Pure delight

You know the sort of book that compels a body repeatedly to interrupt the other reader in the room and say, "Hahahaha! Listen to this! This is really good stuff!" and then not even care that the listening you command from the other reader in the room is preceded by a slightly exasperated sigh? That's what kind of book this is.

I was going to link it to Amazon, but I found a hit from the title that led to an interview at NPR. So here's the link to that instead. You can hear the author read an excerpt from this book of "familiar essays" -- writing so delightful to read that your husband the other reader in the room may never get to read his silly history of the Hundred Years War! (He's on page 270 something, and the fight just started, so I wasn't worried that he'd lose his place in the narrative.)