A book that I’ve been looking forward to for a while is coming in… well, the Oxford University Press’s website says May, Amazon says June. Charlie Brown’s America: The Popular Politics of Peanuts expands on Blake Scott Ball’s thesis, looking at politics as expressed in the strip (and beyond). I think there’s a rich field to be delved into there, and I look forward to seeing what he has to say. It is available for preorder now!

And speaking of pre-orders, that brings me back to my frequent suggestion that pre-orders make good gifts, because you signal to someone what they’re getting on the holiday itself, and then when the gift arrives, it’s a whole additional occasion, one in which the recipient is probably not surrounded by gifts. And all that applies especially this year, when you are less likely to be visiting the people you’re giving to in person and when the entire shipping system is facing a severe onslaught of packages. Now, if you’re buying something for someone local, you can avoid the shipping problem by BUYING LOCAL — that bookstore, that comic shop, that game store has something, and if they’re locally-owned I bet someone will be glad to talk to you on the phone and help you pick a good gift for your whoever and bring it out to the car for you. But for someone far away, that gift you can send via email on the Big Day itself with a screenshot of your receipt can avoid a lot of the hassle that is specific to this year. (And if you click through one of my links and order it from Amazon, that’s fine, thank you… but I’m not one of the people who is particularly financially beset by this year, so that’s not a beg or a request.)

Hanukkah starts tonight, and if you’re one of the people who find joy in that, may it be a happy one… and if not, may the days of it be good ones anyway, and may the coming year bring us all better things.

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