The Kosher Guide to Imaginary Animals: The Evil Monkey Dialogues

by Ann & Jeff Vandermeer (2010)

Descriptions of 36 fantastical creature in about 90 pages, usual a page of description followed by a brief back-and-forth dialogue between Ann Vandermeer (the editor of Weird Tales) and Evil Monkey (her husband Jeff Vandermeer's jackass mouthpiece). To put it simply, there's a pretty clever joke on every page, and this entire little book is very clever and makes you want to lend it to people.

My favorite is still the entry for the Biblical Behemoth, which includes the following snippet of dialog:

Evil Monkey: "Surely this think is kosher, though?"

Ann: "As a matter of fact, it is, but only under certain conditions."

Evil Monkey: "What conditions?"

Ann: "The end of the world."

A fun, light-read-without-being-dumb addition to any library.

-d.d.