A Minnesota Book of Days

Mohr's ( How to Talk Minnesotan ) format of 366 entries--including February 29--mixes matters of purported historical significance (``On this night in 1985 Minnesota Bigfoot was sighted in a crowd of revelers engaging in a chivaree'') with Old Farmer's Almanac -like remarks (``The cricket season is in full swing today . . .''). One major narrative thread follows the progress of Harold and Ethel Mire as they muddle through mundanity (he has learned to share the tedium of domestic work with her, but refuses to hang the laundry on the line in broad daylight). Another involves the elusive, legendary Minnesota Bigfoot seeking fulfillment (it tries college courses and politics, dropping in at the 1988 Democratic convention in Atlanta). Commercials, similar to those Mohr wrote for the public radio show A Prairie Home Companion , pepper the months, and his wry observations about home repair are joyfully skewed. Much of Mohr's material is downright funny, but it would be difficult to make 366 humorous comments about any subject, let alone a state. In this book, that strain inevitably shows. (Aug.)