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.
According to Gobsmacked: The British Invasion of American English (Bookshop|Amazon) by Ben Yagoda, the word smarmy, meaning “unctuous” or “ingratiating,” may come from a 19th-century magazine contest, in which readers sent in...
Mary Beth in Greenville, South Carolina, wonders: Why do we say four-oh-nine for the number 409 instead of four-zero-nine or four-aught-nine? What are the rules for saying either zero or oh or aught or ought to indicate that arithmetical symbol...
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