Lilek’s latest, which is subtitled “Highlights from the Golden Age of Bad
Parenting Advice”, is a hoot, rather as you’d expect from the author of
The Gallery of Regrettable Food and
Interior Desecrations. He covers the whole range of
mid-20th-century parenting ephemera, from pamphlets on how to deliver a
baby at home to the role of the father in raising children to the dread
sin of Constipation. There are quite a few chuckles here, and a number of
outright belly-laughs.

But is it as good as its predecessors? Has Lileks met the high standard
of his previous work? Yes, but also no. So far as the book goes, it’s
classic Lileks; but the whole thing feels a tad lightweight, in two
senses. I don’t know whether James rushed it, or ran out of inspiration, or
simply had less grist for his mill, but there seems to be less here than
in his previous books–it was over too quickly. (In fairness, this is an
extremely subjective judgement; the page count hasn’t decreased.)
But second, the book is literally more lightweight. The prior volumes
were initially published in hardcover; they made hefty Christmas presents
and nice (if unusual) coffee-table books. With Mommy Knows Worst
the publisher went straight to softcover. It would look funny on the
coffee-table and it’s going to look funny sitting next to them on the shelf.

Ah, well. It’s still a lot of fun.