A Series of Unfortunate Events

I spent the entire summer of 2001 catching up with what was going on the in the world of children's literature - focusing mainly on fantasy. Somehow I missed "A Series of Unfortunate Events" by Lemony Snicket - a series of utterly hilarious tales concerning the unfortunate adventures of three children known as the Baudelaire Orphans. These books are absolute brain candy - each taking only an hour or so to read (this, incidentally, makes them an uneconomical purchase. After I buying the first and second, I realized I was better off just sitting in the bookstore or library and reading them there) however, they are not pure fluff, as they have done wonders to increase my vocabulary. Part of the humor in the book comes from the way that Lemony Snicket inserts his didactic material into the story. Here is an example
It is now necessary for me to use the rather hackneyed phrase "Meanwhile, back at the ranch." The word "hackneyed" here means "used by so, so many writers that by the time Lemony Snicket uses it, it is a tiresome cliche." "Meanwhile, back at the ranch" is a phrase used to link what is going on in one part of the story to what is going on in another part of the story, and it has nothing to do with cows or with horses or with any people who work in rural areas where ranches are, or even with ranch dressing, which is creamy and put on salads. Here, the phrase "meanwhile back at the ranch" refers to what Violet was doing while Klaus and Sunny were in the Reptile Room.
The words/expressions/rules of grammar/historical and scientific facts Lemony Snicket explicitly introduces appear several times subsequent to their introduction. BRILLIANT!