Have you ever wondered how you would approach writing a letter of recommendation for a Yeti, were you asked to do so? Did you ever think about how an immortal undead vampire handles a breakup? Ever wished you knew the proper technique to seduce a Sphinx? Any Sphinx, guaranteed? And who among us couldn't identify with what the roommate of Dorian Grey must deal with, what with strange paintings taking prominent position in the shared living space?!

Well, my friends, have I got the book for you! Giving you all the insights you'd ever want into the secret world of monsters: Frank Lesser's Sad Monsters: Growling on the Outside, Crying on the Inside.

Never heard of Frank Lesser? He is a writer for The Colbert Report for his day job, thus guaranteeing his hilariousness, and yet here he is moonlighting as a… well… a writer, with his first book all his own (he was a contributor to Colbert's I am America, and So Can You!). And that book takes a look into the lives of famous and not-so-famous monsters, in a variety of methods. We have Igor's resume. We have excerpts from Godzilla's diary. We have the owner's manual for Gremlins. We have a Hollywood screenplay written by zombies. We have the transcript of the court case from the class-action lawsuit following the terror and destruction perpetrated by King Kong. There is quite the selection, both of monsters and of ways to showcase the side we never see.

Heck, we even have a list of unsuccessful monsters, who never made their mark on history like their more famous brethren: monsters such as a Merwolf: "On full moons, this creature transforms into a vicious wolf with the lower body of a fish. On other nights, it is just a regular wolf, furiously dog-paddling in the ocean." or Coffin Ghost: "This unambitious ghost haunts the coffin it was buried in."

Basically, here are the things you need to know about this book:

It is hilarious.

It is clever.

It is witty.

It is the cause of much mirth and jocularity.

It is short.

Yes, alas, it is this last part that makes the book a tad hard to completely recommend. There are quite a few entries in the book (about 40), but each is only a few-to-several pages, and the book as whole clocks in at less than 200 pages.

So will it make you smile? Yes. Will you get a kick out of it? Absolutely. Is it worth reading? Quite. Is it worth spending $10+ on? Errr… that's hard to say. What I think is that this book makes a fantastic conversation piece… a coffee table (albeit a rather small one) book. Or perhaps as a gift. This makes an excellent gift, as it will make the recipient laugh, and is the type of book that most people wouldn't buy on their own.

But still, with Halloween upon us, what better book can there be to prepare yourself to gain deep understanding of the various creatures of the night that you'll be encountering? And now all I need to do is find myself a Sphinx and give my newfound skills at try.

   -- K. Burtt