Hooray! Perhaps my enthusiasm is crass, loud, and imperialist, like most things American—or is that Bulgarian?—but I'm delighted that The Clumsiest People in Europe: Or, Mrs. Mortimer's Bad-Tempered Guide to the Victorian World, by Todd Pruzan—who's also the author of the New Yorker piece recently voted Best in Issue, by me—is now available on Amazon for a mere $13.57 (US$). Yo, Bloomsbury: Where's the excerpt? Pruzan is also reading soon at the Chelsea Barnes & Noble, 6th Ave. at 22nd St., at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, June 15. Let's show up and do a raucous, ungainly Wave whenever something from the book makes us laugh, which will be frequently—Mrs. Mortimer would be horrified, and that would be good.

How come? Well, the book has been described (by Pruzan) as "a cranky, caustic, funny and unsettling collection of nasty writing about geography for Victorian children, written by Mrs. Favell Lee Mortimer and originally published between 1849 and 1854." Here's one of the first blurbs, by my pal Lisa Levy in her Voice dish on the big summer reads: "Mrs. Mortimer—armchair traveler and author of such proclamations as 'The Spaniards are not only idle, they are very cruel'—makes a persuasive and hilarious case for staying put." Another on-the-ball review (the pub date's not till June 6th) by the contextually minded Ken, from Baker Books' Pick of the Literate (like that name!):

Forget ethnic pride, folks -- it seems we're all descended from useless fools. Such was the considered opinion of Mrs. Favell Lee Mortimer, a Victorian writer of children's books, Christian novelist, and general misanthrope. You don't have to be a seasoned world traveler to enjoy this collection, after all, Mrs. Mortimer herself only left England on two occasions. A fascination for the Victorian era and life in the British Empire at its peak isn't necessary, either, but it helps. In The Clumsiest People in Europe, Pruzan has collected Mrs. Mortimer's cruel geography lessons for our horror and amusement.

No one is spared Mrs. Mortimer's scathing assessments -- the French "like being smart, but are not very clean," the Portuguese are "clumsy and awkward with their hands," even the English (the author's own nationality) "are not very pleasant in company, because they do not like strangers, nor taking much trouble." Although these hilariously rude pronouncements seem like the creative hoax of a clever contemporary writer, they are indeed real. Mrs. Mortimer was as successful a children's writer in her day as J.K. Rowling is in ours. One has to wonder if the rabidly xenophobic adults of the World War One era were partly made so by reading her books as children.

If you're in Chicago on June 13, cheer yourself up after the Cubs game with Pruzan on the radio (yes, my domestic partner Google is helping me; I can't always be psychic), specifically 720 WGN. Just look at this lineup and tell me you won't be streaming the audio from your little white box:

Monday, June 13

4:30pm John Williams: John chats with comedian Robert Klein about his memoir, The Amorous Busboy of Decatur Avenue: A Child of the Fifties Looks Back.

6:30pm Cubs Central Pregame with David Kaplan.

7:05pm Chicago Cubs Baseball: Cubs vs. Florida Marlins with Pat Hughes and Ron Santo.

Following a 7:05pm Cubs game (approximately 10:20pm) Extension 720 with Milt Rosenberg: Tonight, after the game, Extension 720 welcomes Todd Pruzan, editor of the new book The Clumsiest People in Europe: Or, Mrs. Mortimer's Bad-Tempered Guide to the Victorian World.

People have sense in Chicago. I've always said so.

Update: Since a book's not a book till the Times has reviewed it, or so Barnes & Noble may have printed on the company hankerchiefs, it's good to see Clumsiest People is on Henry Alford's summer reading list, right at the top. He likes it:

The Spanish grow olives, ''but the taste is so bitter, I am sure you would not like it.'' In China, ''it is a common thing to stumble over the bodies of dead babies in the streets.'' The Irish, ''if affronted, are filled with rage.'' These withering pronouncements come from a Victorian writer named Mrs. Favell Lee Mortimer, perhaps the most uncharitable person ever to have emerged from the country that also brought us Simon Cowell and Jack the Ripper. In THE CLUMSIEST PEOPLE IN EUROPE: Or, Mrs. Mortimer's Bad-Tempered Guide to the Victorian World (Bloomsbury, $19.95), the present-day writer and editor Todd Pruzan collects entries from three volumes of Mrs. Mortimer's wonderfully odious, travel-based misanthropy. Pruzan also provides some telling biographical details about Mortimer -- most notably that she left England only twice. Moreover, despite being a successful children's author whose Bible primer aimed at 4-year-olds sold a million copies, Mortimer led a life of utter misery. Her first great romantic attachment (to Henry Manning, who became Cardinal Manning) was unrequited; she later married a violent, cruel man from whom she often hid. To the modern eye, Mortimer's work -- by turns unsettling and hilarious -- is nothing short of a revolution in guidebook writing: here, at last, is irritable-bowel-syndrome-as-travelogue.

The Henry Manning story is gripping unto itself, actually. It could make an excellent novel premise for those inclined.

Do ever feel a little depressed, even amid the hoopla and spangles, that books get center stage only in the summer? Where are the winter-reading lists? The Valentine's Day curatives? The New Year's resolution suggestions, starting with the swellest book ever? The Stegner excerpts for Arbor Day? The Inauguration Day blues poems? The Daylight Savings mysteries? The Columbus Day ship's logs and anticolonial retorts? Good-Bye to All That or Reporting Vietnam for Memorial Day? Or Fantastic: The Life of Arnold Schwarzenegger for April Fool's? People don't really have summers off anymore; why not stretch out summer reading to a monthly fanfare? Like, Whee! What shall we read this weekend? Yes, I know that's a silly idea; people have cable to attend to. I think chapters from hot new books, on the radio and podcasted, might be the only way to save the printed word.