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Weekly Words about Books December 23, 2012
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JUST FOR LAUGHS, BOOKS
FOR LAST-MINUTE SHOPPERS
| | For many bookstores, the last two or three days before Christmas are the busiest days of the year. For procrastinators or someone needing a last-minute gift, an independent bookstore is the ideal one-stop shopping destination.The problem with waiting this long is that some titles may be sold out. But the good news is that booksellers can always find something else that will work just (or almost) as well, even for that hard-to-please relative or friend.
One good thing about humor books is that they can appeal to a wide range of people, including non-readers. I've mentioned I Could Pee On This, and Other Poems in a previous column, and there are plenty more laughs on bookstore shelves. Here are some amusing suggestions that might fill a serious last-minute need.
F FOR EFFORT: More of the Very Best Totally Wrong Test Answers by Richard Benson ($9.95) - The sequel to last year's F in Exams presents 250  examples of student bluffs, creative invention, and just plain ineptitude. These two examples will give you the idea.
Biology Question: Give the meaning of a caesarean section
Answer: A district in Rome
Geography Question: Where is Chicago?
Answer: Right now, they're in 5th place.
DOGFIGHT: The 2012 Presidential Campaign in Verse by Calvin Trillin ($16). The noted humorist and longtime New Yorker staff writer offers up his witty and sometimes laugh-out-loud observations on the race to the White House, often but not always in rhyme. One prose entry is titled, "Callista Gingrich, Aware That Her Husband Has Cheated On and Then Left Two Wives Who Had Serious Illnesses, Tries Desperately to Make Light of a Bad Cough." 
And on Rick Santorum's exit, Trillin writes:
"The race will miss the purity
That you alone endow.
We'll never find another man
Who's holier than thou."
There are also plenty of lines about the main event participants, making this one of the season's timeliest and funniest books.
AMERICA AGAIN: Re-Becoming the Greatness We Never Weren't: Now in 3-D High-Def Depthiness! [With 3-D Glasses] by Stephen Colbert ($28.99)  For fans of The Colbert Report and the slycomedian's pompous bombast, this is great fun. According to his publisher, Colbert "gives America the dose of truth it needs to get back on the right track it's already on." According to me, his takes on the economy, outsourcing to China, food, and the like are inspired hilarity.
And don't forget Colbert's silly streak, evidenced by this comment on health care: "I shudder to think where we'd be without the wide variety of prescription drugs to treat our maladies, such as think-shuddering."
DARTH VADER AND SON by Jeffrey Brown ($14.95) - A hilarious re-im agining of what it would be like if Darth Vader had taken an active role in raising his son Luke, with a refreshing twist and illustrations. Life lessons include lights saber batting practice, using the Force to raid the cookie jar, and more. This small, square board book-styled volume has been a recurring title on the Bay Area bestseller list.
MONTY PYTHON'S FLYING CIRCUS: Complete and Annotated by Luke Dempse y ($50) - The complete scripts for every one of the 45 episodes of Monty Python's flying circus: every silly set-up, every clever conceit, every snide insult and saucy aside from these now classic skits, including The Ministry of Silly Walks, the dead parrot, and more. Also included are backstage stories, interviews, and Terry Gilliam's comic artwork.
THE ONION BOOK OF KNOWN KNOWLEDGE ($29.99) - They can be rude, crude, and raunchy, but no one satirizes the news like the folks at The  Onion, both in the groups' weekly newsletter and on its website. Never subtle or reticent, The Onion describes its new book this way:
Are you a witless cretin with no reason to live? Would you like to know more about every piece of knowledge ever? Do you have cash? Then congratulations, because just in time for the death of the print industry as we know it comes the final book ever published, and the only one you will ever need: The Onion's compendium of all things known.
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BOOKSTORE RECOMMENDATIONS
| | Every week, the San Francisco Chronicle publishes TOP SHELF in its Sunday Book Review section. It's a list of new books recommended by a Northern California independent bookstore with short blurbs about each title. This is a recent list from The Booksmith, located in San Francisco's Haight district.
FICTION:
Flight Behavior, by Barbara Kingsolver
Once again, Kingsolver delivers a literary page-turner. Set in her native Appalachia, a clashing cast of characters converge when a woman discovers what appears to be a lake of fire. In Flight Behavior, Kingsolver fearlessly tackles the issue of climate change with her same passion and striking language.
Dear Life, by Alice Munro
Alice Munro is an expert of the ordinary. Her fiction is a delicate probe, and the object of her sear ch - executed through unornamented, subtly asymmetrical language - is a seismograph of internal life: complete, fully-formed, an emotional register of the most delicate sort. To read Munro is to wake up to sympathy, intelligence, feeling.
Sweet Tooth, by Ian McEwan
Sly, subtle, and subversive, Sweet Tooth bears many of the hallmarks of McEwan's other prose - clinically precise description, snappy dialogue, hawk-eye perception - all while continually pulling new stunners from his bag of literary tricks. The line here between fiction and truth is poked and prodded in a tale of espionage, love and wordplay.
The Night Before Christmas, by Nikolai Gogol
Not that "Night Before Christmas." This little gem belongs in everybody's stocking this year: it's a peculiar little fairy tale. To settle a grudge, a witch in a small Russian village swoops up into the sky, tucks the moon in her pocket and flies away to let the devil do his handiwork.
NONFICTION
Consider the Fork, by Bee Wilson
Endlessly fascinating and flush with exclamation-inducing curiosities, Wilson's survey of kitchen implements and their impact juggles scholarship, wit, and home-cook confessions with smooth dexterity. Having put cutlery and cooking tools in their full cultural context, her charming prose will make it tough to regard forks, chopsticks or ovens the same way ever again.
Vietnamese Home Cooking, by Charles P han
If you've ever been to Charles Phan's Slanted Door or Out the Door restaurants, then you already know how big a deal this cookbook is. If you haven't, we need to talk ... preferably over a full spread of his sumptuous Vietnamese delights. Either way, learn the secrets to Phan's magic here.
Foundation, by Peter Ackroyd
The first of a planned six-volume history of England, Ackroyd's book takes us from prehistory up to the end of the medieval period. Ackroyd, who has written extensively about the British Isles, certainly knows his stuff, and this volume (and the ones to follow) will no doubt earn their place as definitive works on the subject.
Hallucinations, by Oliver Sacks
The human brain excels at filling in gaps in sensory perceptions to make a complete picture of the world. However, when those images make the jump from the unconscious to the conscious, they can be terrifying, thrilling, or confusing. Sacks' journey into the murky world of extrasensory perceptions is riveting.
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A LITTLE BIT ABOUT ME
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My name is Hut Landon. I'm a former bookstore owner who now runs the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association (NCIBA) in San Francisco.
My goal with this newsletter is to keep readers up to date about new books hitting the shelves, share what booksellers are recommending in their stores, and pass on occasional news about the book world.
I'm not into long, wordy reviews or literary criticism; I'd like HUT'S PLACE to be a quick, fun read for book buyers.If you have any friends who you think might like receiving this column each week, simply click on "Forward this email" below and enter their email address. There is also a box in which to add a short message.
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