Friday Vocabulary

1. clinker-built — (naut.) of a ship’s hull built with the edges of its planks overlapping, as opposed to “carvel-built” ships where the planks are fitted side-by-side and flush with one another

The front end view of Viking longships shows the edge-over-edge construction characteristic of clinker-built boats.

 

2. felloe — outer part of wheel into which the spokes are inserted

When wheels were made of wood, with only the outer rim being banded in metal, the felloes were often made in separate arcs, from the same wood as the spokes.

 

3. hendiadys — rhetorical figure wherein a usual adjective-noun construction is replaced by two nouns joined by a copula; any such joining of words (whether nouns or not)

“Please join me in sending our prayerful thoughts,” said the politician, taking the usual platitude for a hendiadys.

 

4. virga — streaky precipitation from clouds which evaporates before reaching earth

The slate-grey virga beneath the massing clouds did not obscure the village at the foot of the mountains, the white adobe bright in spite of the dimming light.

 

5. spate — (Brit.) flood, esp. sudden flooding of a river caused by heavy precipitation

The usually gentle stream was in spate, making it impossible to ford in our small roadster.

 

6. chelonian — of or related to turtles

It had been foolish to settle the pet turtle in an old glass-walled terrarium, for the chelonian brain saw only open space instead of barriers and persisted in driving his head into the walls without cease.

 

7. quire — section of folded printed sheets of paper, for binding with other sections to make a completed book

The old book had been abused: the spine was barely hanging onto the volume, the endpapers and title page were gone, many other pages were torn or loose in the binding, and the entire quire containing the final entries of the index was simply missing.

 

8. halt — limping; lame

The old man was halt and shivering, though whether from exposure or from his aged condition I could not tell.

 

9. escalade — scaling of walls by means of ladders

We quickly destroyed the stairs leading up to the second floor, knowing that the zombies were incapable of mounting an escalade.

 

10. collop — fold of fat flesh

“Because he covereth his face with his fatness, and maketh collops of fat on his flanks.” [Job 15:27]

Aristocracy

“I believe in aristocracy, though — if that is the right word, and if a democrat may use it. Not an aristocracy of power, based upon rank and influence, but an aristocracy of the sensitive, the considerate and the plucky. Its members are to be found in all nations and classes, and all through the ages, and there is a secret understanding between them when they meet. They represent the true human tradition, the one permanent victory of our queer race over cruelty and chaos. Thousands of them perish in obscurity, a few are great names. They are sensitive for others as well as for themselves, they are considerate without being fussy, their pluck is not swankiness but the power to endure, and they can take a joke.”

— E.M. Forster

Friday Vocabulary

1. stertorous — characterized by heavy snoring

Until three of the four sexagenarians started using CPAP machines, their Bohemian Grove cabin was famous for the stertorous rumblings emanating from within.

 

2. epergne — table centerpiece designed to hold fruit or flowers

Though Roscoe appreciated the thought behind his aunt’s generous gift, in truth he feared that the delicate glass of the Art Nouveau epergne would be damaged if he left it out on display.

 

3. paresis — partial paralysis affecting motor function but not sensation

The deliberative body seemed to suffer from a legislative paresis, with reports compiled and issued by the sensory apparatus of the various committees, but all attempts at passing actual laws being frozen almost as soon as they were begun.

 

4. ferule — rod, cane, or flat piece of wood (esp. a ruler) used to punish

The stories of Catholic schoolchildren feeling the strike of a ferule across the back of the hand seem to belong to a long-ago time, but it remains a living memory to those who suffered.

 

5. deal — made of fir or pine, or from planks of such wood

A small deal table was a standard item of furniture in the Victorian drawing room.

 

6. presbyopia — farsightedness, particularly that caused by old age

Refusing to wear bifocals or progressive lenses, Jack pointed out that his creeping presbyopia barely affected his ability to drive, and only necessitated longer arms when reading.

 

7. plangent — loudly sounding, esp. with a plaintive, metallic sound (as a bell); or making the sound of waves upon a shore

The resonant thrum of women’s voices rose to a plangent roar that could no longer be ignored.

