I’ve recently gotten SMAK! Reflections on Love From the Peanuts Gang, a new gift book available at Hallmark stores (well, some of ’em, I had to order online.) This is book is a full color (if muted color) mixtures of images from the strip with sayings about love, images from the strip with quotes from the strip, and actual strips (dailies, reprinted in non-traditional color, and only about a half dozen of ’em). As a book guy, I find the physical construction interesting, more like a paperback with slabs of cardboard attached to the front and back than the format one usually thinks of when one hears “hardcover”. There are some nice design touches, such as subtle use of strip images being used as the background of some pages.

This is not a book to get because you need Peanuts, but it seems to be a reasonable item for its primary function, as a physical item of joy to present to celebrate romance. $12.95, and it will survive longer than a box of chocolates.

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