Marvellous Hairy made it onto the (very, very) longlist for Canada Also Reads, the shadow reading competition being run by the Afterword, at the National Post.

Yes, it is a literary rumble.

Now, who has the oratory prowess and bookish Kung Fu to volunteer to defend the little fella? We need a literary superhero like the Shredding Samurai! (But you know, without the freakishly long arms, blue hair and samurai sword. All shredding of the opponents should be metaphorical.)

You can find details about the contest here, and if you’d like to be a panelist, send them an email telling them how brilliant you are, and why you want to defend Marvellous Hairy. (I wouldn’t mention your blue hair or razor-sharp weapons.) Email addy: theafterword@nationalpost.com.

It’s a few days late, but this Christmas present came to me via Monkeywire. Vervet monkeys stealing drinks from tourists in St. Kitts.

The BBC announcer tries to make this seem like a nature show, and even compares the drinking habits of monkeys with those of humans. (Apparently the rates of teetotalers, moderate drinkers and raging alcoholics is roughly the same, indicating that our hooch predilections may be genetically determined.)

But mostly it’s a video about drunken monkeys.

You can find the sloshed simians here, and Monkewire is here.

Rule number one of monkey fight club is you turn on the humans!

A news story in the California Chronicle reports:

MONKEYS trained in the art of taekwondo turned on their handler – kicking his head in.

LoWung, 42, taught the martial art to primates so they could entertain crowds at a shopping centre in Nshi, China.

But shoppers found it even more entertaining when one sharp monkey floored him with a kick to the head.

Read the full story here.

Apparently the high-octane silliness of Marvellous Hairy ruined a perfectly good pun Calvin Chayce had all set up for the book. Of which, I’m glad. He says:

… Rayner proves to be a masterful story weaver with a gifted imagination, and a remarkable wit. If that’s not enough, a deep social conscience lies beneath it all. Those qualities combined provide for an exciting, hilarious and ultimately fulfilling reading experience. Just don’t forget to fasten your seatbelt.

You can read the full review on Goodreads here.

The next hilarious stop along the Virtual Tour for Marvellous Hairy is at Collecting Tokens today.

Collecting Tokens is a marvellous assemblage of anecdotes, observations and well, tokens, hosted by Alejna, a 12-year-old squid, obsessed with linguistics and pants. (In fact, I’d say her obsession with the word pants rivals my obsession with things simian.)

Here’s a clip for reason #6:

My mother-in-law would be farily scandalized by something that induced me to compose a sentence including both the words “sex” and “monkeys.”

You can find the other eleven here.