BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: THE JOYS OF READING

DO NOT EAT THIS BOOK

"Menelik II,the emperor of Ethiopia at the turn of the century,
liked to chew pages from the Bible. Unfortunately, he died after consuming the complete Book of Kings."

Anne Fadiman. Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998)
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ON BOOK REVIEWERS

"Nothing but a bunch of ex-obituary writers."
        John P. Marquard
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READING RADIOACTIVE NOTEBOOKS OF MADAME CURIE

Curie was known to store radioactive elements out in the open, in part because she enjoyed how they “looked like faint, fairy lights.” She even walked around her lab with them in her pockets    

"Consequently, her clothes, furniture, and even cookbooks are also radioactive, and will be for the next 1,500 years. In order to be as safe as possible with her remaining materials, France’s national library stores Curie’s notebooks in lead-lined boxes to this day, and anyone wishing to view her manuscripts must sign a waiver and wear protective gear. Her other personal items are stored with similar precautions at the Musée Curie (Curie Museum) in Paris. Curie herself died of aplastic anemia in 1934, likely due to her prolonged exposure to radiation."

History Facts website (August 15, 2024)
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzQVzFSKDCPbMpVMWfndNLSdNDWV
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A SENTENCE THAT IS DIFFICULT TO DEFEND

"Plutarch's essay "de Herodoti maligjnitate" disturbs many 
modern readers."
                    William Servig
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MAYBE DICK/MOBY-DICK/MOCHA DICK

“Call me Ishmael” is the legendary first line of Moby-Dick, but the protagonist’s name is hardly the most famous in Herman Melville’s 1851 novel. Indeed, he’s probably a distant third to both Captain Ahab and the eponymous whale himself, who was based on a real albino sperm whale named Mocha Dick. Named for the Chilean island near which his decades-long reign of terror took place, Mocha is said to have destroyed more than 20 whaling ships in addition to escaping 80 or so before finally being felled in 1838. His story was told by explorer and newspaper editor J.N. Reynolds, whose article “Mocha Dick: Or the White Whale of the Pacific” was published by The Knickerbocker the following year.”
History Facts (June 3, 2024)
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzQVwnfNnwfMdvQzmmrSZTVfMzlc

*WORDPLAY EDITOR T. CAMPBELL & LYING IN WAR & PEACE

“One of Tolstoy’s great strengths is his understanding of just how much lying there is in war—lying to one’s enemies, lying to one’s own side, lying to oneself. At times, the Russians wildly underestimate Napoleon and overestimate their own military skill; at other times, they’re ready to give up and declare Napoleon completely invincible. There’s a bit where a character is fleeing Moscow even as she claims Moscow will never be invaded, and when called on this, she stammers, “Well, I’m just leaving because everyone else is leaving!”
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MARLON BRANDO’S READING HABITS

And books, a deep-thought cascade, among which one saw Colin Wilson’s “The Outsider” and various works on Buddhist prayer, Zen meditation, Yogi breathing, and Hindu mysticism, but no fiction, for Brando reads none. He has never, he professes, opened a novel since April 3, 1924, the day he was born, in Omaha, Nebraska. But while he may not care to read fiction, he does desire to write it, and the long lacquer table was loaded with overfilled ashtrays and piled pages of his most recent creative effort, which happens to be a film script entitled “A Burst of Vermilion.”

Truman Capote . “The Duke in His Domain: Marlon Brando, on location” in THE NEW YORKER (November 2, 1957)
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BOOKS ON THE MOON

“… in late February, the moon received a massive donation of books — some 30 million pages’ worth, to be precise. Also in the collection: 25,000 songs and a whole bunch of art.
How? Well, that groundbreaking lander Odysseus didn’t merely deliver money shots from the moon’s south pole, and it won’t just be remembered for tipping over during landing. Something that landed right-side up is the first ever repository of human culture on a world beyond Earth. The Galactic Legacy Archive is its official name — but informally, we’re more likely to think of it as the moon library.
No books can be checked out of this library. The pages are etched in nickel, on thin layers so tiny that you need a microscope to read them. (Forget microfiche, this is nanofiche). A good chunk of the archive, the digital part with music and images, requires that you read the nickel-etched primer on digital encoding. “
https://mashable.com/article/moon-library-nasa?utm_source=email&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=lightspeed&zdee=g

Built using the free crossword puzzle creator from Amuse Labs

ON ROBIN HOOD

The first ballads devoted to his exploits — A Gest of Robyn Hode, Robin Hood and the Monk, and Robin Hood and the Potter — are all dated to the 15th century. Familiar elements of Robin emerge from these narratives, including his camaraderie with Little John and his clashes with the Sheriff of Nottingham. On the other hand, there’s no specific mention of redistributing wealth between the rich and the poor, and these early versions of Robin possess a pious devotion to the Virgin Mary instead of a yearning for Maid Marian.
HISTORY FACTS WEBSITE (September 1, 2024)
https://historyfacts.com/arts-culture/article/was-robin-hood-real

Florida School District Under Fire For Pulling Dictionary From School Library Due To ‘Sexual’ Content

Judd Legum’s Popular Info broke the news that the Escambria County School district has pulled a variety of reference books such as dictionaries and encyclopedias from school shelves due to descriptions of ‘sexual conduct’ to ensure they are in compliance with Ron DeSantis’ law.

Alan Herr

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THE FIRST BOOK BANNED IN AMERICA

Colleen Connolly: New English Canaan. It’s a book published in 1637, so that’s almost 400 years ago. Klimek: Colleen Connolly recently wrote a piece for Smithsonian about New English Canaan, the first book to be banned in what is now the United States of America.

 Smithsonian Magazine (Oct 5, 2023)]

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PAGE TORN FROM CAPTAIN AHAB’S DIARY

PAGE TORN FROM CAPTAIN AHAB'S DIARY

When I mate with my wife,
My soul shivers.

When whales, white or not, mate
Entire oceans tremble.

If I should mate with a whale,
Entire universes wd break apart.

Louis Phillips

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