Incoming Books: 10 March

I took the day off from work today, for various reasons (one of them being that I have 20 vacation days a year now, so I need to take random days here and there to use 'em up). And, of course, what's there to do on the first warm, sunny Friday of the year?

That's right: go to the bookstore. Once again I went to the Montclair Book Center and got a pile of things I shouldn't read until WFA judging is over. I was hoping to get a copy of The Complete Calvin & Hobbes, but they didn't have one in stock. So, instead, I found:

• Happily Ever After, a new collection of Charles Addams cartoons (loosely about love, so I bet it was published last month). I wish someone would do his complete cartoons, but this looks to have a bunch of things I don't recognize, so that's pretty good.
  
• Dave Barry's Money Secrets: Dave Barry is one of my guilty pleasures. His books are very funny, and I usually read one of them in less than two hours (which I, unlike most people, think is a good thing).
  
• Code of Arms by Lawrence Block and Harold King: one of vanishingly few Larry Block books I don't have and haven't read; I'm sure this is minor but I got a hardcover in good shape for under ten bucks, so I'm happy.
  
• What Would Satan Do? by Pat Byrnes: another collection of single-panel cartoons. I haven't seen lots of Byrnes's work yet, but it looks pretty good, and I love cartoon books.
  
• One King, One Soldier by Alexander C. Irvine: I really liked A Scattering of Jades a few years back, and I just loved The Narrows last month. Now I just hope I can find some time to read the book in between -- someday.
  
• "Nice Guys Finish Seventh": False Phrases, Spurious Sayings, and Familiar Misquotations by Ralph Keyes: a book on misquotations.
  
• Work and Other Sins: Life in New York and Thereabouts by Charlie LeDuff: a book of New York Times reportage, focusing on profiles of ordinary people.
  
• Pearls Before Swine: The Ratvolution Will Not Be Televised by Stephan Pastis: a collection of the newspaper strip
  
• Expletive Deleted: A Good Look at Bad Language by Ruth Wajnryb: a short book on swear words by an Australian linguist with a last name that looks like a bad Scrabble hand.

The good news is that there's only two novels there; the rest are books I can read in bits and pieces (which is what I'll end up doing). Still, I should be reading something for WFA right now.