Featured

Terms of Service

ALL USERS MUST ACCEPT THE TERMS OF SERVICE TO USE THIS SITE

Continued use of this site binds you to agree and comply with all conditions within the Terms of Service. You must read the Terms of Service immediately upon your first visit to this site. If you disagree with the Terms of Service or any portion thereof, you will discontinue using this site at once and will comply with all conditions noted in Section 1.d of the Terms of Service.
If you do not read the Terms of Service, you will nevertheless be deemed to have accepted them and to have agreed to them in every detail. You may be subject to severe penalties for violation of the Terms of Service, so it is in your best interest to read them fully.

Friday Vocabulary

1. ptyalism — [biology] hypersalivation, drooling

If no ulcers or other deformations of the mouth are noted, a complete neurologic workup is the next step in determining the cause of the patient’s ptyalism.

 

2. nystagmatic — of or related to nystagmus, a condition in which the eyes continually jitter or jiggle

He looked at me with lidded and nystagmic eyes, and I couldn’t tell if he was exhausted or nervous or just plain lying to my face.

 

3. afarness — [obsolete] state or sense of being distant (though not necessarily physically)

Every time I spoke with her she was like that, concentrating on some craftwork—macrame or twisting wire into strange designs or cutting paper outlines of trees and flowers—while talking with an ethereal afarness in her voice, as if she were just barely deigning to communicate with this gross material plane while her thoughts and being were in some distant neverland of sprit and beauty and love and all like that.

 

4. cryptologer — [obsolete] cryptographer

But of course after the Treaty of Versailles there was little demand for cryptologers, and Jerome went back to doing his little crossword puzzles and making up silly mathematical riddles for the boys’ magazines.

 

5. armiger — [heraldry] person entitled to bear arms; esquire of a knight

The Northumbrian rolls show that the armigers of the area were a litigious lot, constantly on guard against offenses to their honor or property rights (or at least continually finding cause to believe their rights had been trespassed).

 

6. mooncalf — fool, simpleton

By rights the mooncalf should have been working in the fields every day from morn to night, but he spent hours recounting his experiences at Agincourt, accepting ale from all and sundry who hadn’t heard his tale (and many who had), wenching and dicing, and generally becoming a burden to the whole town.

 

7. abulge — bulging

The trunk was abulge with her entire wardrobe, and Ronson feared the custom agent’s inspection, as he doubted they’d ever get the chest closed again.

 

8. fulgurant — flashing like lightning

Not much to look at she wasn’t and I made to return to my newspaper and then her lips parted and I was smitten by her fulgurant smile.

 

9. mangle — wringer, device with rollers used for drying laundry by wringing

Helen hadn’t bothered to pass the linen napkins through the mangle before putting them away and now they had wrinkles, Mrs. Norman noted.

 

10. anankastic — of compulsive or obsessional-compulsive behavior

A 1977 study found no correlation between anankastic symptoms in a group of schizophrenic and depressive patients and their blood types.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(British fashion)

hacking jacket — 3-button tweed jacket originally designed for casual horse riding

Though her coiffure was spoiled by the shower, she was comfortably warm within the heavy wool of Shelton’s hacking jacket, which he’d graciously wrapped around her shoulders when they were caught in the sudden downpour.

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. syncytium — [biology] multinucleate cell or cell mass

The syncytia are distributed irregularly throughout the trophospongia except at the point of contact with the trophoblast.

 

2. jamb — either vertical element alongside a wall opening such as a door or window frame

We finally found the bullet, driven into the very bottom of the door jamb below the bottom hinge, which is why we’d missed it before, but now the whole picture made even less sense.

 

3. megrim — [archaic] migraine; caprice, whim; (pl.) depression

Though I saw the reason, writing that check to Hadley left me in the megrims, and not even Boris’s fine cigar and brandy could pull me out of my funk.

 

4. muskeg — North American swamp or bog

When first you espy the moss covering the ground you’d best slow down and test the path with your poles if you don’t want to become trapped in the muskeg.

 

5. footboy — boy servant

Because I had saved the dog from drowning in the briars I got my first chance to work inside as a footboy, and to this day I doubt the lord would have cared as much if it had been one of his daughters I’d rescued.

 

6. inspirit — to encourage, to give vigor and strength

The speech by Lance Armstrong had so inspirited me that I got off my stool and returned to the locker room and rejoined my teammates and we went out on the floor and got our asses whipped.

 

7. bauchle — [Scots] old shoe

When he crossed his legs I could see a hole in his bauchle stuffed with moss and he saw that I saw and quickly put his foot down on the floor again.

 

8. cleg — [Scots & British] horsefly, gadfly

The clegs swarmed and stung the cattle ’til the cows turned mad.

 

9. hallucinosis — state of hallucinating

The pink elephants may be a sign of hallucinosis, yes, but perhaps there may actually be roseate pachyderms, eh?

 

10. hereaway — around here, hereabouts

The red leopard was hunting hereaway and frightening the villagers so that they kept behind closed doors and windows ever so soon as it got dark.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(British culinary)

dripping toast — dish made by covering toast with beef drippings and a little salt

At the first whiff of the dripping toast I was transported back to halcyon days of Rupert in the nursery and glorious breakfasts when the stringencies of rationing were to me purest heaven.

 

Book List: 1700

As promised, here is the complete listing of the last 100 books I’ve read. As is my standard practice, I do not count comics and graphic novels (or books of strips like Zippy or The Far Side, for that matter) towards that 100 book total, though I will list those here for your perusal and possible enjoyment. We started off the last century with the math populi book Professor Stewart’s Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities, which was not the worst such book I’ve read, though I did find his explications a tad confusing, assuming facts not in evidence—which may have been aggravated by some noticeable typos in the text, as I mentioned before in that page linked to just above. So that’s Book #1601.

In the first 10 books of the last 100, the standout tome is quite obviously Stanley Lombardo’s translation of the Iliad. (As is usual in these periodic catalogs of my books read, I’ll be trying to highlight the best of the best, without descending into the joyful pit of hating on the bad trash I read … though sometimes the temptation becomes too great.) He may not be the most academically exact translator—his line numbers are not going to line up with the original Greek, for those of y’all playing the Home Game version of Homer—, but for sheer verve and readability nobody beats Lombardo. I am a huge fan of the Odyssey, had read it many many times before stumbling upon the Lombardo translation, but had never managed to get all the way through the Iliad before reading this version. Suddenly the ebb and sway of the decade-long battle and siege became clear, the passions of the Greeks and Trojans became real, and the doom upon almost all of these actors became a very real presence that could not be avoided, only met on the best terms possible. I really cannot recommend Lombardo’s Homer enough. (I still haven’t managed to get through the Aeneid in either his or another’s version, but that may just be me.)

