Continuing our series of gift books for the holidays, today we offer books for logophiles:
I'm Not Hanging Noodles on Your Ears and Other Intriguing Idioms from Around the World by Jag Bhalla (National Geographic, $12.95 trade paper, 9781426204586/1426204582, June 2009)
Obsolete: An Encyclopedia of Once-Common Things Passing Us By by Anna Jane Grossman, illustrated by James Gulliver Hancock (Abrams Image, $15.95, 9780810978492/0810978490, September 2009)
This is a funny and sometimes sad compilation of things we grew up with or, depending on our age, heard about but that are now going the way of the dodo. Grossman pays homage to photo albums, plaster casts, girdles, encyclopedias, checks, coffee cups referred to as "large" and "small" and my personal favorite, short basketball shorts. I don't care if Kobe Bryant thinks they feel like thongs or feels naked wearing them. Bring back the legs.Poisoned Pen: Literary Invective from Amis to Zola, edited by Gary Dexter (Frances Lincoln, $16.95, 9780711229297/0711229295, October 2009)
Writers attacking other writers makes for a quite entertaining book--we seem to have an insatiable appetite for spleen and venom, at least at a distance. Many of the attacks are longer than quotation-length and are thoughtful as well as rancorous, but the short quotations are certainly fun. Cyril Connolly on George Orwell: "He would not blow his nose without moralizing on conditions in the handkerchief industry." Samuel Butler on Thomas Carlyle: "Yes it was very good of God to let Carlyle and Mrs. Carlyle marry one another and so make only two people miserable instead of four." And the book is a steal at $16.95 hardcover and 240 pages.They Said What? Astonishing Quotes on American Democracy, Power and Dissent by Jim Hunt (PoliPoint Press, $12.95, 9780981709161/0981709168, October 2009)
Retired history teacher Hunt has collected some pretty amazing quotations that reveal a piece of our history that is often glossed over or left out. Some current ones, starting with Ann Coulter: "It's too bad Timothy McVeigh didn't go to the New York Times building." Laura Ingraham on Fox News: "Al Sharpton was invited to the White House? I hope they nailed down all the valuables." And in the Orwellian mode, David Frum, White House speechwriter in 2003: "The sooner the fighting begins in Iraq, the nearer we are to its imminent end. Which means, in other words, this 'rush to war' should really be seen as the ultimate 'rush to peace.'"50 Things to Do with a Book (Now That Reading Is Dead) by Bruce McCall (It Books, $16.99, 9780061703669/0061703664, October 2009)
If you get tired of words and reading (but how could you?), here's a little book that will give you some ideas for recycling. How about elevator shoes made with books? Use duct tape and matching copies of The Stand, and you'll tower over your office mates. Or wrap a dirty book in cheap lingerie and throw it through the window of the one who double-crossed you in love. Need something for the hamster cage? "Blenders and books seldom mix, but if your blender has a supersized bowl and heavy-duty blades...." The best idea: build a catapult and load it with "dim-bulb celebrity bios, ghostwritten political memoirs, and stupid cookbooks," then calculate the exact location and distance of the nearest strip mall and aim accordingly.--Marilyn Dahl