Enjoy the colourful vernacular of a bygone era in this alphabetic guidebook to the slang of the 1930s. Often referred to as the Dirty Thirties, it was a time marked by economic hardship, unemployment, and excessive crime. The words and phrases reflect this, mirroring the concerns and vices of the day with a myriad of colloquialisms.

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: twice a week, to give Miss Sullivan a little rest. But, though everybody was kind and ready to help us, there was only one hand that could turn drudgery into pleasure. That year I finished arithmetic, reviewed my Latin grammar, and read three chapters of Caesar's "Gallic War." In German I read, partly with my fingers and partly with Miss Sullivan's assistance, Schiller's "Lied von der Glocke" and "Taucher," Heine's "Harzreise," Freytag's "Aus dem Staat Friedrichs des Grossen," Riehl's " Fluch Der Schonheit," Lessing's "Minna von Barnhelm," and Goethe's " Aus meinem Leben." I took the greatest delight in these German books, especially Schiller's wonderful lyrics, the history of Frederick the Great's magnificent achievements and the account of Goethe's life. I was sorry to finish " Die Harzreise," so full of happy witticisms and charming descriptions of vine-clad hills, streams that sing and ripple in the sunshine, and wild regions, sacred to tradition and legend, the gray sisters of a long- vanished, imaginative age?descriptions such as can be given only by those to whom nature is "a feeling, a love and an appetite." Mr. Gilman instructed me part of the year in English literature. We read together "As You Like It," Burke's "Speech on Conciliation with America," and Macaulay's "Life of Samuel Johnson." Mr. Gilman's broad views of history and literature and his clever explanations made my work easier and pleasanter than it could have been had I only read notes mechanically with the necessarily brief explanations given in the classes. Burke's speech was more instructive than anyother book on a political subject that I had ever read. My mind stirred with the stirring times, and the characters round which the life of two contending nations centred seemed to move right before me...

Monster Stalks NYC
When a local drunk is mugged near the toxic Gowanus Canal by "a hulking, hairy beast who smells really bad," Hank Kalabander thinks nothing of blaming the assault on the legendary Bigfoot. His sardonic crime blotter for "The Hornet, "a local Brooklyn rag, often gleefully recounts the "tragedies "that befall the borough's dimmer residents. But when an upstart reporter from "The Eagle, "a tabloid paper, lifts his piece and implicates Bigfoot in two more attacks, the crimes become local news fodder and the hunt for the "Gowanus Beast" takes off. Pretty soon the G.B. is to blame for everything from murder and robberies to playground scuffles and a pie's disappearance--and neighborhood watch patrols have taken to the streets. Alarmed by the populace's response, Hank decides it's his responsibility to disprove the existence of this menacing beast and, with the help of an old carny colleague, put an end to the growing hysteria.
In "The Blow-off, "acclaimed writer Jim Knipfel has crafted an astoundingly funny send-up of our current times--an intoxicating blend of sharp cultural references, wildly comical scenes, discerning commentary, and unforgettable characters.

From the irresistibly droll mind of Jim Knipfel comes "These Children Who Come at You with Knives, and Other Fairy Tales," a series of twisted fables that echo with pinpoint acuity. A masterful storyteller whose memoirs and novels have earned him widespread acclaim, this is Knipfel's first foray into the short story, and he delivers in spades: this wickedly dark satire on the notion of happily ever after turns the traditional fairy tale on its head. Among the array of lonely losers wallowing in discontent, the enterprising reader of this volume may meet a talking chicken who learns the world has little patience for intelligence, a foul-mouthed gnome set on world domination, and a magical snowman wrestling with the horror of being alive. In "These Children Who Come at You with Knives," Knipfel's singular and brilliantly funny mind reinvents the bedtime story and offers up a wildly entertaining meditation on the perils of human nature.

Wally Philco is a gentle, midlevel insurance industry operative living with his wife, Margie, in Brooklyn. In the years since those terrible events took place in Tupelo, Mississippi, though, the world -- and Brooklyn, too -- has become a very different place. Nobody's sure exactly what happened on the day now known as Horribleness Day, but it became pretty clear afterward that the Australians were involved somehow. Long after all the initial craziness has petered out, the Horribleness is still being used as an excuse for everything, from insomnia and lower back pain to joblessness, bank robbery, higher taxes, drunk driving, and murder. Likewise, everything from icy sidewalks to earthquakes to casino bus accidents is being cited as the work of terrorists.

Now it's every Mutual Citizen's job to keep an eye on his neighbor and to report anything amiss. Wally's neighbor, Whit Chambers, has been busy practically setting a world record for turning in suspicious characters and Unmutuals to the local authorities and, in fact, Whit's had his eye and his telescope trained on Wally for some time now. When Wally finally snaps, he finds refuge with the Unpluggers, an underground movement fighting for just a few minutes of peace and quiet. With a cast of Dickensian characters, from stroller-wielding Brooklyn mothers to former Kennedy spooks and Norwegian cowboys, Jim Knipfel's "Unplugging Philco" is a wildly funny look at our life and times, filled with sharp cultural references and vivid, witty prose that testifies to a dangerously perceptive mind behind the madness.