The Tap Dancing Pig

Sparkling with fun and humor, these tales from 40 years of newspaper columns will make you laugh out loud, giggle, and nod with a knowing grin. Cowboys negotiate with the herd during a trail drive; a giant shrimp comes to rent a room; the Thanksgiving turkey blasts off; teenagers nettle their parents to the point of madness; and fairy tales stand on their heads. The author captures human failings and foibles with a comic eye, presents history in a way no one ever taught it in schools, and even wends his way through the world of the hard-boiled film detectives of Hollywood's golden years. It's all packaged in short reads you can enjoy at your own pace, so write yourself a prescription for laughs: take them cover-to-cover or just whenever you need a pick-me-up. And by the way, they're reusable.