Bowing to reader demands {waves to Jen Klein}, here is the Christmas Day reading list referenced in my previous post:
Me: a book Older Son received for Christmas, Cul de Sac Golden Treasury
By Richard Thompson. He discovered the comic strip several years ago in the Washington Post, and it partially filled the hole in the heart left by the discontinuation of Calvin & Hobbes. Alas, no stuffed tigers or transmogrifiers, though.
Older Son: a book he bought for me after finding it on my Wish List: Hark! A Vagrant, a collection of histoliterary comics by Kate Beaton. Click here for one of the reasons I wanted it. I’m limiting myself to one two-page spread a day, so as to spread out the enjoyment. (Parental advisory: Hark! A Vagrant grew up on the internet, not in a newspaper, and the language occasionally is more dorm-level than you’ll find in Cul de Sac).
Younger Son: 1776: The Illustrated Edition, a gift he bought for me because several years ago I had been blown away by David McCullough’s book about the most desperate year of the American Revolution.
The Illustrated Edition (a coffee-table book in size as well as genre) contains excerpts from the original, dozens of photos, and a dozen translucent envelopes bound into the spine that hold some three dozen letters, maps and other source documents relating to the era.
We all enjoyed the disclaimer on the copyright page that all the “removable documents are reproductions of original items and are not originals themselves.”
Well, duh.
© 2012 Anne Bingham and Making It Up as I Go
Anne Bingham: Making it up as I go 
All interesting and fun reading. As for the documents, I wonder how many people thought they were real…hmmmm.
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Good ones, all of them. Personally, I find a book titles ‘Cul-de-Sac’ irresistible. (That title’s conjurer should have a full time job thinking up titles.)
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In the foreword the cartoonist talks about the title. He chose it because it started out as a strip focused on Washington, DC, suburbs, and belatedly discovered additional, idiomatic meanings not relating to traffic patterns.
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We will absolutely look up Cul de Sac: Calvin & Hobbes has been a huge part of our family and Bill Watterson is often quoted here.
What? No original Revolutionary War documents in that last book? Ask for your money back!
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I haven’t had time to focus on the book so perhaps there’s an original Dec of Indep tucked away…
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{uses a time machine to wave back}
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