 

8. apologue — allegorical tale with a moral lesson

To many listeners of the would-be preacher, his story of misspent youth redeemed seemed less like a moving apologue and more like a voluntary and spontaneous confession.

 

9. choucroute — sauerkraut

The thick sausage lay lonely upon the choucroute, its appeal limited by its bedding.

 

10. vicinal — neighboring, adjacent

The closure of the Interstate forced the midnight traffic onto the vicinal byways for a detour into darkness.

Friday Vocabulary* [UPDATED]

NOTE: Due to recently (27 June 2019) discovered repetition of a previously used vocabulary word, the offending entry has been replaced with a new word, definition, and example sentence. The original entry is preserved with strikethrough formatting.

1. prolepsis — (1) marshaling counterarguments to a position so they may be refuted in advance

“Just because I’m crazy,” he said as a prolepsis to the wild conspiracy ideas he had just recited, “doesn’t mean I’m not right.”

 

2. prolepsis — (2) prochronism; placing something (person, event, etc.) at too early a date

Many Rotten Tomatoes reviewers noted the heroine’s warning call using the 999 number in 1947 as a prolepsis, but in fact the United Kingdom had introduced the emergency call system a decade earlier, after a disastrous fire in 1935.

Her disbelief that Georgia driver license numbers used to be the same as the person’s Social Security number was just another example of quite common Internet security prolepsis.

 

3. invigilate — to watch over students during an exam

As a WADA official, Jack’s least favorite job was invigilating while the athletes micturated.

 

4. flibbertigibbet — gossip; flighty woman

If his next-door neighbor wasn’t such a distracting flibbertigibbet, she would have been quite annoying.

 

5. chryselephantine — of or covered with gold and ivory

Of the half-dozen lost Seven Wonders, I should like most to see the chryselephantine statue of Zeus at Olympia.

 

6. soteriology — doctrine of salvation

The one-armed man in the back seat of the bus kept declaiming in a loud voice, saying one should never confuse soteriology with Paulinian doctrine.

 

7. fain — gladly

“I would fain support you in this battle, were not I so evilly afflicted by these irksome bone spurs.”

 

irrefragable — indisputable, undeniable

The ability of believers in doomsday cults to rationalize after the world doesn’t end indicates that (for humans, at least) there is no such thing as irrefragable proof.

 

8. gymnosophist — member of an ascetic group of Jains, noted for wearing little or no clothing and for eating no meat

Fancying himself a latter-day breatharian gymnosophist, he sat in his boxers with his feet up refusing to stand lest he kill some small insect on the floor, but we just thought he was a total nutjob.

 

9. petrichor — the smell of rain upon very dry earth

They stood panting after their pellmell dash through the downpour, as the thunder faded into the susurration of the falling rain and the earthy petrichor rose up around them in their makeshift shelter at the base of the overhanging cliffs.

 

10. flagitious — extremely wicked

If you misrepresent another’s intellectual property as your own, I will fully cooperate with enforcement personnel to ensure that your flagitious attack on academic and intellectual freedom does not go unpunished.

*Second example changed to correct poor grade given to original paper

Friday Vocabulary

1. eyot — small island, particularly in a river

The raft ran aground upon the small, treeless eyot which lay in the center of the large bend in the river.

 

2. calcareous — of or like chalk

The lizard’s calcareous medication may have added to the constipation of the gecko.

 

3. halitus — exhalation or vapor

As the chemical plant ejected its runoff into the stream, an unpleasant halitus of rank odors seemed to precede the frothy spume.

 

4. diffident — lacking confidence in one’s capability; timid

Horace fidgeted before the apartment door, the diffident bookkeeper hoping perhaps that the young lady would not be at home after all.

 

5. epithalamium — song or poem in honor of newly married couple (also epithalamion)

The bawdy limerick recited by the best man’s soon-to-be-former best friend was the epithalamium which ended all toasts at the reception.

