According to Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe, it’s important to master the basics of writing, but there comes a time when you have to strike out on your own and teach yourself. Also: Spanish idioms involving food, a conversation about the...
Ever wonder what medieval England looked and sounded like? In Old English, the word hord meant “treasure” and your wordhord was the treasure of words locked up inside you. A delightful new book uses the language of that period to create...
Connie in Santee, California, is curious about a term she read in Isabel Wilkerson’s acclaimed history of the Great Migration out of the Jim Crow South, The Warmth of Other Suns (Bookshop|Amazon). A shotgun house is a narrow house, the width...
Twice a day the River Thames recedes, revealing a muddy shoreline. Hobbyists known as mudlarks stroll the surface searching for objects that have found their way into the river over the centuries, everything from ancient Roman jewelry to modern...
Laura Maiklem’s book Mudlark: In Search of London’s Past Along the River Thames (Bookshop| Amazon) is a charming memoir about the rewards of scavenging for bits of history along the River Thames. This is part of a complete episode.
On The Great British Baking Show (its US name; it’s called the Great British Bake Off in the UK, but bake-off is trademarked in the US), a contestant confessed he had not a Scooby Doo about how to make a particular recipe. By that he meant he...