Rich Hall's Vanishing America

Comedian Hall, best known for his work on television's Saturday Night Live and Not Necessarily the News shows, veers from his popular Sniglets series in this glance at American waysides. Illustrated with some 50 photos, Vanishing America has its roots in a TV parody of Charles Kuralt's On the Road series. But here Hall picks up where Kuralt left off, finding lost shoes in the road, the man who leaves Gideon Bibles in motel rooms, the Wheel Alignment Bear, ""the only good-looking person in Atlantic City,'' the drop-in-any-mailbox key, the author of ``Daily Prayer & Chuckle'' for the newspaper in Whatcom County, Washington, the last 10? Coke machine in Chillicothe, Ohio. He also eats a $1 meal in Pocatello, Idaho, and bemoans drive-in movie theaters transformed into flea markets. Wandering the landscape, Hall shows himself to be a gifted humorist who ought to survive the Sniglets craze. (November)