 

6. higgle — to negotiate in a petty manner

Roger would higgle over the most trivial details in a contract, especially when he couldn’t get any of his truly significant demands.

 

7. battledore — badminton racket

In her hands the light battledore became a blur of speed, pummeling the shuttlecock with precise, stacatto strokes.

 

8. eleemosynary –about alms or charity

While waiting for the light to change, the BMW driver gave the one-armed homeless man standing on the traffic island an eleemosynary Jack Chick tract.

 

9. lich gate — small roofed gate to a churchyard

The pastor would stand at the lich gate at the end of the service to shake hands with his departing parishioners.

 

10. scapegrace — entirely unrepentant and disreputable scoundrel

The young scapegrace believed even his six weeks sentence of community service to be too onerous for his brutal assault upon the orphaned teddy bear crafter.

One Hundred and Seven Thousand Songs (107,000)

I was so excited to schedule last Friday’s vocabulary for auto-publication that I neglected to note that I crossed another fictional milestone on Saturday, when I listened to my 107,000th unique iTunes track, a sad little number called “Atomic Watch” from a sad album given away to those who donated blood at this year’s Comic-Con, Tales From The Con 5.

And now the blah-blah stuff…. 107,000 unique tracks makes up 792.23 GB of data, with a total duration of 400 days, 23 hours, 9 minutes, and 12 seconds (ignoring multiple plays). Left unplayed in my iTunes collection at the moment of impactful milestone crossing were 84,472 songs, which is 796 less than were left to be heard at the 106k mark (thus 204 songs were added in the meantime — including the aforementioned Tales From The Con 5). The unplayed tracks comprise 605.41 GB of data (↓ 7.29 GB) with a playing time of 371 days, 3 hours, 3 minutes, and 30 seconds (↓ 9.8 days).

To reach the 107,000th unique track, I listened to 1,245 songs (from track #106,000), which total 9.89 GB of data, and laid end-to-end comprise 10 days, 19 hours, 13 minutes, and 51 seconds of audio (or only about 2/3 of the time consumed by the previous one thousand songs).

56 days were required to listen to the last thousand songs (20 less than the previous 1k), meaning 17.86 new songs per day were heard. This significant increase (previously I listened to just over 13 songs per day) had a lot to do with listening to non-radio show tracks in the car, I’m guessing.

17.86 New Tracks Heard per Day

 
If we include the previously heard songs, we find that I heard 22.23 tracks per day.

22.23 Tracks Heard per Day

I am no longer promising further analysis, as I’m still owing the same for the 103Kth and 102Kth sets of iTunes songs.

Friday Vocabulary

1. coffle — train of beasts, slaves, etc., chained together

The coffle of indicted legislators attempted to hold their bound hands before their faces as they were cajoled down the steep marble stairs.

 

2. toxophilite — a lover or devotee of archery

Every tree looks like a bow to the toxophilite.

 

3. myrmecology — the study of ants and termites

Though termites belong to a quite different order (and were once thought to be related to cockroaches), the pages of myrmecology journals are well populated with articles about these so-called “white ants”.

 

4. benedict — a newly married man, esp. a former longtime bachelor

Robbins played the benedict once again, leaving the bar after a single drink to return to his new bride, stopping for flowers on his way home.

 

5. tatterdemalion — a person dressed in rags or tatters

Her overly torn jeans made her look more a tatterdemalion than a fashionista.

 

6. pantechnicon — a moving van (Brit.)

The broad-shouldered ragamuffin wrestled the marble baptismal font up the ramp into the back of the pantechnicon.

 

7. conspectus — a survey; a summary

Her holdings and property were so extensive and varied that her headman prepared a conspectus for himself to keep track of all his responsibilities.

 

8. puggle –to poke (as a hole or pipe) with a stick or wire in order to remove obstacles

He puggled the drain to clear the sink, rather than use caustic chemicals which might damage the pipes.

 

9. collywobbles — rumbling in the intestines

The veritable storm of collywobbles frightened the passengers on either side of the afflicted, trapped as they were by the rear of the plane.

