Books were rare treasures in the Middle Ages, painstakingly copied out by hand. So how to protect them from theft? Scribes sometimes added a curse to the first page of those books that was supposed to keep thieves away — and some were as vicious as...
Monica in Burlington, Vermont, says a friend recently told her that her day became kerfunkulated, and Monica knew what she meant without even asking. Why do we successfully infer the meaning of such words? Placeholder words such as thingamajiggy...
Journalist Bianca Bosker infiltrated the world of contemporary art and wrote about it in her book Get the Picture: A Mind-Bending Journey Among the Inspired Artists and Obsessive Art Fiends Who Taught Me How to See (Bookshop|Amazon), often with...
Acclaimed Jamaican poet Safiya Sinclair’s sumptuous memoir, How to Say Babylon (Bookshop|Amazon) tells the story of her struggle to break free from a rigid Rastafarian upbringing, and how her discovery of poetry, both memorizing it and writing...
Carl in Sebastopol, California, was reminded of his childhood on New York’s Lower East Side while ready Harry Golden’s book For 2 Cents Plain (Amazon), the title referring to how customers ordered a plain glass of seltzer. For a little...
Sue from Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, wants help regarding a dispute with her husband about terms they use in a pickup sport like softball and you don’t have enough players to field a full-size team. If you get onto second base but then have to...