 

# Read Author Title Genre
1601 9/3/25 Ian Stewart Professor Stewart’s Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities Mathematics
1602 9/9/25 Peter Matthiessen Nine-Headed Dragon River Religion & Spirituality
9/9/25 Sophie Crépon & Béatrice Veillon L’Histoire de France en BD Comics
1603 9/13/25 “Richmond” Richmond: Scenes in the Life of a Bow Street Runner Mystery & Thrillers
1604 9/13/25 Philip K. Dick Dr. Futurity SF & Fantasy
1605 9/16/25 Jean de Brunhoff Babar bientôt papa Foreign Language
1606 9/18/25 O. G. Sutton Mathematics in Action: Applications in Aerodynamics, Statistics, Weather Prediction and Other Sciences Mathematics
1607 9/19/25 Emil Petaja The Star Mill [Ace F-414] SF & Fantasy
1608 9/21/25 Homer; Stanley Lombardo, trans. Iliad Poetry
1609 9/22/25 Norman Dodge The Month at Goodspeed’s Book Shop February 1934, Vol. V No. 6 Books
1610 9/24/25 Philip K. Dick Vulcan’s Hammer SF & Fantasy

 

My first experience with this Brazilian wonder, the short stories of Clarice Lispector fascinated me and grabbed my head and my heart and my psyche and … well, it’s pointless to write about her writing. She writes too well to be lessened by my own cheap words of effusive praise. I will say, however, that I was enthralled to see the development of a woman’s spirit and voice from the inside, in a way that I’ve not read before. (Admittedly I’m a poor reader of women authors, both in quantity and in my conclusions. I am likely a hateful, horrible man.) The quality changes drastically towards the end of the works presented here in The Complete Stories of Clarice Lispector, but that may be as much my own failing as anything else. She is truly a rare genius, and—to the extent I can tell (I cannot tell)—these translations seem very good, or at least very persuasive. I am told I might not like her novels, but after reading these works, I must make the essay.

From my “Other” section of shelves comes this unclassifiable work of imaginary natural history originally published in German and translated in 1967 by Leigh Chadwick. The Snouters: Form and Life of the Rhinogrades is presented as written by the noted scientist Harald Stümpke, but of course is the work of Gerolf Steiner, who amused himself and myself with this delightful account of these lifeforms which evolved (and devolved) in every which way possible for mammals to go. The illustrations evoke the best of beauty in scientific drawing, and the crazy lengths to which Stümpke, I mean Steiner, goes to make this tract are well worth the effort to look up many many new words (to me), who passed biology by before I even got to high school. I learned more than I would ever expect to from a text that seems a prototype for the Journal of Irreproducible Results, and, due to the tragedy mentioned in the closing pages, the study of the Rhinogradentia—so named because their eponymous noses become used for every possible use a lifeform could find—is more irreproducible than most.

 

# Read Author Title Genre
1611 9/25/25 Michael Bonner, ed. Uncut Magazine December 2024 Music
1612 9/25/25 Clarice Lispector; Katrina Dodson, trans. The Complete Stories Literature & Fiction
1613 9/26/25 Robert Benchley Benchley Lost and Found Humor
1614 9/28/25 William L. Hamling, ed. Imaginative Tales Vol. 2 No. 2 November 1955 SF & Fantasy
1615 9/28/25 Caroline Graham The Killings at Badger’s Drift Mystery & Thriller
1616 10/1/25 Wilkie Collins Little Novels Literature & Fiction
1617 10/3/25 John Reed Ten Days That Shook the World History
1618 10/4/25 Harald Stümpke (Gerolf Steiner); Leigh Chadwick, trans. The Snouters: Form and Life of the Rhinogrades Other
1619 10/8/25 Maurice Leblanc Arsène Lupin, Gentleman Cambrioleur Foreign Language
1620 10/9/25 Barry Hoffman, ed. Gauntlet: Exploring the Limits of Free Expression Number 9 1995 Politics & Social Sciences

 

I only bought this digest because I could not believe that Ben Bova had actually said the words quoted in a book on deviance I’d read (Deviance and Moral Boundaries: Witchcraft, the Occult, Science Fiction, Deviant Sciences and Scientists by Nachman Ben-Yehuda for those of you playing along at home.). But he did, in an absolutely bonkers editorial arguing, stridently declaiming in fact, that Star Wars and Close Encounters Of The Third Kind are in no way no how anything at all to do with ‘real’ science fiction. I found myself liking the stories in this magazine much more than I expected, however. Perhaps that is merely nostalgia, as I was a subscriber to Analog around the time this June 1978 issue came out, and rereading the SF current at the moment when I was developing a love for the genre may have colored my thoughts about this ‘literature’ now. I always do love me a Randall Garrett parody, however. (The full Bova quote, in case you’re still wondering after wading through my blather, is as follows:

So, although “Star Wars” and “Close Encounters” are delighting millions and making their backers rich, neither film can be regarded seriously as science fiction. In fact, they bear the same relationship to science fiction as the Nazi treatment of Poland bore to the Tend Commandments.

)

Of course, my favorite book from this decade of books was the best Philip K. Dick novel, The Man In The High Castle. (I should point out, however, that I have four books which I will assert are the best Philip K. Dick novel.) I’ve been re-reading all the PKD novels in publication order, sort of, and so I came to 1962 and this his breakthrough work. The story of altered reality where the Axis won World War II still hits hard, and is made much more persuasive by just that restraint and focus on the minor day-to-day life of ordinary people in San Francisco just trying to get along under the Japanese occupation. Dick’s extensive research in the Nazi archives found in Berkeley really shows (and he’ll continue to mine that lode for the next half decade), but during this 2025 re-read I couldn’t help but notice his elision of such Japanese atrocities as Nanking or their own mad and murderous scientist wing, Unit 731; whether this was a conscious choice or simply not part of his research, I couldn’t say. Still, this is a brilliant book, and Dick plays to his strengths, building a story of believable humans in his mosaic of another world which is, of course, this world.

