Jim Crotty travels throughout America putting out Monk, a decent-sized quarterly magazine, from the motor home he shares with Michael Lane, the other half of Monk's editorial staff. He seems to know the country as well as anyone might know something as big as America, because his slang dictionary is not only accurate but revelatory: Crotty has been there, and gone to great lengths to examine each region for the heart of its small talk. Midwesterners like to talk about weather and how you got there, for instance, while residents of Portland like to talk about evil Californians, and New Yorkers like to talk about themselves. Crotty's observations aren't all regional; he gives good space to graffiti artists, gutter punks, sports fans and so on, but it's all enlightening. And, unlike many slang dictionaries, it's assembled by someone whose research can probably be trusted. Recommended.