Peanuts Pick-Me-Ups

The new Hallmark gift book Good Grief! Peanuts Pick-Me-Ups for When You Need ‘Em Most is filled with two-page spreads mixing Peanuts illustrations with pithy “buck up!” advice, telling you how to deal with life’s struggles. Thrown in through the book are nine daily strips, with spot coloring. Everything is printed on grey paper with faint images of Sunday strips on them, like they are reusing faded old paper rescued from the papier mâché pile. It’s not exactly much of a read for the price, but it should make a decorative shelf piece. It’s a reasonable piece of bric-a-brac.

New releases
A different kind of coffee table book

If you have a coffee table, you should have a “coffee table book”, a large, heavily illustrated color volume that your guests can easily and casually flip through, (Charles M. Schulz: The Art and Life of the Peanuts Creator in 100 Objects is a good choice, of course.) But you …

New releases
Review: Snoopy (Classic Cartoon Character Bios)

The Abdo Kids : Classic Cartoon Character Bios books are blatant stuff-to-fill-school-libraries material. Sturdy hardcovers, lots of pictures, 24 pages, little text – about 250 words. The Snoopy volume uses Snoopy images from just about anywhere: strips (appropriately licensed), animation, photos, The Peanuts Movie publicity materials. And the simple facts it …

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. …