Few have extracted more humor from the out-of-doors than McManus (The Night the Bear Ate Goombaw), who here presents his 13th collection of columns, most of them reprinted from Outdoor Life. His humor recalls Thurber's dictum about scenes of chaos and confusion that are remembered in moments of calm. There are wild tales of an injured associate strapped to a stretcher whose carriers took to the trees when a grizzly appeared; a July 4th when the young McManus dropped an outsize but unlit firecracker down his stepfather's waders; his brother-in-law's electric huckleberry-picking machine that came to grief at a critical juncture; and his uncle's beard, which got caught in the belt of the rather proper town librarian as she was leaving the movies. Also included are parodies of the private-eye genre and a profusion of pithy one-liners, such as "Eighty-seven percent of all conversations between friends are based on shared ignorance.... That's the reason so many friendships last a lifetime." With laughs throughout, this is a dandy anthology. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

More gems from the comic treasury that is Patrick J. McManus. If while reading them you realize that McManus has stolen a page out of your life and, under the pretense that he is really writing about his life, put it out for all the world to see . . . well, you apprehend the core of his talent. The cast of characters in these stories will, doubtless, be familiar to everyone. Who hasn't met someone named something like Rancid Crabtree, whose greatest fears are soap, water, and the prospect of any type of employment? And in everyone's family there surely is an Uncle Flynn, whose love of horse racing, cards, and other assorted games of skill forces him to take sudden vacations because of visits from gentlemen in dark suits who demand very prompt repayment of loans. And who among us did not have a first car that only got three miles per gallon--and that was just the oil? With nearly a dozen books from his pen, McManus spurs us to wonder when, if ever, his well will run dry. But considering the presence here of a lucubration on the joys of being an avid hunter (and those avids sure are tasty critters), you figure it won't happen very soon. --Jon Kartman

In this collection of tales, McManus, one of America's most prominent humorists, frequently returns both in place (the backcountry Northwest) and time (his childhood) to some of his most fertile ground. There are echoes of Mark Twain as he tells of a boy's pursuit of the dream fish, the perils of growing a beard, and the allure of hunting the wily avid (as in, "He is an avid hunter"). Populated by characters such as Retch Sweeney and Rancid Crabtree, this is hardly New Yorker stuff, but to McManus fans the less so the better. Recommended for libraries whose patrons like their humor country fried and well done. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/97.]‘Jim G. Burns, Ottumwa P.L., Iowa (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.