Deseret News (Salt Lake City): Leisure reading

'Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases'

Edited by Jeff Vangermeer and Mark Roberts

Bantam, $14.

This delightful softcover book is the answer for any unknown malady.

Purposely echoing the exaggerated language of a Victorian-era medical textbook, the literary contributors have produced a parody that includes dozens of entries for fake ailments, such as Pentzler's Lubriciousness, Fungal Disenchantment and Razornail Bone Rot. This is a witty literary send-up written by a number of talented fiction writers

'Casual Lex'

By Webb Garrison

Rutledge Hill Press, $14.99.

The softcover book, subtitled "An Informal Assemblage of Why We Say What We Say," is a collection of "concise explanations of expressions in wide use."

It's the third edition of a book Webb Garrison originally wrote in 1955. Since his passing, his children, Carol Bates, Webb Garrison Jr. and William Garrison, have decided to update it in their father's honor.

Discussed here are numerous phrases that have worked their way into our language through devious means. For instance, the first entry is "aboveboard," meaning "straightforward." It comes from the crude gambling wheel or treadle that confidence men used as a forerunner to the roulette wheel. The treadle was used to regulate the stopping point of the wheel. A gambler who wanted to convince onlookers that there was no treadle under the board would say "All above the board, sirs!"

There are numerous other interesting phrases explained, such as "bawl out," "bonfire," "diddly-squat," "firestorm" and "hand over fist." This book is a kick.

'Clever Maids'

By Valerie Paradiz

Basic Books, $23.

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were collectors and editors of more than 200 folk stories -- but it is not generally known that more than half of them were contributed by the brothers' educated female friends. It has always been assumed that the pair gathered their stories by traveling through the countryside, transcribing stories related by farmers and peasants.

This is a myth, writes Valerie Paradiz. For instance, Gretchen Wild recounted the "Child of Mary" to Wilhelm when she was 19. Wilhelm copied the story with a quill pen while Wild told him the story as recalled from her childhood.

While Wilhelm was in Berlin, he was introduced to the Hassenpflug family who had four knowledgeable daughters with "entirely new stories" to tell him.

One of strangest stories told by Jeanette Hassenpflug was "On the Despicable Spinning of Flax," a paradoxical story about women's work and beauty. Other stories attributed to educated women are "The Widow of Steinau," "The Diligent Handmaid," "The Six Swans," "The Singing Bone," "The Goose Maid" and "The Golden Key."