Barbara Kingsolver’s novel Demon Copperhead (Bookshop|Amazon) is a modern retelling of Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield (Bookshop|Amazon). Set in Appalachia, it won a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. When Martha interviewed Kingsolver at her rustic family farmhouse in Virginia for a newspaper story years ago, Kingsolver was adamant that Appalachians were among the last groups in America it was still acceptable to make fun of. Longtime listeners of this show will recognize many features of the rich Appalachian dialect, including the “punctual” whenever. Actor Charlie Thurston does a splendid job narrating the audio version of Demon Copperhead. This is part of a complete episode.
After our conversation about towns with extremely short names, many listeners wrote to tell us about Why, Arizona. Others pointed out that there are towns called Ely in Iowa, Minnesota, and Nevada. Other super-short appellations include Rye, New...
Debbie from Crawfordsville, Florida, says that when she and her husband reach an impasse while working on something, they’ll say Let’s grok about it, which they use to mean “Let’s think about it.” Grok was coined by...
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