition sold about 1,200 copies. The covers are almost identical - a pigeon-toed blond cartoon woman in a cherry red coat and floppy hat clutches herself protectively as she stands before a large assembly of suited men. But both the original 1995 edition and a Berkley Trade reprint published in 2006 are listed in various places online. Information about the slim, square-shaped book is difficult to come by. Once again, she did not receive “187 Men to Avoid” but, this time, “The Ghost Light” by Fritz Leiber. She ordered the book on AbeBooks, a subsidiary of Amazon. Gordon, who lives in California, did not give up. This order, too, was canceled and refunded. She ordered a copy from a different seller. She paid a seller for the book, and a few days later received a refund and an email explaining that the book did not exist in the seller’s inventory. Having struck out twice on Amazon, Gordon tried eBay. This time she received Elizabeth Taylor’s 1988 dieting memoir, “Elizabeth Takes Off.”

She forgot about it for a year or so and then went on Amazon and ordered the book again. “Men who decoupage.” “Men with pet rocks.”īut when she opened her mail, Gordon realised that the wrong book had arrived (“Heretics of Dune,” a 1984 science fiction novel by Frank Herbert).

“Men who think Lamaze is a famous French car race,” for example. The 96-page novelty book, originally published under the name Danielle Brown, promised very short descriptions of men the author considered unsuitable romantic partners - a book of red flags, if you will.

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