Yule Love These
Season’s Readings!
A How Pants Work gift guide for the very laz— er, smart.
Ho, ho, how’re you all doing? Cold enough for ya? [/small talk]
It occured to me that: (1) the holidays are coming; and (2) we’ve got some books to recommend that would make terrific gifts for the ones you love, like, or cheer on from a respectful, court-mandated distance. You could try stuffing these hilarious volumes into stockings, but wrapping them neatly and placing them gently under a tree (or other flora) is probably better. Do not put them too close to a menorah or kinara. (Fire + books = bad.)
SPELLED WRONG
Nathan Spector is a part-time forensic etymologist with the government. Most of the time, he has little work to do. Mainly, he fields questions from agents working on crossword puzzles. When an aide to a senator is found dead for apparently no reason at all, Nathan alone realizes that something supernatural is afoot. Feeling guilty after inadvertently betraying the wizardly community in his official capacity, Nathan decides to look deeper into the crime, unofficially, enlisting the aid of a new witch friend to solve the mystery quietly. Nathan discovers who murdered the aide and why… or so he thinks. In fact, only later does he learn the truth. But by then, Nathan doesn’t know whom to trust, and he can tell almost no one what he’s learned. Ultimately, Nathan puts all the pieces in their places, only to leave himself stuck in a place from which he might not escape.
Buy now at Amazon.
GREAT MEN OF SCIENCE
So things didn’t go the way they were supposed to for Albert Malfort. Since his project didn’t win the college-capping science fair — he propelled a teacup pig five minutes through time — he didn’t land a fancy R&D job at Gray Labs, a think tank and retail juggernaut, nor did he escape the shadow of his father, an insane pariah of science and former Gray Labs employee who badmouthed the boss. Of course, that’s all because the smug and wealthy Magnus Riptide destroyed Albert’s project; his project proved the charisma reservoir in his brain allowed him to get away with anything. Albert wound up working as a lackey at Gray Labs, until they wronged him, so he stole a bunch of equipment, and conducted another time travel experiment that opened up an intern-swallowing time rift. Reduced to making weaponized robots in his garage for rogue tyrants, Albert gets the opportunity to put his life back on track when he’s visited by Magnus, who needs his help. It would seem that Magnus, after accidentally winning a Nobel Prize, discovering a new number, and starring on the hit crime-drama The Scientist, made a miniature, evil clone of Thomas Edison, who traveled back to 1931 (via Albert’s time rift) to steal every patent that ever existed. Will Albert and Magnus find a way to stop Edison from ruining science for everybody? Or will they actually work together and become, you know, Great Men of Science (and maybe friends)?
Buy now at Amazon.
CHAMPION AT THE BIT
Paul grows up in a typical village in England toward the end of the reign of Henry III. He plays in the medieval mud; he helps his doting mother to make and sell string; he befriends a basilisk. But when he is finally orphaned, Paul begins to wonder about the world outside Dundonnedon. Once he leaves home to find his fortune, Paul quickly learns that it takes more than he has to survive in ye big, olde world. He falls in with a traveling troupe of actors keeping a secret… meets a musical trio of meandering wastrels… waits tables at a family-friendly tavern in the angriest town in the entire country. Then, despite frowning upon violence, Paul seemingly finds his calling as a squire to professional champions. But what will happen when fate calls upon Paul himself to champion the cause of a damsel in distress… back in his boyhood village?
Buy now at Amazon.
ANONYMOUS LAWYER
“Wickedly amusing” – USA Today
He’s a hiring partner at one of the world’s largest law firms. Brilliant yet ruthless, he has little patience for associates who leave the office before midnight or steal candy from the bowl on his secretary’s desk. He hates holidays and paralegals. And he’s just started a weblog to tell the world about what life is really like at the top of his profession.
Meet Anonymous Lawyer. The summer’s about to start, and he’s got a new crop of interns. But he’s also got a few things bothering him: The Jerk, his bitter rival, is determined to beat him out for the chairman’s job. And Anonymous Wife is spending his money as fast as he can make it. And there’s that secret blog he’s writing, which is just a perverse bit of fun until he gets an e-mail from someone inside the firm who knows he’s its author.
Buy now at Amazon.
DANGER …WITH A HARD G
Named one of the Best Comedy Books of 2017 by Splitsider
Harrison Danger Bennett is a private investigator. He has an office, a secretary, and a gun that he keeps unloaded because he doesn’t want to shoot anybody. And now he has a new case. When a woman hires him to find his own best friend, it seems like easy money because Bennett already knows where the other man is. Unfortunately, that’s just when Bennett’s friend disappears. It figures. Danger …With a Hard G is a tight-plotted, lighthearted caper more or less in the hardboiled mold. Colorful characters mingle with terrible puns. Schemes are uncovered. Leads are followed. Sandwiches are eaten. And the day might even be saved.
Buy now at Amazon.
WHIMSY & SODA
Whimsy & Soda is a collection of twelve hilarious short stories featuring the best-known and best-liked characters of P.G. Wodehouse’s fiction — Bertie Wooster and his man, Jeeves.
- In the opening story, “By and By, Bertie,” Bertie Wooster wakes up one morning to find himself changed in his bed into… a parakeet? Shades of Kafka!
- Jeeves takes his annual vacation; the agency sends Bertie the only valet it has available, and that valet is a robot, in “G.E.V.E.”
- “Jeeves Your Own Adventure” allows the reader to play the role of Jeeves himself!
- In “Back to the Wooster,” Bertie, while in New York, is persuaded by a stranger to take a quick car ride… to the year 1967!
- And in “Jeeves and Wayne,” Jeeves helps the Batman begin.
Buy now at Amazon.
From all of me at How Pants Work to all of you: Happy holidays!
– Matthew
