I'm trying to be better about writing at least a little blurb about each book I read. Trying being the operative word here. The blurb, if and when I do get around to writing it, will of course happen after the book has been finished. So, in the beginning, what may show up here is just the book's basic information, title, author, date I began reading it. But feel free to comment on the book even if I haven't yet written anything about it. I always like talking about books!
For him that stealeth, or borroweth and returneth not, this book from its owner, let it change into a serpent in his hand and rend him. Let him be struck with palsy, and all his members blasted. Let him languish in pain, crying aloud for mercy, and let there be no surcease to this agony till he sing in dissolution. Let bookworms gnaw his entrails…and when at last he goeth to his final punishment, let the flames of Hell consume him forever. --Curse for book thieves by Edmund Lester Pearson (1880-1937)
The Man Who Ate Everything, Jeffrey Steingarten
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God’s Debris, Scott Adams
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I finally set up an RSS feed just in case anyone is interested in keeping up with what I'm reading through a news reader. RSS 2.0
Loved the book. Will probably find ways to bring it up in conversations and insist that people read it.
Liked it well enough. Would probably say that it's a good read, except for [fill in the blank].
Liked it well enough to finish the book but I wouldn't recommend that someone else read it.
So bad I couldn't finish the book. If someone mentioned the book title to me I'd probably shake my head and tell him not to waste his time or money.
Reading is Fundamental
So many books, so little time
Book: The Professor and the Madman, Simon Winchester
Start Date: 06/22/05
End Date: 06/28/05
Rating:
Comments: 0
Permalink: link
Print: 
This is what comes from wandering aimlessly in the bookstore. I saw this in a stack of books recommended by a store employee and something about it caught my eye. I think it was the sub-title: “A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary.” I mean really. How can you pass that up? According to the back cover, when the OED was being compiled, one man contributed more than ten thousand words. Naturally the overseeing committee wanted to honor the man. That’s when they discovered that Dr. Minor, an American Civil War veteran, was also an inmate at an asylum for the criminally insane.
Who knew reading about the making of a dictionary could be so fascinating? I’m hoping the book lives up to the description.
More when the book is finished. ....
Okay. Fascinating might have been too strong a word to use, but it was a nice, interesting read. I most enjoyed when the story focused on the story of Dr. Minor and his relationship with Murray, the editor of the OED. The book lost me a little when it really dwelved into the history of the actual dictionary.
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