Jon Winokur has previously written or edited such books as 'The Portable Curmudgeon' and 'A Curmudgeon's Garden of Love' so it's no surprise that he came up with the encyclopedia arranged alphabetically with definitions and quotations on topics and eccentrics like

Carrie Fisher: 'Instant gratification takes to long.'
to
adolescent: 'One who suffers from hormone-induced dementia'
to
political correctness: "intellectually challenged" (stupid) and "economically disadvantaged" (poor).

This is a sort of Book of Hours with quotations that are guaranteed to have you laughing, or shaking your head in agreement, or thinking anew about too-generally accepted notions of our modern American society. It's all good humored - well, mostly - in the manner of 'Seinfeld.' (One of Winokur's heroes is Larry David, the writer of the first several seasons of that hit show.) He skewers the pretensions and group-think of our times with a light heart, but all with a barely suppressed growl. Irony and sarcasm abound, but also empathy (oh, he'd hate my using that word!) for those of us who are trying to make our way in this vale of tears.

This is the sort of book that you want to keep at your bedside for dipping into for a few minutes now and again. I will admit, though, that I read it through from beginning to end and had some difficulty putting it down.

Scott Morrison