While reading Great Expectations (Bookshop|Amazon) by Charles Dickens, a listener in Arlington, Texas, is surprised when one of the characters inherits some money, which Dickens describes as a cool four thousand. Were they really using cool that way...
Stellar first sentences from Bianca Bosker’s Cork Dork (Bookshop|Amazon) about her quest to become a sommelier and from A Tale of Two Cities (Bookshop|Amazon) by Charles Dickens.This is part of a complete episode.
An anadrome is a word that forms a whole new word when you spell it backwards. For example, the word “stressed” spelled backwards is “desserts.” Some people’s first names are anadromes. There’s the girl named Noel...
Secret signals on the job: Waitresses at some 19th-century restaurants ensured speedy drink service by communicating with a non-verbal code. One server took orders, then placed each customer’s cup to indicate exactly what the customer wanted...
What happens when you de-pluralize a book title? As members of our Facebook group discovered, if you make the plurals in the name of a book singular, you can come up with some interesting plot lines. For example, John Steinbeck’s The...
Barbara Kingsolver’s book Demon Copperhead is a retelling of Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield set in today’s Appalachia. Martha shares memories of a long-ago visit to Kingsolver’s family farm in Virginia, where they...
