Near the beginning of his book, Ricou states that his intention in writing about this ubiquitous plant was to answer the question: “Could a regional culture be found by focusing on a single, native, uncharismatic species?” More simply, he wanted to find out “where salal might lead.” Salal leads him from forestry experts in Washington State to harvesters on Vancouver Island who pick salal for a living and know the plant so well they can weigh it by feel.

The cover blurb on Certifiable, a collection of short stories by David McGimpsey (Insomniac), describes it as “funny and twisted stories of American culture.” Topics range from the biological makeup of the McDonald’s character Grimace to fragmented lecture notes for a college seminar on Elvis. McGimpsey’s pairing of couch-potato vernacular with academia is an awkward marriage at times—the correspondence between Fonzie’s jacket and Christina Aguilera is neither funny nor twisted.