The Doctor Is In, The Pictures Are Not

Following the example of The Gospel According to Peanuts, there have been a number of essay books over the years that have used Peanuts strips as a launching point for certain topics, most often religious. In 1981, Warner Press (the publishing arm of The Church Of God, which Schulz was very involved with in the 1950s and 1960s) published The Doctor is In by Maurice Berquist, about G-d and his relationship with humanity. (SPOILER ALERT: He turns out to be the good guy.) The book seems to have had a bit of an odd circulation, in that I seem to find more copies of the “complimentary paper copy”, a paperback giveaway edition, then the more durable hardback it was meant to promote.

Well, the book is now available in ebook form for the Kindle... or at least the text is. They seem not to have licensed the rights for the Peanuts strips the original included (despite mentioning the license on the copyright page, at least of the sample). This makes for some odd transitions in the text, as the text is often playing off of the content of the now missing strip (although at least they put a “…” to mark where a strip was, so while you may not quite understood what is being said, you’ll understand why it is being said.)

Classic finds
A needle-ssly fine present

Being a) an adult and b) not a Christmasian, it makes sense that I’m not given much in the way of Christmas presents. This year’s haul was just two items, both given by Dr. Mrs. The AAUGH Blogger: a Terry’s Chocolate Orange (yum!), and this Peanuts embroidery book from Japan. …

New releases
Double Love

Simon Spotlight has dropped two books for the Valentine’s Day Shopping Season, and they’re pretty similar. Love is Everywhere, Snoopy! is a board book that is supposed to be Charlie Brown explaining love to Snoopy (who is said to have asked, which raises the usual how-does-Snoopy-communicate-to-Charlie-Brown question.) Charlie Brown answers …

New releases
“Books”

My grocery shopping today landed me two new Peanuts “books”. The more bookish of the two is the latest edition of The Great Big Book of Peanuts Word Seeks, volume 5 to be precise, which as I’ve mentioned before I’ll allow to qualify as a book… particularly because it not …