Richard's Poor Almanac: Twelve Months of Misinformation in Handy Cartoon Form

Rating:
Summary: What's Black and White and Yellow All Over?
Review: Obvious answer: this amazingly beautiful book that's printed in two colors and manages to capture this entire noisy, giddy, wayward world in its lines. It's a hilarious and smart compendium of nearly every living, breathing, pontificating thing on the planet. If you're a birdwatcher, you'll want to add Thompson's rare birds to your life list: the Eastern Pottymouthed Snark; the Unmitigated Gull; the Commonplace Dullard; and, hardly least of all, the Flightless Grouse who "plods up and down the Eastern U.S. whining the whole damn time." There are guides to weeds, clouds, cookies, county fairs, catalogues, constellations, Halloween costumes, and "local bogeymen." Basically, Richard Thompson covers the waterfront, dipping his pen into everything from politics and other pollutants, to surburbia and other relicts. It's a blissful romp that should carry you through the seasons, year after year.

Rating:
Summary: A Splendid "Poor Almanac"
Review: Richard Thompson's Richard's Poor Almanac appears weekly in the Washington Post, but you don't have to live inside the Beltway to larf out loud at this collection, which includes entries like the Smithsonian's Dillinger Wing (now featuring the Splendors of Ypsilanti) or the lists of local restaurant closings - "Eurodonut" being shut down for finding Marmite in the jelly donuts, and the frequent tragic travails of "P.J. Piehole's Family Place". One learns, at last, the Equine Statue Code for Civil War monuments; some obscure and faintly disturbing constellations in the monthly Skywatch - and don't miss the touching "Remembering Elvis". But that's not all! There's also a page of commemorative Richard Thompson stamps. If you need a laugh, you need this book.