I Love It When You Talk Retro by Ralph Keyes

This book is definitely best when browsed or kept in the bathroom, but as it was I got it from the Leisure section of Parks Library, thus 4 weeks only with no renewals. Quite a fun book, it gives the pop(?) culture origins of all sorts of phrases, both for fun and to help those of us who weren't quite born when, say, people were keeping meats cooled in the icebox (turns out that's the equivalent of a refrigerator, not a freezer). Although there is an exhaustive list of word phrases, I often thought of ones that didn't show up in the index. More frustrating, Keyes often threw out references in the middle of the text that were prime candidates for the book but weren't actually included.
Again, great book, best if you can enjoy it in small chunks.