Humorist Roy Blount Jr.'s latest offering may be the most entertaining book you'll never finish. And that's not a knock. It's a nod to Blount's own counsel. "If you read this book the way I would read it and the way I've written it," he suggests in his introduction, "you will wear it out, thumbing back and forth, without ever being sure you've read it all."

"Alphabet Juice" is a sort of circular madcap dictionary. Which is to say, a book about words, compiled alphabetically and with great wit, but according to no other apparent program. Thus it begins with a rambling consideration of the word "a" (and the retelling of a joke about college football players) and ultimately concludes with the word "'zzyzva" (a class of weevils), as well as an invitation to think about the word "aah," which is the book's third entry, found way back on Page 12.