 

10. cicerone — a knowledgeable tour guide

Though his age makes his tours more sporadic, the premier cicerone for Chartres Cathedral remains Malcolm Miller, who has been performing exegetical readings of this marvel of the Middle Ages since 1958.

400 Days

Yet another glorious achievement, as I have now listened to just over 400 solid days of tracks in my iTunes collection.

The song I heard which put me over the 400-day top was “Peace Train” by the quondam Cat Stevens. 400 days of tracks make up 106,902 items totaling 791.47 GB of files. There remain unlistened in my iTunes a week and a year of items: 372 days, 42 minutes, and 58 seconds of tunage comprised of 84,548 items equaling 605.98 GB of data. (I’ve used an image of an old Grateful Dead bootleg tape of mine, because I believe that there’s a 400-day-long version of “Playin’ In The Band” out there somewhere, and because I don’t have a self-scanned image of any of my Mr. Stevens CDs.)

Yes, I have now listened to 400 days, 2 minutes, and 15 seconds of iTunes files. For a little perspective, if you started listening to the same unique files I’ve heard today, without any repeats, you’d finish hearing them all on October 6, 2019.

400 Days from Today: October 6, 2019

I, however, took much longer than that to reach this milestone, and have listened to many songs more than once. The first track in my “Already Played” playlist for which I have a ‘played-on’ timestamp was heard on January 15, 2003. Unfortunately, I have 129 songs with no information as to when they were played, which were probably played earlier but for which that datapoint is no longer available — perhaps because of the terrible hard drive crash I suffered at the onset of my iPod life. (I stifle a tear.)

The average track length of my heard files is 5 minutes and 23 seconds, according to Interwebs calculator. A little long, no doubt due to all those radio shows I’ve been spouting off about.

As you can tell, I am approaching the next 1,000 song milestone, and will be back to report more at that time.

200 Books: The List

As promised, here’s the list of the most recently read hundred books, this time broken down into ten book bite-sized pieces. For each tenner of books, I’ve provided brief notes on one representative volume. To repeat, I’ve only counted non-comic books towards my number of books read, so the ‘#’ field in the below table only has values (from 101–200) for those books.

The last hundred books began with this slim volume by Dorothy Sayers, Whose Body? Published 95 years ago, the first Lord Peter Wimsey mystery still remains a classic of the British detective story, with an emphasis on ‘British’ and posh affectation. The cover of this Dover reprint tells you everything you want to know, with the essential pince-nez and the puzzling bathtub. Worth a read, though the subsequent Lord Peter books are even moreso.

# Read Author Title Genre
101 10/13/16 Dorothy Sayers Whose Body? Mystery
102 10/16/16 Tony Hillerman Coyote Waits Mystery
103 10/24/16 Frank Waters Book of the Hopi Indians
104 10/27/16 Tony Hillerman Sacred Clowns Mystery
105 10/29/16 Margaret Coel The Ghost Walker Mystery
106 11/3/16 Douglas Adams The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul SF/Fantasy
107 11/6/16 Ellis Peters A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs Mystery
108 11/22/16 Theodore Isaac Rubin Compassion & Self Hate Psychology
109 11/29/16 Arthur William Upfield The Bone is Pointed Mystery
110 12/16/16 Raymond T. Bond, ed. Handbook for Poisoners: A Collection of Great Poison Stories Mystery

The Invasion Of Canada is the first volume of a two-volume exploration of the War of 1812 — hence the subtitle 1812–1813. It is, as is often the case with histories of war, a condemnation of war in general and this inept conflict in particular. The book points out especially just how ludicrously the ‘militia’ system performed in actual practice. Written by a Canadian, so there’s that (and something to remember when one sees “National Bestseller” on the cover). I keep meaning to pick up the second volume, though the title sounds like softcore gay political porn (Flames across the Border: The Canadian-American Tragedy).

