Barkitecture
Fred Albert

Remember the birdhouse craze of a few years back? You couldn't walk in a store without being confronted with an inane, puerile assortment of structures no self-respecting bird would have even defecated on.

Barkitecture will help you get the bad taste out of your mouth. Largely a pictorial work, this book is full of imaginative, if impractical, doghouse examples - and there are some pretty nice looking dogs, too.

What dog could resist a house made of dog biscuits - the canine equivalent of living in a gingerbread house? Or how about a Trojan Doghouse? Or an exquisite thatched house, complete with flower boxes?

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The Vanishing American Outhouse: Privy Plans, Photographs, Poems and Folklore
Ronald Barlow

Ah, there's nothing quite like using an outhouse - and thank goodness for that!

There are those who feel nostalgic about old outhouses, even going so far as to covet them for picturesque garden tool storage. The rest of us may prefer to satisfy our nostalgic impulses in a more distant fashion, say by reading this encyclopedic work of priviana.

The book covers the full spectrum of sanitation history, ranging from the book of Deuteronomy to a reproduction of early 20th century government outhouse plans. In between, we're treated to photos of hundreds of outhouses, including the legendary two story facilities. The book also describes the "genteel art of privy digging", where amateur archaeologists excavate outhouse pits for bottles and other historically significant detritus thrown down the holes, a pursuit the book calls "more exciting than King Tut's tomb".

Needless to say, this volume makes diverting bathroom reading.

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Weird Rooms
Sharpe, Sharpe, & Vertikoff

Largely a pictorial work, this book is aptly named. Experience the kitchen o'Kewpies, smiley face room, LEGO city, and the monster room. Admire decorating touches like the wall covered with shoes or a Mr. Spock cutout accented with jaunty polka dot bow tie.

The photos can be studied for many minutes at a time; many of the rooms are so crowded that it comes as a shock when one realizes that a person is in them.

These are rooms by people with a singular passion, people who aren't afraid of excess. They have to be seen to be believed.

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Self-Made Worlds: Visionary Folk Art Environments
Mark Sloan and Roger Manley

This volume seems to embody the worst fears of every woman who's wondered what her husband will do after retirement if he doesn't learn golf. Will he begin covering every surface in the house, including the sewing machine, with mosaics as Raymond Isidore did? Or perhaps he'll go in for cement or shells in his quest to embellish everything that can't run away fast enough to escape him?

Tongue-in-cheek comments aside, this volume is full of environmental outsider art at its delicious weirdest: yards given over to homemade totem poles, miniature sandstone castles in a pastiche of world styles, gardens graced with doll heads on impromptu pikes, hillsides covered with miniature villages.

With a ratio of about 10% text to 90% photos, the authors have chosen to let the artworks mostly speak for themselves. The text includes insightful overviews of the artists, their works, and their different motivations. Rather than devolving into a freak show, the authors treat the artists respectfully.

Those who are enchanted by the offbeat will find this book an interesting read. For those wanting to see these self-made worlds for themselves, a global list of sites is included, including many not discussed in the book.

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