Life Is Like a Chicken COOP Ladder: A Study of German National Character Through Folklore

I first saw this book while living in southwest Germany five years ago. Its less about German folklore than it is about colloquial German. As a linguist, this is a fantastic volume. German language, when compared to English, is remarkably limited in its ability to throw out four-letter words. So the Germanic peoples developed some pretty entertaining idioms over time. If you speak any German, this is a must for understanding colloquial speech and command of the only original swear word in the language. Its insightful but certainly not 'folklore' in the American sense.