# Read Author Title Genre
111 12/18/16 William Shakespeare Coriolanus Literature
112 12/31/16 Pierre Berton The Invasion of Canada, 1812–1813 History
113 1/9/17 Erik Larson The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America History
114 1/17/17 Hugh Greene, ed. The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes: Early Detective Stories Mystery
115 1/21/17 Steven Saylor Roman Blood Mystery
116 1/26/17 Vic Ghidalia, ed. Eight Strange Tales SF/Fantasy
117 2/1/17 Steven Saylor Arms Of Nemesis Mystery
118 2/6/17 Alistair Maclean Circus Mystery
119 2/11/17 Arthur William Upfield The Bachelors of Broken Hill Mystery
120 2/21/17 Clive Cussler Dragon Mystery

Origin Of Life is a garbage book. I read this sort of stuff to remind myself that just because it’s in print doesn’t make it true, or even worthy of attention, were it not for the fact that this sort of thing is attaching itself to our cultural body like carbon monoxide attaching itself to a lung. I was given this ‘textbook’ for creation science* by a high school teacher who’d been given this sample copy by a hopeful publisher seeking to introduce this receptacle of bad science into high school science classes. It’s the usual mishmash of broken watch springs and questions about dino bones, in the depressingly cheery ’80s style of crappy textbook art.

*No actual science content present

# Read Author Title Genre
121 2/26/17 Poul Anderson Three Hearts and Three Lions SF/Fantasy
122 3/2/17 Lin Yutang, ed. The Wisdom of Laotse Spiritual
123 3/6/17 Dashiell Hammett The Thin Man Mystery
124 3/16/17 John Allegro Lost Gods Spiritual
125 3/26/17 Michael Les Benedict The Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson History
126 4/2/17 John Grisham Sycamore Row Mystery
127 4/17/17 Stephen Jay Gould An Urchin in the Storm: Essays About Books and Ideas Science/Math
128 4/18/17 Richard B. Bliss Origin of Life Bad Science
129 4/24/17 Betty M. Owen, ed. Nine Strange Stories Literature
130 4/30/17 George Bennett, ed. Great Tales of Action and Adventure Literature

“The names of these fearless men, martyred in the cause, will live forevermore in the hearts of the Soviet people.”

The Soviet-era history book The Intervention in Siberia 1918–1922 (from the Workers Library Publishers, natch) contains the expected party-line description of events almost forgotten outside of the former You-Know-What. The line drawings are not quite good or bad enough to be interesting. The history itself, however, is new (to us) and at times quite compelling, and we meet briefly some fascinating characters lost to us moderns, such as the vicious and Buddhist Baron Ungern, an adventurer and would-be warlord who fought against the Reds and for his own idea of a new empire. The underlying analysis, even with the plague of Marxist language, is often bracing, as when Parfenov points out that the U.S. had very little desire for the Japanese to create new strongholds in the Russian east out of the collapse of the Romanovs.

# Read Author Title Genre
131 5/3/17 Mary E. MacEwen, ed. Stories of Suspense Literature
132 5/8/17 V. Parfenov The Intervention in Siberia 1918–1922 History
133 5/20/17 C.C. Benison Death at Buckingham Palace: Her Majesty Investigates Mystery
134 5/22/17 Randall Garrett Lord Darcy [3-in-1 volume] SF/Fantasy
5/24/17 Walt Kelly Pogo: We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us Comics
135 6/12/17 W.G. Forrest A History of Sparta, 950–192 B. C. History
136 6/13/17 Clive Cussler Flood Tide Mystery
137 6/17/17 Heinrich Hoffmann Struwwelpeter in English Translation Children’s
138 6/22/17 Baljit Singh & Mei Ko-Wang Theory and Practice of Modern Guerrilla Warfare Militaria
139 7/6/17 Rudyard Kipling Life’s Handicap – Being Stories of Mine Own People Literature
140 7/8/17 Isaac Asimov Earth Is Room Enough SF/Fantasy

The Long Goodbye is the best book by one of the five best authors of detective novels.

