Grant and Martha have summer reading suggestions. Grantβs going through books by great women in show business β Tallulah Bankhead, Mindy Kaling, and Tina Fey. Martha finally got a Kindle, and is starting with Herman Melvilleβs classic, Moby-Dick! A...
Our Quiz Guy John Chaneski offers a quiz called Take-Offs. For each clue, remove the first letter of a word to get the second (or third) word in the puzzle. For example, in the first chapter of Moby Dick, Ishmael had to screw up his courage and join...
βThey shot the white girl first.β Thatβs how Toni Morrisonβs novel, Paradise, begins, and itβs a great example of an irresistible first line. Martha shares others sent in by listeners. She also reads from a Michael Cunningham essay about why a first...
Some novels grab you from the get-go. βI am an invisible man.β βCall me Ishmael.β βThe cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting.β Martha and Grant discuss some of their...
Itβs the Moby Dick of etymology: Where do we get the phrase βthe whole nine yardsβ? A pediatrician in North Carolina wonders if it derives from a World War II phrase involving βnine yardsβ of ammunition. Grant and Martha discuss the many theories...