 

# Read Author Title Genre
1621 10/10/25 Henry Kane Peter Gunn Mystery & Thriller
1622 10/15/25 Becky Chambers Becky Chambers SF & Fantasy
1623 10/17/25 Michael Bonner, ed. Uncut Magazine Review of the Year 2024 Music
1624 10/20/25 Ben Bova, ed. Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact June 1978 SF & Fantasy
10/21/25 Mike Baron Badger #40 Comics
1625 10/24/25 Wilkie Collins Hide and Seek Literature & Fiction
1626 10/26/25 H. L. Gold, ed. Galaxy Science Fiction October 1952 SF & Fantasy
1627 10/26/25 Michael Elder The Alien Earth SF & Fantasy
1628 10/28/25 Norman Dodge The Month at Goodspeed’s Book Shop April 1934, Vol. V. No. 8 Books
1629 10/28/25 H. L. Gold, ed. IF Science Fiction September 1959 SF & Fantasy
31* 10/29/25 Philip K. Dick The Man in the High Castle SF & Fantasy
10/30/25 (Philip K. Dick) Blade Runner (The Official Comics Illustrated Version) Comics
1630 10/31/25 Philip K. Dick The Game Players of Titan SF & Fantasy

* I re-read this particular version of the PKD novel because I forgot that I’d already read and entered it in my database. (The last time was way back in January of 2016.) A shame, ’cause I have some other editions I could have read instead…

 

Should I feature another Philip K. Dick novel? Right after touting the High Castle? Of course I should! The Penultimate Truth comes from 1964, and tells the story of the mechanized warfare of the far future in the hellscape that the Earth’s surface has become, full of radioactivity and battling robots who have killed off every lifeform on the surface. On the rare chance that you don’t know the twist here, I’ll say no more. In this Bluejay Books edition, Thomas Disch provides a somewhat negative afterword which, I found, palliated to some extent this excellent novel. To my mind, PKD played to his strengths in ignoring most of Dicsh’s pearl-clutching concerns, and does what he does best: showing us the reality beneath, above, and beyond the surface. If he cannot show the reality of the plots of the high & mighty, who among us can comprehend their inhuman and callous machinations and their insensate world-unmaking?

The nostalgia mentioned in the 2nd set of ten books continues apace with my next read, and certainly the appearance of so much science fiction in my spotlighted books is unusual, compared to previous centuries of my reading. This one, Tactics Of Mistake, is definitely a blast from my own past as a teenaged reader. Part of Gordon R. Dickson’s fabled Dorsai series, these vignettes show the nascent military leader who will found the ‘pumped up’ SF mercenaries which became one of the early progenitors of today’s military science fiction. The battles of the brash young Cletus Grahame—really more set pieces designed to show off the bold new tactics of the hyper-trained (and a little lonely … ah!) tactician—are a fun read, were even more fun for a young teen with ideas of the glory of battle and like that. Of course, the premise is ridiculous, and it has always been easy to win battles when you write the script, but still and all this book exceeded my aged expectations of my youthful favorites, which do not always hold up on second or later meeting.

 

# Read Author Title Genre
1631 10/31/25 Robert Howard Swords Of Shahrazar SF & Fantasy
1632 11/1/25 Norman Dodge The Month at Goodspeed’s Book Shop May 1934, Vol. V. No. 9 Books
1633 11/1/25 H. L. Gold, ed. Galaxy Science Fiction Vol. 5 No. 2 November 1952 SF & Fantasy
1634 11/2/25 Norman Dodge The Month at Goodspeed’s Book Shop June 1934, Vol. V. No. 10 Books
1635 11/4/25 Philip K. Dick The Penultimate Truth SF & Fantasy
1636 11/8/25 Gordon R. Dickson Tactics of Mistake SF & Fantasy
1637 11/11/25 Ellis Peters The Devil’s Novice Mystery & Thrillers
11/12/25 Bill Griffith From A to Zippy: Getting There is All the Fun Comics
11/13/25 Goscinny & Uderzo Astérix et le chaudron Comics
1638 11/13/25 Francis A. Soper, ed. If You Smoke, What Have You? – Selections From Smoke Signals Drugs
1639 11/14/25 Jonas Ward Buchanan Calls The Shots Western
1640 11/14/25 Michael Bonner, ed. Uncut Magazine January 2025 Music

 

From famine to feast we go in this next set of ten books. I was complaining that there weren’t many choices to highlight through the first 40 books in my last set of 100 read, and now in the last tranche of ten before the midpoint I have a plethora of outstanding books, stellar works I’d put front and center if only I had world enough and time. Most of the kids’ books fall into this category, with the Virginia Lee Burton being wistful nostalgia for a time long past and now even longer paster. Ah, me! The Thornton Burgess is, of course, a little preachy, but the tales have a real heart beneath their silly moralizing, and they are also interesting and fun. But I’m determined to give you only two from these ten, so here they are:

Staggeringly good. Early English: A Study of Old and Middle English by John W. Clark is one of those rarest of beasts: a well-written overview of a difficult subject that leaves the reader both better informed and equipped to learn more. Clark also manages to make the descent from Old to Middle English much clearer than I’ve ever grokked before, with all the historical and other factors laid out for our inspection—those which we can be sure of, in any event. This is a tight précis by one who obviously knows his subject backwards and forwards and yet chooses to explain it in a straightforward but not condescending manner. I found some difficulty with both the pronunciation guide and the applied sections under OE and ME, but I have a hard time with IPA generally. Highly recommended.

I said some harsh words about the afterword Disch wrote for that PKD novel above, but I cannot stay mad, not after reading this stunning antiwar novel which manages to subvert about three genres at once, all while playing on strange Dr. Moreau meets Flowers For Algernon vibes. Camp Concentration by Thomas Disch is deservedly acclaimed, science fiction that pulls you in before you’re reading about the future or now or you don’t even know anymore. And though I patted myself on recognizing the first ‘reveal’ of the book long before the narrator, I wasn’t prepared for … well, best if you discover that for yourself. Wow. This is an amazing and revelatory book, though I wonder sometimes about its harsh verdict upon ‘genius’; Harrison Bergeron would like a word.

 

# Read Author Title Genre
1641 11/15/25 Frederik Pohl, ed. IF Science Fiction Vol. 13 No. 6 January 1964 SF & Fantasy
1642 11/16/25 John W. Clark Early English: A Study of Old and Middle English Language & Linguistics
1643 11/17/25 Thornton W. Burgess Mother West Wind “Why” Stories Children’s
1644 11/17/25 Virginia Lee Burton The Little House Children’s
1645 11/17/25 Virginia Lee Burton Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel Children’s
1646 11/17/25 Jean de Brunhoff / Florence Hayes The Story of Babar / Johanna Spyri’s Heidi Children’s
1647 11/18/25 Jean de Brunhoff / Beatrix Potter The Travels of Babar / The Tale of Peter Rabbit Children’s
1648 11/18/25 Jean de Brunhoff / Beatrix Potter Babar and Zephir / The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin Children’s
1649 11/18/25 Jean de Brunhoff / Beatrix Potter Babar and His Children / The Tale of Benjamin Bunny Children’s
1650 11/19/25 Thomas M. Disch Camp Concentration SF & Fantasy

 

I was reading a lot of children’s books during this stretch, trying to pump up my numbers like a CFO just before earnings. And this set of ten books was much less great than the ten that preceded it. (Captain Underpants didn’t seem to hold up very well, heh-heh. I guess the elastic had gotten old and all stretched out.) But there were some real winners, though likely you’ve read them time and time again heretofore. One which was new to me was Marguerite Henry’s Misty of Chincoteague, one of the classics about horses which it seems that women of a certain age simply had to read as young girls, just as young boys had to decide whether they were DC or Marvel. But I’d never read it before, and was so happy I got the chance now. I finished reading it with happy tears simply streaming down my face. It’s a blessedly beautiful story, wish fulfillment at its finest, and suddenly I wanted to be a ‘horse boy’.

