I’ve always been scrupulous about reading every word of the books I review, so my heart is lighter now that I’ve actually read Judy Sierra and Marc Brown’s Wild About Books—whose big award I casually raved about last month. And I’m glad to say it’s colorful, clever, literary, and winsome. It takes about ten minutes to read if you’re standing in Spoonbill & Sugartown as I was, half-listening to the tipsy art-world conversations of the post-book-party staff and petting the store’s pendulous striped cat. If you were reading the book aloud, though, it might take as many as three years to really exhaust its entertainment value.

Also, received: Optic Nerve: 30 Postcards by Adrian Tomine, which includes some of his New Yorker work. It’s so good I can’t stand it.