Compact Happiness

Coming in August is a book that Amazon calls The Peanuts Classics Treasury: The Complete “Happiness Is” Collection but which the publisher’s website refers to as Peanuts: A Treasury of Happiness. Presumably, this is a collection of all the content from Happiness is a Warm Puppy, Security is a Thumb and a Blanket, Christmas is Together Time, I Need All The Friends I Can Get, Happiness Is A Sad Song, Suppertime, Home is on Top of a Doghouse, and Love is Walking Hand in Hand (and I just scared myself by typing all of those off of the top of my head — the whole point of making the AAUGH.com collectors’ guide was so that I wouldn’t have to carry stuff like that in my head, dadgummit!) It’s a hardcover, with a dust jacket, listed at $19.95 but with a substantial discount on your preorder.

And if I had to hazard a guess, I’d say that the listing on the publisher’s website will be the title. It’s more graceful, and avoids the confusingly overused Peanuts Classics tag. But time shall tell.

Upcoming releases
A box of squares

This May, Fantagraphics is collecting the various small square Peanuts books they’ve published into a new box set, Peanuts All Year Round Mini Collection. This includes: A Valentine for Charlie Brown — Valentine’s Day and romance strips Batter-Up Charlie Brown! — baseball strips Waiting for the Great Pumpkin — Halloween …

Upcoming releases
Game Day returns

Back in 2020, Fantagraphics dropped Game Day, a boxed set of sports-themes Peanuts strip reprint paperbackss, as a Costco exclusive. Next June it’s coming back, this time in hardcover and available through the usual sources. Designed as a Father’s Day gift, it should be good for anyone who likes Peanuts …

Upcoming releases
An unauthorized? biography

In the past, I’ve talked about the Charles Schulz biographies that are produced as part of bulk lines of biographies for school libraries, very brief, photo-heavy things meant to give kids something to write book reports about. Well ABDO, a company that has produced just such a biography in the …