I do not feel compelled to re-read Winnie-the-Pooh in the same way I insist to myself that I’m gonna read some version of Alice In Wonderland (or Through The Looking Glass, or both) every hundred books or so. (Checking my data shows that I’m on a Lewis Carroll pace of closer to once every 200 books.) But every time I read the two classic books by A. A. Milne about the not-very-bright stuffed bear, I forget my lifelong animus towards stuffed Teddy Bears and feel heartened by just life the way it is. Winnie-the-Pooh is still just one of the most remarkable children’s books of all time. Every page has phrase and constructions to delight, the Shepard illustrations are a wonder, and there is a surfeit (only you can’t ever have too much, you know) of compassion and clear thinking.

 

# Read Author Title Genre
1651 11/19/25 Dav Pilkey Ricky Ricotta’s Mighty Robot Vs. the Mutant Mosquitoes from Mercury Children’s
1652 11/20/25 George Sims The End of the Web Mystery & Thriller
1653 11/20/25 Dav Pilkey The Adventures of Captain Underpants Children’s
1654 11/20/25 Dav Pilkey Captain Underpants and the Attack of the Talking Toilets Children’s
1655 11/21/25 Dav Pilkey Captain Underpants and the Invasion of the Incredibly Naughty Cafeteria Ladies from Outer Space (and the Subsequent Assault of the Equally Evil Lunchroom Zombie Nerds) Children’s
1656 11/21/25 Marguerite Henry Misty of Chincoteague Children’s
1657 11/22/25 Samuel R. Delany / Keith Woodcott Captives Of The Flame / The Psionic Menace [Ace Double F-199] SF & Fantasy
1658 11/22/25 Dav Pilkey Captain Underpants and the Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants Children’s
1659 11/23/25 A. A Milne Winnie-the-Pooh Children’s
1660 11/23/25 Dav Pilkey Captain Underpants And The Wrath Of The Wicked Wedgie Women Children’s

 

The next book decade continued the focus on children’s books, for the same unworthy reason of pumping up the numbers. But there were still treasures to be found; I’d never read any of the Frog and Toad books before, only knowing them through memes. (What a world.) And if you don’t know the art of Joel Nakamura, his little book of devils going to sleep, Siesta, is a fine introduction. I like as well his robots and Godzilla paintings, but his devils and other nasties are always an awesome delight.

I have not highlighted Beatrix Potter since my listing of Books #401–#500, so it’s worthwhile mentioning once more how gratifying spending time with her stories and illustrations can be. This time I killed two (very small) birds with one (quite precious) stone, both getting my total books read count up and also working on my comprehension of the French language—which is abysmal. A children’s book of less than 60 pages with hardly two sentences to every other page is just about my speed. But Potter’s illustrations are still wistfully wonderful, and L’Histoire de Toto le Minet (Tom Kitten for y’all Potter purists) is a very compelling story of troublesome kittens … but then again, what did their mother expect?

 

# Read Author Title Genre
1661 11/23/25 Dav Pilkey The Captain Underpants Extra-Crunchy Book o’ Fun Children’s
1662 11/24/25 Dav Pilkey The All New Captain Underpants Extra-Crunchy Book o’ Fun 2 Children’s
1663 11/24/25 Joel Nakamura Siesta Children’s
1664 11/24/25 Barbara Brenner Walt Disney’s Three Little Pigs Children’s
1665 11/24/25 Arnold Lobel The Frog and Toad Treasury [Frog and Toad Are Friends / Frog and Toad Together / Frog and Toad All Year] Children’s
1666 11/24/25 V.M. Hillyer A Child’s History of the World Children’s
1667 11/25/25 H. L. Gold, ed. Galaxy Science Fiction Vol. 5 No. 3 December 1952 SF & Fantasy
1668 11/26/25 Beatrix Potter L’Histoire de Toto le Minet Foreign Language
1669 11/26/25 Andrew Quiller [Kenneth Bulmer] The Gladiator: The Land of Mist Fiction
1670 11/27/25 William P. Gottlieb The Golden Age of Jazz Music

 

In addition to reading the kids’ books to pump up my numbers, I read any number of comics for the same purpose in the last set of 100 books. Now, it is true that I don’t count comics towards the ‘official’ 100 Book Count; but I do keep track of the total books read—of all types—versus the total number of books bought or otherwise acquired. (TBH, I just read a half dozen Amar Chitra Katha comics in my collection for just this reason, primarily motivated by the fact that I just bought over 25 books at a local estate sale. The problem continues.) And thus it was that I read between Books #1571 and #1572 two numbers of Rip Off Comix. And boy howdy was issue #1 a great ball-o’-fire! The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers and of course Wonder Wart-Hog stories were standouts, of course, but I also just loved loved loved (as I almost always do) the Griffith Observatory pieces, from the creator of our favorite pinhead. Issue #7 hadn’t quite the same charm on every page, and I prefer Dopin’ Dan to Dealer McDope, but the Dick Whittington Fat Freddy’s Cat tale was a surefire winner. Good stuff!

Having been burned by Martin, I approached Kingsley Amis’s mystery tale with some trepidation. I’d only read his poetry heretofore—which is quite good—but found myself absolutely entranced by The Riverside Villa Murders. The novel is a startlingly good recreation of a ‘30s British mystery, with weirdly ‘pansified’ elements which turn out to be absolutely necessary to the story. The denouement was mostly satisfactory (a rarity in mysteries written by litterateurs), and though I knew who I hadn’t worked out how, and in this case that’s not the point, and the words between father and son at the close are some of the best stuff of the sort since perhaps Atticus Finch.

