The Amazon.com page for Regular Expressions Cookbook now shows the book’s cover. That cover is actually a draft. The final cover will be (slightly) different.

When our editor sent the cover for comment to Steve and me, I wrote:

I’m concerned mostly that neither of you have a hatred of rats.

I replied:

The rat in Ratatouille is pretty cool.

I guess the cover was designed during the year of the rat, which was last year, when we wrote the book. This year is the year of the ox.

In Thai, the word for mouse or rat is commonly used as a first person pronoun by children referring to themselves when addressing their elders, and as a 2nd or 3rd person pronoun by elders referring to youngsters.

So, no, I don’t have any cultural issues with rats.

Steve didn’t have any issues with the rat either. So if you buy our book, your regular expressions will be free of bugs, but cooked up by a rat pulling your hair!