While it's possible to go through life not knowing how to tie a dhoti or carve an endless wooden chain, you never know when unusual skills will come in handy. And that's the fun of this fabulously bizarre handbook, which explains skills that range from the mundane (how to sweep a carpet, how to lose at checkers) to the outrageous (how to restore the apparently dead, how to read minds) to the random (how to be a guest in an English country home). John Krausz has culled material from government pamphlets, Victorian etiquette manuals, farmer's publications, old military handbooks and magazines, and more. Over 1,000 detailed line drawings illustrate his advice on good posture, Spencerian penmanship, Swiss barns, photosculpture, the ethics and aesthetics of eating...and of course, buying an elephant.