Humor

This quirky ode to a quirky land is a humorous nostalgia trip and a fun Canadian history lesson couched in a hipster quiz book.

If you’ve ever wondered

• Why is the inuksuk more revered than Wheelchair Jimmy?
• Does the iconic beaver really represent us better than The Littlest Hobo?
• Is everyone going canoeing without me or is canoeing way less of a thing than it’s made out to be?

then this book is for you.

Is Canada even real? It’s a question that’s being asked more and more, thanks to our waterproof, see-through, supposedly maple-scented currency and our improbably hot prime minister’s assertion that Santa lives here.

In the age of Google Maps and #factcheck, how could the existence of Canada be questioned? And yet how could a nation that’s the home of toboggans, Drake, and KD exist in the same realm as, say, Belgium or Niger?

Is Canada Even Real? examines the cultural factors behind the twenty-first-century monolithic myth of Canada, a nation that is lovable and real — if only in your imagination.

A hilarious self-help book for recovering Leafs fans everywhere.

We’ve all heard it. The sound of one team sucking. Our team. The Leafs. It starts as an almost imperceptible hum, a month or so after the home opener, once the shine of the new season wears off, building in intensity with each defeat until the sound explodes like the noise a star might make if you ripped its heart out. Fact is, being a Maple Leafs fan is a kind of addiction: irrational, compulsive, dependent. You can’t just quit cold turkey. You need help …

And that’s where The Sound of One Team Sucking comes in. Think of it as your own portable support group, designed to accompany you through another disappointing season (plus draft day!), and guide your recovery as you strive to live a more emotionally and spiritually balanced life. Written by Leafs addicts, The Sound of One Team Sucking is a hilarious meditation on the futility of Leafs fandom.

One Animal Among Many: Gaia, Goats, and Garlic examines the real-life experiences of creatures great and small. Best known for his witty columns in Harrowsmith, David Waltner-Toews explores the interconnectedness of all life with insight and humour. The collection looks at everything from sheep farming to herbal remedies and rabies.

It is rare that one can pick up a book and find all the answers to the problems of Life. Yet in this one book, we find these answers, and learn a few more things that will keep us up at night. What really happened when Mike Harris woke up after emergency surgery in a hospital still smarting from budget cuts? Why did Linda Tripp turn on Bill Clinton? How many people knew that after the Manhattan Project, the world's leading scientists gathered at Jane Russell's house to devise the strapless bra?

This is a book for everyone: it's an exercise program for the not-too-ambitious senior, a step-by-step guide for the teenage lad on his first date, an advice column for the young spinster who, at the ripe old age of 22, is still trying to find a first-class man.

We listen in as two American broadcasters cover the Olympic Games as only Americans can.

We learn that even the big guns at the TSE were unaware of the biggest corporate takeover in history when S Claus Corp seized control of its philanthropic rival, EasterBunCo.

Yet, for all its humour, the book still brings us close to tears as the author reveals the tragedy of his thirty-year love affair with Sophia Loren.

If Shakespeare were alive today, he would read this book?

Are you a snob? Then why not learn to do it right? Study this revolutionary work and become a Canadian Snob of Distinction!

Victoria Branden has traced the history of Snobbery from its pre-human roots to our own era, in our own country, and has enunciated the definitive Theory of Snobbery. She examines its evolution from its crude beginnings to its present confused state, with detailed study of the most important types of snobbery, distinguishing Goodsnobs from Badsnobs, experts from fumbling amateurs. Snobbery has influenced history at least as much as the invention of the wheel or the printing press, which were probably actually inspired by snob instincts.

Always staunchly patriotic, Ms. Branden has given particular attention to Canadian Snobs, who have been until this time gravely neglected in both life and literature, and has provided Canadian Snobmodels by which we can be guided to higher and better levels of Snobbery. She finds a certain lack of professionalism among Canadian Snobs: Snobbery is not acknowledged as an Olympic contender, and has received no recognition in this year's "black budget." So there is much to be done, urgently! Branden has thoughtfully provided Snobexercises (video later) by which you can develop Snobmuscle. Careful study, with diligent practice and iron self-discipline, will help you to achieve great heights of Snob-expertise, using techniques and materials particularly suited to the Canadian climate and social mores.

