What we’re reading: Crystal Wilkinson, a member of the Affrilachian Poets, is author of The Birds of Opulence, a quiet, lyrical novel about relationships between family members, and between humans and nature, about things said and unsaid with families, and the way friendships change over time. (Bookshop.org|Amazon.com) Joan Didion’s 1968 classic, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, offers keenly observed essays on such topics as Americans’ old-fashioned reverence for John Wayne and deciding to relocate from New York to California. (Bookshop.org|Amazon.com) This is part of a complete episode.
More from this show
The so-called “lifestyle influencer accent” you hear in videos on TikTok and YouTube, where someone speaks with rising tones at the end of sentences and phrases, suggesting that they’re about to say something important, is a form of what linguists...
Meg in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, gets why the state highway department encourages drivers to use their blinkers when changing lanes, but placing a digital sign at the Sagamore Bridge that reads Use Ya Blinkah is, well, a lexical bridge too far. Meg’s...