Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

This is not a traditional joke comic but rather one of SMBC creator Zach Weinersmith's periodic book review comics. In it, Weinersmith announces that he is trying a new format: posting book reviews with affiliate links on the comic itself, as part of reducing reliance on ads. He highlights two favorite reads for the month of July 2025:

1. "Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global" by Laura Spinney -- described as a thorough history and pre-history of Proto-Indo-European, the ancestor language of English, Hindi, Spanish, Russian, Farsi, Persian, Greek, Latin, and many more.

2. "Pronoun Trouble: The Story of Us in Seven Little Words" by John McWhorter -- a book about the history and use of pronouns, arguing that current controversies around pronoun usage are more continuous with past linguistic evolution than people might think.

Weinersmith notes with self-aware humor: "I promise they won't ALWAYS be only language books. These were just unusually good." He invites readers to post suggestions on Patreon.

While not a joke comic per se, the humor lies in the gentle self-deprecation about his book choices being narrowly focused on linguistics, and in the format itself -- using a webcomic to deliver earnest book recommendations is charmingly incongruous. The comic reflects Weinersmith's well-known love of science, linguistics, and nonfiction, and his ongoing effort to make his creative work financially sustainable without intrusive advertising.