The Newest Book from Mark Twain

Yes, he's been dead since 1910, but that has not stopped the premiere American man of letters, Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, from issuing a new book of short pieces: "Who Is Mark Twain?" If you like comedy, you've got to check this book out!

Collected from Twain's "stacks of literary remains", the book contains previously unpublished writings - some finished, some unfinished, all worthwhile. Allow me to quote some lines that made me laugh out loud and/or nod approvingly:

From "Happy Memories of the Dental Chair" - describing a recommended dentist: "...he had the calm, possessed, surgical look of a man who could endure pain in another person."

From "The Privilege of the Grave": "As an active privilege it (free speech) ranks with the privilege of committing murder: we may exercise it if we are willing to take the consequences."

From "Frank Fuller and My First New York Lecture" - after listing a number of dignitaries and celebrities who could not attend his first lecture, including General Ulysses Grant, Horace Greeley, Admiral Farragut, the Prince of Wales, the mayor of Buffalo: "Boss Tweed...a number of men from Sing Sing...these came. I do not know their names, but they were all public men and served the state."

From "Conversations With Satan" - Twain meets the Devil in Vienna, and offers him some choice pipe tobacco: "He liked it...he sent up a cloud of fragrant smoke, and said admiringly 'It is good; very, very good; burns freely and smells like a heretic."

Highly recommended.