Quiz Guy John Chaneski is pondering books with titles that include an anagram. For example, what might you call Stephen Hawking’s heavy coffee-table book about people’s attempts over the centuries to get enough roughage in their diet? This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Anagrammatic Book Titles Quiz”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.
I’m Martha Barnette.
And I’m Grant Barrett.
And bobbing to the surface and now climbing out of his bathysphere, it’s John Chanesky, our quiz guy.
I think I found a puzzle while I was down there, and here it is.
You know, anagrams are a staple of wordplay and puzzles, and they’re a little tough to do in your head.
So I try to add a twist to make them a little easier.
The last time we did anagrams, we did really, really, really short ones.
And we’re going to stick to that.
But this time, we’re going to add book titles.
I’ve taken some classic books.
I’ve anagrammed one short word in their titles and described the kind of book that might result with such a title.
For example, for a while, Stephen Hawking was not interested in writing about the universe.
Instead, he chronicled man’s attempts to get enough roughage in his diet since prehistoric days.
And the resulting book was A Fiber History of Time.
Oh, Lord.
A fiber?
A fiber history of time.
I stand by a brief, brief, a brief history.
Brief.
Becomes fiber.
I thought you were going to talk about invisible insects on the skin and talk about a brief history of might.
Might, that’s not bad.
A follow-up book, why not?
Okay, let’s see how we do with these.
This is actually the book that inspired this puzzle.
Here we go.
Ernest Hemingway imagines a future where mankind has not only abandoned Earth for the red planet, but now has to leave that planet as well.
It’s a farewell.
A farewell to?
Mars.
A farewell to Mars, yes.
All right.
This multi-volume work by J.R.R. Tolkien about a powerful wizard who could force people to do his bidding just by flashing a toothy smile.
The Lord of the Grins.
The Lord of the Grins is right.
Three volumes of that, of Smiling.
It’s great.
J.M. Barrie’s other book about another boy who won’t grow up.
This boy not only won’t grow up, he refuses to wake up.
Peter Knapp.
Peter Knapp is correct.
Frank Herbert scribed a titillating tale about a whole planet with such a great climate that none of the inhabitants wear any clothes.
Terrible sunburn on nude.
Nude.
It’s called Arrakis, but we nicknamed it nude.
Talk about the spice will flow.
That’s spicy.
Talk about it.
Yikes.
Hey, Steinbeck is back.
This time it’s a biblical story about Adam and Eve and how they discovered how steeping leaves in hot water make a delicious drink.
Tease of Eden.
Tease of Eden.
Yes, very good.
A well-loved classic about a little girl’s hidden oasis is adapted by Francis Hodgson Burnett into a spine-chilling thriller where some sort of conceived peril exists.
The Secret Danger.
The Secret Danger.
Dun, dun, dun.
Instead of The Secret Garden.
The Secret Garden is right.
All right.
Those are my secret books.
The secret books I keep in the back of my bookshelf with my anagram titles on them.
I hope you like them.
You guys are great.
Thank you, John.
We always love talking with you, and we appreciate those push-ups for our brains, and we’d love to talk with you, too.
So give us a call, 877-929-9673, or send your thoughts about any aspect of language to words@waywordradio.org.