 

# Read Author Title Genre
1671 11/27/25 Robert Aitken Zen Master Raven: Sayings and Doings of a Wise Bird Religion & Spirituality
11/27/25 Gilbert Shelton, Frank Stack, Ted Richards, Dave Sheridan, Bill Griffith, & Justin Green Rip Off Comix #1 Comics
11/27/25 R. Diggs, Dave Sheridan, Joel Beck, Bill Griffith, Gilbert Shelton, & Frank Stack Rip Off Comix #7 Comics
1672 11/28/25 Kingsley Amis The Riverside Villas Murder Mystery & Thrillers
1673 11/28/25 H. L. Gold, ed. Galaxy Science Fiction Vol. 5 No. 4 January 1953 SF & Fantasy
1674 11/30/25 Charlotte MacLeod The Odd Job Mystery & Thrillers
1675 11/30/25 D. M. Black, Peter Redgrove, & D. M. Thomas Penguin Modern Poets 11: Black Redgrove Thomas Poetry
1676 11/30/25 Michael Bonner, ed. Uncut Magazine February 2025 Music
11/30/25 Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr., ed. Seduction of the Innocent #3 Comics
11/30/25 Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr., ed. Seduction of the Innocent #2 Comics
11/30/25 Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr., ed. Seduction of the Innocent #1 Comics
1677 12/1/25 William R. Hunt Dictionary of Rogues True Crime
1678 12/2/25 Woody Allen Without Feathers Humor
1679 12/4/25 Jack London Stories of Hawaii Fiction
1680 12/4/25 Peter Alding Ransom Town Mystery & Thrillers

 

Another slice of ten books in which a plethora of great books makes choosing just two to focus on a very difficult choice. I mean, can I really pass up Martian Time-Slip? How can I skip over that absolute banger by Philip K. Dick about madness and isolation and society and its downsides? But I can, because I must instead highlight a couple of perhaps lesser known (at least to me) works which I think very worthy of mention. And first up is Eric Brighteyes, a novelization recreation of a Norse (or Icelandic) saga which truly lives up to its ideal. That the author is H. Rider Haggard does not hurt at all, and he shows here that he can write action in a completely different style than his classic King Solomon’s Mines. The book perhaps dragged a bit in the middle, but then, so do some sagas. But the inevitable ending is stellar, as is the entire working out of one of the grandest conceits I’ve come across in literature. Of course, Haggard’s tale cannot compare to Njal’s Saga—but that’s one of the Top Ten greatest works of all time. But his ability to translate the millennium-old tales of Iceland into a modern (late 19th C.) novel is stunning, as is his realization of this reality-based fantasy. Top marks!

Not sure what I expected (likely just another throwaway mystery read to occupy some time; value received for the $1 spent at the local library book sale), and I confess I started this one two or three times before finally getting into it, but I discovered a powerful book reminding me of The Long Firm by Arnott. Without giving anything away, I found its unfolding of the mystery as interesting as the unraveling itself. Death In The Garden by Elizabeth Ironside (pen name for Catherine Manning) is staggering in its brilliance, both for its recreation of another ancien regime now gone as well as for the depiction of multiple characters through a very wide variety of lenses. Perhaps you’ll guess the mystery, and the other one, as I did, but still … Ironside’s novel becomes, in the end, another type of book altogether, a pensive reflection on the nature of time and choice and human life and the passions and suppressions that are lived with—or not.

 

# Read Author Title Genre
1681 12/6/25 H. Rider Haggard Eric Brighteyes SF & Fantasy
1682 12/8/25 H. L. Gold, ed. Galaxy Science Fiction Vol. 5 No. 5 February 1953 SF & Fantasy
1683 12/10/25 Philip K. Dick Martian Time-Slip SF & Fantasy
1684 12/11/25 Sarah Caudwell The Shortest Way to Hades Mystery & Thrillers
1685 12/11/25 Leslie Charteris Señor Saint Mystery & Thrillers
1686 12/13/25 L. Frank Baum The Magical Monarch of Mo Children’s
1687 12/13/25 Elizabeth Ironside Death in the Garden Mystery & Thrillers
1688 12/20/25 P. G. Wodehouse The Luck of the Bodkins Fiction
1689 12/22/25 Louis Trimble The Wandering Variables SF & Fantasy
1690 12/27/25 J. K. Rowling Leslie Charteris Mystery & Thrillers

 

Finally got a chance to read Lookout Cartridge by Joseph McElroy and … hrm, afraid I may have to damn this one with faint praise. On the one hand, the amazingly sustained stream-of-consciousness writing is pretty much a tour de force, truly masterful, especially in its revelation of the novel’s plot in the haphazard ping-ponging way that actual thought takes. On the other hand … the sustained voice is a strangely distant one, which ended up making me very very sleepy, as if hypnotized rather than transfixed by the action, and the difficulties of accessing the plot seemed a bit trop, and the dénouement a bit forced—if such can be said about a revelation that spans pretty much the last hundred pages, or ~20% of the book. It’s easy to see why comparisons are made between McElroy and Pynchon (and Gaddis, but I still haven’t caught up with that author yet), but the hooks here—Tell you what: Let’s just assume I’m a poor reader and missed overwhelmingly the entire point of the novel. YMMV

I’ve already told you about The Simulacra in my preliminary announcement of 1700 books read, so instead here I’ll talk about A Case Of Need, an early work by Michael Crichton, who published this his 3rd novel in 1968 under the pen name Jeffery Hudson. Perhaps to tout Crichton after my side eye at McElroy shows my pedestrian tastes (it does), but I also think there’s a place for writing parallel to that art brought to the fore in Baudelaire’s The Painter of Ordinary Life. The ability to write page-turning fiction that doesn’t make you feel guilty after you finish is a rare one which should be celebrated. This Crichton novel kept me turning the pages and guessing—though admittedly as soon as he left the hospital the plausibility dropped drastically. The out-of-date elements (abortion crime, no informed consent, etc.) make this one more interesting, not less—although I am told this one hits very different for a woman reader. This taut, well-planned thriller uses a trope that is always a favorite of mine: the non-detective detective. Crichton does well here what he does best, in a complex drama of strong personalities and stronger emotions (no sex scenes, which is for the best, as that’s what Crichton does worst).

