Plenty of literature is available, and discoverable, online. But there’s nothing like the spontaneity, or stochasticity, of browsing through a library and discovering great books at random. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Literary...
You’re at a social gathering and meet someone you’d like to know better. What do you ask to get a real conversation going? Some people lead with “What do you do?,” while others avoid talking about work entirely. Still others ask, “Where’d you go to...
Stan Carey has an excellent example of book spine poetry up on his site, this one titled “Antarctica.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Book Spine Poetry” We’ve talked on the show before about book spine poetry, you know, when you...
For language lovers, it’s like New Year’s, Fourth of July, and the Super Bowl all rolled into one: The brand-new online edition of the Dictionary of American Regional English. Martha and Grant explain what all the fuss is about. Plus, the debate...
The small of the back—the part of one’s lower back where the spine curves in—is so called because it’s the narrowest point. When Vladimir Nabokov wrote about that in English, he borrowed the sexy French word ensellure. This is part of a complete...
Now that the Encyclopedia Britannica is going to an online-only format, one of many things we’ll miss is the accidental poetry on the books’ spines. In the age of endless digital information, volumes like Accounting-Architecture and Birds-Chess...