# Read Author Title Genre
141 7/11/17 Vic Ziegel The Non-Runner’s Book Humor
142 7/19/17 Kenneth Robeson The Fantastic Island SF/Fantasy
7/30/17 Jules Feiffer Great Comic Book Heroes Comics
143 8/3/17 Tu Fu & Li Po Poems Literature
144 8/7/17 Camden Benares Zen Without Zen Masters Spiritual
145 8/8/17 Fung Yu-Lan A Short History of Chinese Philosophy Spiritual
146 8/12/17 Raymond Chandler The Long Goodbye Mystery
147 8/15/17 W. H. St. John Hope An Introduction to Heraldry History
148 8/26/17 Margaret Coel The Dream Stalker Mystery
149 9/1/17 Margaret Coel The Story Teller Mystery
150 9/5/17 Alistair MacLean The Satan Bug Mystery

Erik Routley’s beautiful prose style complements his powerful thoughts upon the place of music in the Christian church. His history is never dry, his insights never forced. The writing in this thin précis thrills with the charge of a believer who never uses his beliefs as an excuse, and never loses sight of truth nor of humanity in the pursuit of his topic.

# Read Author Title Genre
151 9/7/17 Melville Davisson Post Uncle Abner, Master of Mysteries Mystery
9/9/17 The Comic Cavalcade Archives, Vol. 1 Comics
152 9/18/17 Erik Routley Christian Hymns Observed: When in Our Music God Is Glorified Spiritual
153 9/22/17 E. C. Bentley Trent’s Last Case Mystery
154 9/25/17 Richard Appignanesi Introducing Existentialism Philosophy
155 10/2/17 Bram Stoker The Jewel of Seven Stars Horror
156 10/4/17 Lloyd Alexander The Book of Three SF/Fantasy
157 10/9/17 Seymour M. Pitcher The Case for Shakespeare’s Authorship of “The Famous Victories” Drama
158 10/11/17 Lloyd Alexander The Black Cauldron SF/Fantasy
159 10/18/17 Cara Black Murder In Belleville : An Aimee Leduc Investigation Mystery
160 10/23/17 Isaac Asimov Foundation SF/Fantasy

Michael Crichton’s Eaters Of The Dead (known to most, as in this edition, from the movie title: The 13th Warrior) turns out to be a retelling of an ancient tale, in the fascinating frame of a traveling scholar during the height of Islam and the near nadir of the West. It is well to remember that the torch of civilization was kept alight by the various Muslim states for much of the first half millennium of their existence, but Crichton never lets up on the adventure and the inherent fascination of his story. You won’t find Antonio Banderas in this novel, but the brooding observer on the strange and the familiar found there is worthy of your attention.

# Read Author Title Genre
161 10/27/17 Elmore Leonard Get Shorty Mystery
162 11/5/17 William S. Burroughs Exterminator! Literature
163 11/09/17 Lewis Carroll Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland / Through The Looking-Glass and Other Writings Literature
164 11/10/17 Lloyd Alexander The Castle of Llyr SF/Fantasy
165 11/15/17 Erik Routley Conversion Spiritual
166 1/2/18 S. Morris Engel Fallacies and Pitfalls of Language: The Language Trap Language
167 1/13/18 Jane Austen Persuasion Literature
1/14/18 Mike Baron Badger #42 Comics
1/15/18 Sergio Aragonés Groo the Wanderer vol. 2 #73 (Marvel) Comics
1/16/18 Sergio Aragonés Groo the Wanderer vol. 2 #74 (Marvel) Comics
1/17/18 Sergio Aragonés Groo the Wanderer vol. 2 #75 (Marvel) Comics
168 1/18/18 Margaret Coel The Lost Bird Mystery
169 2/14/18 Marian Calabro The Perilous Journey of the Donner Party History
170 2/21/18 Michael Crichton The 13th Warrior (Eaters of the Dead) Literature

Read the Brigadier Gerard stories of Arthur Conan Doyle, if you possibly can. The brave and stupid Napoleonic hussar would have made a wonderful junior executive in the Internet age.

