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 humor 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. This time she received Elizabeth Taylor’s 1988 dieting memoir, “Elizabeth Takes Off.”Īnd why did the error appear to extend to every independent secondhand seller, too? “I still, to this day - I have no proof that this book is real or exists,” Ms. She forgot about it for about a year and then went on Amazon and bought the book again. Gordon realized that the wrong book had arrived (“Heretics of Dune,” a 1984 science fiction novel by Frank Herbert). “Men who decoupage.” “Men with pet rocks.”īut when she opened her mail, Ms. “Men who think Lamaze is a famous French car race,” for example. The 96-page novelty book, which was 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.
Brown as the author of a tongue-in-cheek dating guide from 1995 called “187 Men to Avoid: A Survival Guide for the Romantically Frustrated Woman,” she immediately bought it on Amazon. So when she stumbled upon an internet rumor that identified Mr. She has read all but one of the eight books Mr. Chloe Gordon, a 32-year-old filmmaker, describes herself as “a person who somewhat ironically engages” with the work of the novelist Dan Brown.