Time magazine has a fun article about two librarians from the Detroit area who have started a blog called Awful Library Books, where they list some of the outdated, irrelevant, or abysmal titles they’ve come across (they also solicit submissions from the general public). Titles range from the laughably insensitive (Creative Recreation for the Mentally Retarded) to the merely anachronistic (Computer Tutor: Atari).

One of Quillblog’s favourites is Elisabeth Bing’s 1975 pregnancy guide, Moving Through Pregnancy. The picture accompanying the post is a spread from the book, featuring an image of an enormously pregnant woman vacuuming alongside the following text:

With all due respect for the liberation of women, someone has to clean the house and do all kinds of boring chores. Actually those jobs don’t take too long, and this photo shows Judith with the vacuum cleaner. Look at her closely and see the excellent posture she maintains as she walks around the room, pushing the machine on the carpet. Her shoulders are relaxed, her head is high, and in doing this rather boring but occasionally necessary job, she is aware of watching her posture and supporting her baby well with her abdominal muscles.

Surely husbands everywhere will be thanking Bing for reminding their wives to keep their backs straight when vacuuming during their final trimester. Who could possibly object to that?