# Read Author Title Genre
171 2/26/18 Ellis Peters Rainbow’s End Mystery
172 3/2/18 Georges Simenon Maigret and the Wine Merchant Mystery
173 3/9/18 N.K. Sandars The Epic of Gilgamesh Myth/Folklore
174 3/15/18 Epicurus Letters, Principal Doctrines, and Vatican Sayings Philosophy
175 3/20/18 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard Literature
176 4/8/18 James Strachan Pictures From A Medieval Bible Spiritual
177 4/8/18 Gustave Flaubert Bibliomania Literature
178 4/12/18 W.M. Thackeray The English Humourists / The Four Georges Literature
179 4/16/18 Clive Cussler Raise The Titanic! Mystery
180 4/19/18 Philip K. Dick & Ray Nelson The Ganymede Takeover SF/Fantasy

As is often the case, the movie Starship Troopers alludes to the social commentary of the source material, while making it sexy and exciting with boobies and explosions. Read the book, and you’ll find that Heinlein is quite serious with his idea that only soldiers should have the right to vote; so serious, in fact, that his novel veers off into 5-, 6-, even 8-page disquisitions upon the flaws of the failed democratic ideal and the wonderful promise of military-only suffrage. Heinlein’s writing skill is so profound, however, that the action never drags and the story remains compelling in spite of the weird political basecoat. Which is why I try to judge the art, not the artist.

# Read Author Title Genre
181 4/20/18 Bernard Fischman The Man Who Rode His 10-Speed Bicycle To The Moon Literature
182 4/25/18 Julian Havil Impossible?: Surprising Solutions to Counterintuitive Conundrums Science/Math
183 4/28/18 R.M. Grant Gnosticism and Early Christianity Spiritual
184 5/7/18 Ernest Hemingway A Farewell to Arms Literature
185 5/10/18 Colin McEvedy The Penguin Atlas of African History History
186 5/12/18 Robert A. Heinlein Starship Troopers SF/Fantasy
187 5/16/18 Aesop Fables of Aesop Myth/Folklore
188 5/19/18 John Le Carré The Looking Glass War Mystery
189 5/26/18 Thomas Doherty Pre-Code Hollywood: Sex, Immorality, and Insurrection in American Cinema, 1930–1934 (Film and Culture Series) Film
190 5/29/18 Alan Axelrod The Complete Idiot’s Guide To The Civil War History

Strangely enough, Pierre Boulle actually lived the story he wrote in The Bridge Over The River Kwai, as he was both a commando operator in the CBI theatre and then a prisoner in the brutal work gangs described in this novel. The novel was transmuted into a major motion picture with little destruction of the source material, though the ending may surprise you. Strangely enough, during his long career as a novelist M. Boulle also wrote another work which became a Hollywood blockbuster, La planète des singes, better known to most under the film’s title, Planet Of The Apes (which is both truer to the original French, as well as better than the title of the first English novelization, Monkey Planet).

# Read Author Title Genre
191 5/29/18 J.A. McMurtrey Letters To Lucinda 1862–1864 History
192 5/31/18 Art Linkletter I Wish I’d Said That! (My Favorite Ad-Libs of All Time) Humor
193 6/1/18 Pierre Boulle The Bridge Over the River Kwai Literature
194 6/4/18 Andrew Dickson White Fiat Money Inflation in France History
195 6/6/18 Ron Goulart Broke Down Engine and Other Troubles with Machines SF/Fantasy
196 6/10/18 Tony Hoagland Donkey Gospel: Poems Poetry
197 6/10/18 Harry Medved & Michael Medved Hollywood Hall of Shame: The Most Expensive Flops in Movie History Film
198 6/11/18 C. M. Kornbluth The Syndic SF/Fantasy
199 6/14/18 Frederik Pohl & C. M. Kornbluth Gladiator-at-Law SF/Fantasy
200 6/21/18 Martin Gardner The 2nd Scientific American Book of Mathematical Puzzles and Diversions Science/Math

The listing of the first hundred books read may be found here.

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