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Quotes from Island of the World
I couldn’t put enough quotes in my review of Island of the World. So here, with space to stretch and relax, are some I marked. I omitted longer sections and any spoilers. All are from the pen of...
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Word of the Week: Susurration
Last week I read PD James’ autobiography, A Time To Be In Earnest. I came across a word I have no memory of previously meeting: susurration. In my response to this book I wrote: This quote is...
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Words, Words, Words
The request to swap Margaret Ernst’s charming book In a Word put me into a panic. I loved this book and didn’t agree with my former self who had decided to list it on Paperbackswap. But I resolved to...
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Palimpsest
Our beloved Latin teacher gave us so much more than Latin lessons. His knowledge base was so great that art, music, cultural analysis, poetry and word-perfect quotes co-mingled with Latin grammar...
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Holy Toledo!
(Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons) This morning, reading a reference to El Greco’s stormy sky over Toledo, I was taken back ten years. Holy Toledo! somebody exclaimed. My son, in the neighborhood of...
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Gorging on gorgeous phrases
…capacity for conjecture… …this barbwire twist of my career… …clamped to a book… …a barely audible aria of whistling… …bridal train of dust… …a granary of learning… …a dervish of vocabulary… …toxin at...
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15 New Words
In writing I am seduced by the sound of words and by the interaction of their sound and sense. — Barbara Tuchman in Practicing History I read all books—even borrowed ones—with a soft-leaded pencil in...
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Sister Bernadette’s Barking Dog
My husband, home sick from work, was fixing to fascinate me with stories about locks at the hospital. My responses cycled between “Hmmm” “Oh?” “yeah” and “wow.” He shook his head in exasperation and...
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An Exaltation of Larks
In flight, a group of geese is a SKEIN. On water, a GAGGLE of geese. Photo Credit: Dan Harper Initially, I misjudged James Lipton’s quirky and curious book, An Exaltation of Larks, missing the playful...
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Besotted
Besotted: adj. strongly infatuated. I do this odd thing for the sheer joy of it. I collect be-prefix words. All year long, while I read, I stop and copy words to the front page of my journal. When the...
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Reclaiming Conversation
Sherry Turkle’s Reclaiming Conversation was one of the most important books I read in 2015. Her book distilled to three sentences: This is our paradox. When we are apart: hypervigilance. When we are...
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Sporting a tude
Desuetude I’ve written about my fascination with be- prefix words. I keep an annual list of words I come across (in the wild, so to speak) beginning with be-. Meghan Markle wore a bespoke party dress...
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Have and Behave
I made a connection!! When my grandson misread “have” rhyming it with “gave” — the heavens opened, the light shone, the ground trembled. Could there be a bridge between have and behave? Longtime...
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