Book

I really should stop reading several books at the same time. It usually means I don't finish all of them.

25.

Dress Your Family in Cordoroy and Denim, David Sedaris.
I have to admit that after reading the enthused voices of various newspaper critics on the first page I would have expected something completely different, but I am by no means disappointed. I love the main character, Sedaris' style and the way he effortlessly combines autobiographic episodes with social commentary and humour.
Not as "Hilarious!!!" as the critics said, but I love it nontheless. Or maybe I misunderstand the meaning of "hilarious". I always thought that that meant something like "pant-wettingly funny", but that's not what this book is to me; it has a rather heart-warming, if sometimes slightly wry humour? Hmm.

( So complete was their power that I actually felt honoured when one of them hit me in the mouth with a rock. He'd gotten me after school, and upon returning home, I ran into my sister's bedroom, hugging my bloody Kleenex and crying, 'It was Thad!!!' )

24.

Who cares about English Usage?, David Crystal.
Oh, this is a book that several of our prescriptive grammarians need, need, need to read. It's both short and also a really funny read, and illustrates some of the things very nicely which grammar nazis on the intarwebz regularly throw fits about and which are just evidences of language changing, as it tends to. Good heavens.

("S.O.S., as everyone knows, stands for 'Save Our Syntax'. At various places in this book, I'll be discussing under this heading a grammatical point which regularly causes people to send up distress rockets, and demand linguistic lifejackets.")