 

# Read Author Title Genre
1691 12/27/25 Joseph McElroy Lookout Cartridge Fiction
1692 12/28/25 Michael Bonner, ed. Uncut Magazine March 2025 Music
1693 12/29/25 Marcel Allain & Pierre Souvestre The Silent Executioner Mystery & Thrillers
12/30/25 Jacques Martin Alix, Tome 2 : Le Prince du Nil Comics
1694 12/31/25 Erle Stanley Gardner The Case Of The Baited Hook Mystery & Thrillers
1695 1/2/26 Margaret Yorke The Hand of Death Mystery & Thrillers
1696 1/3/26 Erle Stanley Gardner The Case Of The Terrified Typist Mystery & Thrillers
1697 1/4/26 Jean de La Fontaine Fables: Tome 1 Foreign Language
1698 1/5/26 Michael Crichton [as Jeffery Hudson] A Case of Need Mystery & Thrillers
1699 1/8/26 Alan Brownjohn, Michael Hamburger, & Charles Tomlinson Penguin Modern Poets 14; Brownjohn Hamburger Tomlinson Poetry
1700 1/9/26 Philip K. Dick The Simulacra (Ace F-301) SF & Fantasy

 

And thus we come to the end of the book list for Books #1601–1700, a mere ten days after I finished the last of the century. (I should track how long it takes me to fulfill my promises, though that might be a bleaker project than charting my book inflow and outgo.) I had promised myself that I would read more slowly … but that was before going to an amazing estate sale this weekend where I picked up almost 50 books! Ah, me—I’ll have to read a bunch of short works to maintain parity this month. So, I may see you again in these pages more quickly than I’d planned. Until then … good reading!

 
 
 

The lists of previously read books may be found by following the links:

1700 Books

In a fuzzy sort of way (as in ‘logic’ and ‘Bear’, though not as in ‘creatures from Alpha Centauri (those were furry, which opens a whole ‘nother can of worms)), I’ve been rereading all the Philip K. Dick novels in sorta the order of publication, and so at last came to 1964, and so to The Simulacra. And thus it was that I just yesterday finished what turns out to be a quite prescient novel about lies told by the elites to harried normies who can see no way out from an increasingly untenable present and future. But there I go again, projecting.

The Simulacra (and please note the plural) highlights the divide between the Geheimnisträger and the Befehlsträger—the ‘keepers of secrets’ and the ‘followers of orders’—,which occurs in many other PKD stories and novels, notably in The Penultimate Truth, but this scission is most explicit here. The term Geheimnisträger derives from Dick’s study of Nazi Germany (another recurring theme that recurs with a vengeance in this novel), and particularly from Adolf Eichmann, one of the ‘bearers of the secret’ with knowledge of the Final Solution. Hannah Arendt’s study of Eichmann’s trial in Israel was first published in 1963, just the year before The Simulacra was released by Ace Books. Of course, the ‘secret’ of this far-distant USEA (United States of Europe and America) is not so savage and brutal as the Holocaust, but … well, you should just read the book. Somehow it reads different in these Endtimes of American ‘democracy’ than it did the last time I read it a few decades back. Somehow Philip K. Dick manages to become more prescient with the passing years, though in our own case we seem to live more and more in an open secret, though no ‘Open Conspiracy’ seems able to rise. Ah, me.

I only gas on about The Simulacra (I usually keep my pedestrian thoughts about books to myself; I haven’t an insightful bone in my body) because it turns out to be my 1700th Book in my silly little book tracking project which I’ve been doing for just over a decade now. For those of y’all who haven’t read my blather on this subject, just know that 12-and-a-1/2 years ago my wife gave me a barcode scanner and a database for keeping records of the far too many books I have (and seem to keep acquiring). A coupla years later I started noting when I finished a book, and now I have apparently read seventeen hundred books since starting this nonsense away back in July of 2015. I’ll be posting the full list of this last hundred books read shortly, I hope.

My reading pace slowed somewhat during this last century of books, but the previous rate (for Books #s 1501–1600) was a ridiculous 1 book per 0.96 days. For this most recent tranche of one hundred tomes, I managed a respectable pace of 1.28 days per book, with an average page count of just under 195 pages per book, which works out to be ~152 pages per day—which is actually a significant decline from the previous pace of 193 pp/day. (I blame the holidays.)

I also re-read a previously read book (The Man In The High Castle, again part of my re-reading Philip K. Dick ‘project’, and a shame, ’cause I have other copies I could have pulled off the shelf instead), as well as some 11 comic books and that ilk. As previous readers of this sometimes blog know (perhaps there is one?), I do not count comics or graphic novels as part of the ‘official’ book count, though I do track them. More will be revealed in the soon-to-come full list of all the books read in this last set of one hundred books (112 if you count the re-read PKD and the comics).

Part of the reason for the ludicrous pace of reading is to try to keep my ‘Books Read’ figure greater than my ‘Books Bought’ figure, though the sad truth is that during this past set of 100 books I only managed to have a net reduction in my Books Unread total of just 14 books. Which means, yes, that I added some 86 books to my collection during this past four months. Yikes. (Also, I do count comics, graphic novels, BD, etc. in this total, on both sides of the ledger, but we’ve already gotten too deep into the mathematical weeds of what you must by now surely agree is an aptly named ‘silly’ book tracking project.)

The first book of this past century was Professor Stewart’s Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities by Ian Stewart, which I finished on September 3rd of last year, which was … well, I remember my mother’s dictum. It was okay I guess, though some typos made the explications difficult to follow.

Once again Science Fiction dominated the last 100 books read, at nearly a quarter of the total, mostly due to the PKD novel-re-reading ‘project’. (His name appears in 10 of the works read in this last set, 11 if you count the re-re-reading of The Man In The High Castle, but 4 of those are digests in which Dick’s short stories were originally published.) Mysteries—which are the usual winners in the genre competition—came in third at 17 books read, beat out by the 22 Children’s books I read in an attempt to maintain parity with the books coming into my shelves. (Well, not actually onto the shelves, which are now pretty much entirely full, and ohmigosh do I need help.) I only read 7 books of straight-up Fiction, though the average page count for those was much higher than the genre works, due to reading Lispector, Joseph McElroy, and Wilkie Collins.

The pace was a quite alacritous 128 days to read these 100 books, fully a third greater than the last century of books. If we include the comics, the pace was a little over 1.14 days per book read. Of course we don’t, so … moving on.

   1 Book per 1.28 Days   

See you soon with Book List(s), j’espère!

Friday Vocabulary

1. davit — [nautical] small crane used on a boat, esp. in pairs for lowering and raising a lifeboat or launch

Sudden panic overcame me as I came out of the gangway and saw the lines blowing free in the gale and the davits emptied of the only seaworthy lifeboat on the ship.

 

2. grimdark — bleak, dark, violent, dystopian genre fiction, esp. fantasy

Even in her latest grimdark novel, Jolene cannot resist throwing in a taste of her life-affirming crystal-waving ‘We Are All One’ quasi-Buddhist quasi-Taoist beliefs she apparently acquired from her hippie mother.

