How to Tell Your Friends from the Apes

Book excerpt: A survey of life on earth, in all its variety and pagentry, by a very annoyed humorist. From early man, the Neanderthal, Cro-Magnon, to irascible observations on mankind and the animal kingdom today (including "Birds I Could Do Without"), Will Cuppy, a perennially perturbed hermit, is your guide in these are very funny essays. For eight years, from 1921 to 1929, Will Cuppy lived alone on Jones Island, off Long Island's South Shore. From that outpost, he gained a reputation for his factual but funny magazine articles and wrote the book, How to be a Hermit, his first bestseller. His last, The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody, was left unfinished after Cuppy's death in 1949 and has become a classic of American humor. In between (among other titles) was this very funny collection. First published in 1931, the subjects include "What I Hate About Spring," "Awful Mammals," and "Why Be a Rhinoceros?" Great for anyone who loves classic American humor.