The first essay, Marrying Libraries, had me at one particular point. In merging two collections, hers had structure and the husband's was more, as she says, "democratic." Frankly, that's how my books are, since my bookcases' sizes tend to dictate which books live where. But her structure won, and specifically, English literature should be arranged chronologically but American alphabetically. (As the latter was predominantly twentieth century). And then, while arranging the English literature chronologically, she calls out to her husband to "keep the Shakespeare plays chronological" as well--meaning she also wants them arranged within each author). That's awesome. Hell, it's how my music is arranged.
From the second essay, The Joy of Sesquipedalians, I want to know how many of the 22 words my dad knew. I was able to guess at three. I should have paid more attention in Latin, clearly.
As for the essay on proofreading (Insert a Carrot), I laughed out loud as I read the author recollecting how she had spread out the clippings from the local newspaper her mother had collected that were all full of errors. "There were 394. (What kind of person would count them? The daughter of the person who would clip them, of course.)"
But there are some other great essays--like the one about how reading is great enough but reading about FOOD is somehow even better. It's a great read and I'm about 3 essays away from polishing it off, which I may do before tonight.
What's tonight?
LEWIS BLACK, BABY!!!!!!!!
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