Fun stuff: December 2007 Archives

Are we in America what we eat, wear, touch, listen to, watch on TV? Iconic America: A Roller-Coaster Ride Through The Eye-Popping Panorama of American Pop Culture (Universe/Rizzoli, 350 pages, $60), by fashion guru Tommy Hilfiger and ad man George Lois, gives us a modern look at Americana and its meaning in our everyday lives.

The Reverend Guppy’s Aquarium (Gotham Books, 266 pages, $20) is a curious title for a book. The subtitle — From Joseph P. Frisbee to Roy Jacuzzi, How Everyday Items Were Named for Extraordinary People — tells us more.

Strangely my Book Room copy — sparkling new in hardcover — has a completely different cover design than the one on both amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com. Here they are, side by side, my copy to the left, the other to the right:

Thinning the Herd: Tales of the Weirdly Departed (The Lyons Press, 320 pages, $13.95) by Cynthia Ceilan is one of those quirky little books you see in book stores, pick it up, page through it and say to yourself, "Who would buy this?"

The thing is, it's full of stories, true facts and observations about death. Sounds a little grim, I agree, but much of it is pretty amusing. Here's a random sampling ...

There is a certain art to being a good aunt — one that I've been trying to perfect since the day my first nephew was born 10 and a half years ago. (Understanding the importance of half-years a good tip for aspiring aunts.)

There is no mystery as to why I would have pulled off the shelf The Complete Book of Aunts (Twelve, 245 pages, $19.99) by Rupert Christiansen with Beth Brophy.