If you’re in a book club, how do you decide what books to read? In some groups, everyone takes turns choosing a book. In others, they take a vote. Others encourage everyone to read a different book and then report on it to the group. Emily Drabinski, president of the American Library Association, is in a group that reads 50 books a year, choosing from a list that includes “a book with a word or phrase that describes you in the title,” “a book with a color in the title, “a book you first heard about in social media,” and other suggestions. These broad categories make for reading that’s invigorating, mind-expanding, and serendipitous. This is part of a complete episode.
A Winter Dictionary (Bookshop|Amazon) by Paul Anthony Jones includes some words to lift your spirits. The verb whicken involves the lengthening of days in springtime, a variant of quicken, meaning “come to life.” Another word, breard, is...
Rosalind from Montgomery, Alabama, says her mother used to scold her for acting like a starnadle fool. The more common version of this term is starnated fool, a term that appears particular to Black English, and appears in the work of such writers...
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