Other how-to books claim to "make it easy" to succeed. We do not. Achieving Snob-distinction is hard, gruelling, and incessant work - but the rewards are incalculable. Any jerk can be a snob, and usually is. But to be a truly Great Snob, an upper-case Snob, a Snob who will go down in history like Beau Brummell or Oscar Wilde ah, that is attainable only by the few.

Eavesdroppings recounts life in the small towns of Ontario before sin arrived on the Internet - a time when churches were never locked and parents, not wishing to be disturbed while they listened to the radio, shooed their children out to play in the dark, unguarded streets without fear. Here you'll find comedy, outrage, and tragedy but no disguise. Included are actual events and the names of all persons involved.

The author tracks the quaint immorality of smalltown sin in the 1930s and its evolution from full-frontal bingo in the churches to the current degeneracy of nude women wrestling men in vats of Jell-O in licensed nightclubs, but he never moralizes. Indeed, he provides no uplifting messages at all - just gossip, which, as Oscar Wilde said, "is what history is all about and more fun."

Hamilton Spectator columnist Paul Benedetti’s essays paint a wonderfully funny portrait of family life today.

Paul Benedetti has a good job, a great family, and successful neighbours — but that doesn’t stop him from using it all as grist for a series of funny, real, and touching essays about a world he can’t quite navigate.

Benedetti misses his son, who is travelling in Europe, misplaces his groceries, and forgets to pick up his daughter at school. He endures a colonoscopy and vainly attempts to lower his Body Mass Index — all with mixed results. He loves his long-suffering wife, worries about his aging parents and his three children, who seem to spend a lot of time battling online trolls, having crushes on vampires, and littering their rooms with enough junk to start a landfill.

Come and walk the offbeat world of Mike Strobel’s popular column in the Toronto Sun. Meet the legendary panhandler Shaky Lady; the Weasel, who knows where Jimmy Hoffa is buried; the secretive swinger Sexy Boots; the notorious Bicycle Bandit, who quit robbing banks, got a loan, and opened a bar; and Dr. Hook, the top doc whose professional fate rested on the cut of his jib. You’ll also get a look at a fake orgasm champ, a practising witch turned beauty pageant queen, a boss cannonballer, and assorted other heroes, rogues, athletes, finks, politicos, celebrities, bureaucrats, sons, and lovers.

Each column in this collection is a mini-world, tight and bright.

You’ll smile at Strobel’s take on the fads, fashions, morals, and hot topics of the day. Even the most serious issues are dissected and dispatched with often biting wit and cheek.

(Warning: If you’re a Montreal Canadiens fan, do not read this book.)

Once again we are blessed with yet another collection of Jim Foster's ravings. His first book, I hate to complain, but ... with its views on everything from bank mergers to the author's 30-year love affair with Sophia Loren, is being hailed as a classic example - though of what no one is quite sure.

Readers will be amazed at the depth of the author's knowledge on just about any subject and his total inability to keep it to himself.

What should you do if a comet falls on you at 1000 mph?

What are the best pick-up lines for the man or woman looking for romance?

Why doesn't Julia Roberts shave her underarms?

All this and many other bits of useless information will have Canadians from coast to coast chuckling out loud, popping their eyes in wonder and simply scratching their heads in bewilderment.

Why write in the first place, other than your grocery list? Eric Nicol believes it's the second-most satisfying thing you can do lying down. But it's not enough to want to write. You must need to write.

Now, after more than seventy years of scribbling – he wrote for the school newspaper at Lord Byng High School in Vancouver, British Columbia – Eric holds forth on dangling participles, punctuation, and literary jargon. What's more, he answers the burning question: "How much should creative writers depend on editors to correct their grammar?"

Then Eric provides a wide selection of essays to demonstrate how it's done. These include a dramatic demonstration of the chutzpah of a big Tom wild turkey and its harem on a B.C. Gulf Island, the discovery that Eric's one-way-view window in the bathroom has been installed incorrectly, the trials and tribulations of computers and the creative process, and a riposte to the query, "Are nipples really necessary on guys?"

Pure Nicol. Minted in Canada. Priceless!