 

3. diener (also deaner) — orderly in morgue charged with cleaning and moving corpses

I noticed we were working without a diener tonight, and when I asked him where Sparks (our usual assistant) was, Hadley grunted that the fewer eyes the better on this particular case.

 

4. pessary — vaginal suppository; prothesis inserted in vagina for therapeutic purposes

The procedure is even enjoined by the original version of the Hippocratic Oath, where doctors swear never to insert a pessary to induce abortion.

 

5. mackerel (often plural) — suggestive of fish scales

It was a beautiful mackerel sky, though the rich pink color of the sunset made me think more of salmon.

 

6. blowzy (also blowsy) — ruddy, rude, and dirty

She was a blowzy old wench who had no place in this refined coffee house, but she insisted upon a doctor, at once, so—to avoid further derangement to the convivial company—I agreed to accompany her to see what promised to be a nonpaying patient.

 

7. sassenach (often capitalized) — [Scots] English person

Duncan dismissed Hardy as just another sassenach fool come to see the credulous men in kilts who still believed in monsters and fairies.

 

8. hippopotamoid — animal similar to a hippopotamus; animal in the family of Hippopotamidae

Buried in the mud we thought we had rousted a hippopotamoid, but it turned out to be a buried clothes chest.

 

9. wrappers — outer cover of paper-covered book

Some foxing may be seen on the inside of the wrappers, but the exterior is unmarked and the cover illustration is still bright in the original colors.

 

10. fanlight — [architecture] small semicircular window over a door or larger window, often decorated so as to resemble a fan

The metal framework of what had once been a gorgeous Victorian fanlight could be seen in the debris, all that remained to suggest what a wonderful house this pile of rubble had once been.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(UK informal)

panda car — police car, from original black-and-white coloring

At half past nine the first panda car arrived on the scene and less than three minutes later the patrolman called for an ambulance and a team from CID.

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. apanthropy — disdain for human companionship, predilection for solitude

Among the many powerful feelings which the holidays always inspires in me, an overwhelming sense of apanthropy is perhaps the strongest and most sustained.

 

2. flannelette — napped cotton made to resemble flannel

Marcie wore a fleecy flannelette nightgown striped in blue and yellow, and her hair was already perfect, even at this ungodly hour.

 

3. duumvirate — two persons having joint power over something; rule by two people

Babbage succumbed to either the poison or the poor doctoring and thus the ruling committee became a de facto duumvirate.

 

4. rhumb — line of navigation crossing successive meridians at a constant angle

Obviously, therefore, the distance travelled following the rhumbs will always be greater (though often not much greater) than a Great Circle route, unless the rhumb is identical with a line of latitude.

 

5. reach-me-down (often plural) — [British slang] readymade clothes

They think themselves so smart in their ill-fitting reach-me-downs, so new the pleats can cause an injury.

 

6. mereology — study or philosophy of relationships between parts and wholes

But no mereology could explain the violently discordant family dynamic in which I’d become ensconced this weekend, no logician could detail just which relative A had engendered the murderous actions of relative B, and no sage could tell me just what in the hell I should do now.

 

7. flagroot (also flag root) — root of acorus calamus (of the lily family), with supposed healing and hallucinogenic effects, banned in the U.S. for use in food due to its toxicity

Well into the 1950s the Shakers sold candied flagroot as part of their ultimately futile effort to raise income for the ever-decreasing community.

 

8. blucher — leather half-boot, strong high shoe

One more step and I was up to my bluchers in the rank freezing water of one of the treacherous bogs in the moors.

 

9. hare — to move with great quickness

In the distance we could see young Carter inexplicably haring about between the haystacks which dotted the field, as if he were searching for the proverbial needle under an extreme time limit.

 

10. salmi — stew or ragout, usu. with game meat

Mrs. Churchward took our brace of partridges and made a wonderful salmi for that night’s supper, garnished with some orange slices that she found heaven knows where.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(derogatory UK slang)

left-footed — Catholic, esp. an Irish Catholic, from supposed use of poor Irishmen of single-sided spades for digging

“What’s the matter, doctor? You expected some superstitious nonsense from a silly old left-footed Irish farmer? Maybe thought I’d be waving magic charms over the cows?”

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. isarithm — contour lines

The experienced map reader will imagine the elevation denoted by the isarithms, and will visualize the steep escarpments or gradually descending plains depicted by the chart.

 

2. selsyn — synchro, coordination of physical device to a monitor or control device by use of electric current

Transfer of position data through the use of selsyns dates back to early last century, when these nascent electrical systems were used to deliver analog information on gate positions for the Panama Canal.

 

3. duologue (also duolog) — dialogue between two persons

“Baby, It’s Cold Outside” purports to be a duologue between two prospective romantic partners who first appear as if in opposition but change gradually to a perspective of warm fulfillment of mutual desires.

 

4. rumbustious — [British] roisterous, exuberantly unruly, troublesome

Though now in their sixth decades, the brothers became once more rumbustious children when watching football together, cheering the ‘Archies’ again in louder and louder voices while jumping about with increasingly extravagant gestures.

 

5. lazarine — back from the dead; of or related to a specific type of ulcerating leprosy

Through the power of intransigent lawyers and lobbyists, backed by a hidden coterie of strangely obsessed billionaires, the thrice defeated yet lazarine state proposition will once again be on the ballot in November.

 

6. genericide — [law] loss of trademark rights due to common usage of protected terms etc.

The Dryrobe company fought off genericide claims by the competition, despite convincing evidence of common household use of the name.

 

7. protopathic — of or related to sensation without determining location

Suddenly he was gripped by a vague yet overweening fear, a distrait protopathic sense warning him against … ‘something’ for which he could find no name no reason, but which feeling urgently told him he must quit the seemingly abandoned house immediately.

 

8. craquelure — tiny network of cracks on surface of old varnish or paint

The comfortable settee showed a weary craquelure along its leather arms where Benson had been used to prop up his head and feet.

 

9. escritoire — desk with drop-down surface for writing upon

Hampton sat at the escritoire and pulled out from a drawer some light blue paper upon which to compose his missive of love.

 

10. oofy — [British] loaded with money, rich, wealthy

Salvatore had a pretty oofy father-in-law, but he feared putting a touch upon the old man because of … well, I’m not sure exactly why, but he just did.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(myth & witchery)

fairy doctor — ‘cunning’ man or woman supposed to have healing power over mystical ailments affecting people and beasts

Finally someone (I think it was Tomas) thought of calling that weird hermit Harold, the fairy doctor, who, once they found him in the Sinking Wood, came and spread a waxy gel all over the body of the afflicted calf, which almost immediately started breathing easier, and was able to stand and walk and take nourishment within the hour.

