Grant recommends a book for young readers by Rita Williams-Garcia. It’s called One Crazy Summer, and it’s about three girls who travel to Oakland, California, in 1968 to meet the mother who abandoned them. This is part of a complete...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski’s puzzle this week was inspired by the Gersberms meme, and involves adding R sounds to book titles to create books with entirely different plots. For example what George Orwell novella would be about a horse, a duck, a...
Our conversation about books that sit on your shelves unread and the difficulty of parting with them prompted Jen in Essex, New York, to write about her own attachment to long-outdated field guides because of the memories attached to them. This is...
An observation about life and language from author Michael Sims: Every encounter with another human being is like being able to read half a page from the middle of a novel, isn’t it? And then someone grabs the book away. This is part of a...
In a futile situation, English speakers might say that we’re spinning our wheels. The French have a phrase for the same situation that translates as “pedal in sauerkraut.” The Illustrated Book of Sayings collects similarly colorful...
It’s book recommendation time! Grant recommends the Trenton Lee Stewart series for young readers, starting with The Mysterious Benedict Society. Martha praises Ronni Lundy’s Victuals: An Appalachian Journey, with Recipes, a love letter...

