How to get From January to December

by Will Cuppy

No dust jacket, boards show negligible wear, tight binding, interior pages are clean and unmarked. Stated First Edition. B0877

Genres: Humor, Essays, Satire, Nonfiction

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1951

About the author

William Jacob "Will" Cuppy was an American humorist and literary critic, known for his satirical books about nature and historical figures.

Reviews

[Ted · Rating 3 out of 5]

This selection of Will Cuppy’s musings was compiled posthumously by his friend, Fred Feldkamp, and published in 1951. It’s a collection of short pieces derived from Cuppy’s research notes on historical figures, nature, science and nonsense subjects. Cuppy had saved this information on index cards during the last 20 years of his life. Feldkamp edited and arranged these pieces in an almanac format corresponding to the days in a calendar year. The entries are a mixed lot; ranging from factual data to trivia, satire and whimsical commentary. This is a light, easy read but one that I had to take in very small doses. There was a "sameness" about the entries that soon made me drowsy. All said, I enjoyed the book, mostly as an expression of the wit, humor and cynicism of popular American culture in the 1930s and 1940s. 3 stars

[Louise Culmer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Will Cuppy was a man who had a huge amount of knowledge on a wide variety of subjects,and in this book he gives a short article for each day of the year on a wide vareity of different subjects ranging from history to literature to nature to science, all of them very funny. If you had great willpower you could perhaps ration yourself to one article a day, and have something to laugh at every day of the year, but personally I can never resist reading the whole hilarious book in one go.

[Lee Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was so funny. The humor is very dry and understated. It's an erudite, 50s wit. Cuppy presents a fact or anecdote a day, wryly retold. I am so glad I stumbled onto this one. I would never have found it otherwise. They say humor ages fast but that's not so. Comedy ages, humor endures. Cuppy is an unjustly forgotten genius.

[P.J. Sullivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was put together by Fred Feldkamp after Cuppy's death, but there is no doubt who wrote it. It is pure Cuppy, at his best. Here you get his views on cat buttering, fly swatting, canteloupe scraping, prunes, parsnips, alligators, astrology, and practically everything else. Of all his books, this one covers the widest scope of subject matter. There are even snippets about some of the people he did not quite get around to in his classic "Decline and Fall."

[Fishface · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Book of Days for the committed Cuppyist. I am one of these. A thought, a piece of sardonic advice, or a factual tidbit for every day of the year.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Silly.

Perhaps more interesting than a comic strip daily calendar but then again, it depends on the day!

Will Cuppy's dry sense of humor and endless taste for the obscure is a lighthearted way to start off each day. Then again, so is balking at CNN Headline news!

Found this one in an old closet of a fraternity house down in New Orleans where it ended up after being pulled from the public library's circulation in the mid 1960's.

A keeper for sure, a must read, probably not!