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. flytime (also fly-time and fly time) — season when flies are prevalent and pestering

During flytime, some ranchers even go so far as to put their cows out to pasture only after sunset, finding that cattle during the day merely tramp the grass and swat flies instead of feeding.

 

2. snook — protandric hermaphrodite fish of the Caribbean

We left Roger drowning his sorrows at the bar and took out the boat to fish for snook.

 

3. Jackson ball (also jackson-ball) — [obsolete] hard penny candy, bull’s eye

After working all day we had 14¢ between us, so we decided to spend it all on Jackson balls Monday as soon as the candy store opened.

 

4. rejectamenta — thrown-away things, trash, refuse

Among the other rejectamenta left behind to be hauled to the dump in that musty, collapsing garage were five boxes of various issues of First Comics, but all of the Grimjacks were ruined.

 

5. tizzwozz (also tizz-wozz, tiswas, tizwas) — [slang] nervous state of excitement

Janet had not been clubbing since Trainspotting came out, and she was all of a tizzwozz.

 

6. lobar — of or related to a lobe

From a very young age Derrick had been interested in the lobar development of women’s mammary glands.

 

7. douceur — bribe, financial sweetener

Though he claimed he was not influenced by this douceur in the eventual sale of the estate, the courts found him guilty of malfeasance and ordered the repayment of all of the ‘discounted’ funds.

 

8. holmgang — [Norse, Icelandic] duel, sometimes to the death

The fight between Gunlaug and Rafn was the last holmgang fought on the island of Öxárá.

 

9. niddering — cowardly, nefast

But it would have been a niddering deed to continue battle once his opponent’s sword shattered.

 

10. haplography — inadvertent omission of repeated letter or letter group in writing; omission of word or phrase when copying document consisting of similar phrases or words

Analysis of the Recognition Duet between Helena and Menelaus centers around the issue of haplography shown by comparing the extant manuscripts and papyrus fragments, but scholars are divided as to just which words were lost where.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(fashion)

stadium boot — over-the-ankle fleece-lined boot for wear whilst sitting out in cold weather for a long time

I did managed to pull him out of the freezing pond water with a luckily handy branch, but my new stadium boots were ruined.

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. devilfish — octopus; piranha; devil ray; giant squid; other marine animals with (supposedly) malevolent mien

And though that devilfish had his suckers wound around the old man’s arm, the aged diver did not panic, but calmly extracted the octopus from his hiding spot.

 

2. firedog — andiron

Smoke continued to leak into the room until Renee finally shoved back the firedogs with the pointed end of her golf umbrella.

 

3. wallop — [slang] beer

“After that fracas,” Pete said, wiping his forehead, “I need a pint of wallop before I tell you two gents the whole tale.”

 

4. pseudocide (also pseuicide) — faked death

But when they seemed ready to indict Eleanor for murder, Lance arose from the grave—or rather returned from Belize where he’d been hiding—to reveal that the whole stunt with the hang glider and the exploding banana boat had been merely an elaborate psuedocide he’d concocted to escape the mounting pressure due to his malefactions at the bank, and though the authorities were never convinced by his protestations that his wife was not involved, she was never charged.

 

5. bedizenment — gaudy manner of dress; vulgar decoration

The purple, gold, and green bedizenments of plastic top hats and kittens and playing cards and buxom silhouettes strewn around the walls of the dark chamber did not increase our confidence in this psychic’s ability.

 

6. polled — without horns

The Polled Angus was one of only two of the many hornless cattle breeds which had any real success on American ranches.

 

7. iniquitous — nefarious; flagrantly unfair

As much as these political leaders may inveigh against these iniquitous decisions, so far we have seen no attempts to stop, correct, or even investigate these patently immoral acts.

 

8. bed-sitter (also bedsit, bedsitter)— small single room apartment with cooking facilities in the same room

Agnes rented bed-sitters by the month, week, and day, on a sliding scale as she said, though some of her tenants opined that the scale slid based on the desperation of the renter.

 

9. kaddish (often capitalized) — prayer sequence in the Jewish faith; prayers for the dead

Eli tried to explain the rules about who should say kaddish and when, but, seeing my perplexity, he said, “The important thing, you see, is that our parents, our ancestors, they must be remembered and honored.”

 

10. anyhow — carelessly; in no particular manner, in any fashion whatsoever

“Just put those boxes anyhow over against that wall, and I’ll sort through them later.”

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(abbreviation)

GFC — Global Financial Crisis, worldwide economic suffering which started at the end of 2007 and beginning of 2008

We were going gangbusters and had just expanded to five more stores when the GFC wiped out not only our expansion but also our capital and credit and … well, everything.

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. revers — lapel or other garment part turned back to reveal the lining

The colonel wore a half-length silk robe in black with revers in a startling crimson.

 

2. cornice — [architecture] horizontal element surrounding the top of a building; crown molding of walls within a room; overhanging snow in alpine mountains

Jeremy thought he could just make out a small tube or shaft—a rifle barrel? an antenna?—peeking out above the cornice of the shabby hotel across the street from the senator’s election party.

 

3. goloptious — excellent, wonderful; delicious

Steve decided that he’d waited long enough after dinner to enjoy yet another piece of that goloptious pumpkin pie.

 

4. velarium — ancient awning over Roman amphitheaters

Here in the cheap seats of course there was no velarium to dampen the sun’s harsh rays, so the early events were often difficult to see in the blinding light of Apollo.

 

5. carrack — large three- or four-masted merchant ship of European nations from 14th Century and later

The captain had gambled and lost, and the topsail still set now took the mast with it as the wind tore and raged, and now the carrack was lost, no hope of reaching the open water opposite the treacherous rocks to port which seemed evilly to glister in the lightnings’ fire.

 

6. cuspidorian — person tasked with cleaning and maintaining cuspidors

Never an easy job, the cuspidorian despaired of his Sisyphean task whenever the Shriners came to town.

 

7. rangdoodle — round in a card game in which limits or antes are increased after a specified winning hand

The house rules called for rangdoodles after any hand better than a full house, so I ended up losing most of what I’d just won.

 

8. daedal (also dædal) — clever, adroit

Quickly he sketched, and from Bollard’s daedal hand came a striking—not to say devastating—portrait of the headmaster in spitting rage.

 

9. deltiology — the collection and study of postcards

His was a rather specialized subset of deltiology, so I knew when I found the Chinese postcard featuring a fat baby wearing a Mao hat and jacket that I finally had something to bargain with.

 

10. manubrium — upper part of the sternum connecting to the clavicles

The point of the umbrella had pierced completely his manubrium, though somehow the EMTs had kept him alive despite his almost useless trachea.