Start the Countdown

Well, I have had to give up on reading The Meaning of Everything, the story of the Oxford English Dictionary, by Simon Winchester. It is a bit too dense and I find that right now I cannot concentrate on the information presented. I know that this too shall pass and so I will keep this book on my TBR List and eventually come back to it another day. 

Yikes! I am down to the final days before my research paper presentation this Monday on several of the female archaeologists who explored historic sites in the late 1800s and early 1900s. I guess you know what I will be doing this weekend: final editing tweaks and practice, practice, practice. 

These papers, and this is my fifth, do take up a lot of time. Weeks, days, and hours of study and research and writing and worrying all culminating in a 30-minute presentation. Whew. But truly, it is a project that I enjoy or I wouldn't bother. I look on these papers as a continuation of my self-directed education.

Stash from the Stacks

Vintage postcard featuring my lovely library in 1919

Here are the books I scored in today's trip to the library:

School of Fear by Gitty Daneshvari - In an effort to overcome their fears, four children enroll in the creepy school run by a slightly crazy ex-beauty queen, Mrs. Wellington. Madeline's fear of bugs has her wearing a beekeeper's netted hat and carrying cans of insect spray on her belt. Lulu has a fear of enclosed spaces and avoids elevators. Then there are the two boys: Theo is afraid of death (his own and any family member's), and Garrison fears large bodies of water. 

Each chapter opens with the definition of a different phobia. For example, did you know that logizomechaniophobia is the fear of computers?

The story was recommended to me by a fifth-grader and has adorable illustrations by Carrie Gifford.

Sleeping at the Starlite Motel and Other Adventures on the Way Back Home by Bailey White - More Southern delights from my new BFF and a perfect way to get in the mood for my upcoming Grand Southern Literary Tour 2013.

The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester - I mistook this book as a re-titling of Winchester's The Professor and the Madman which I read a couple of years ago and enjoyed. A commenter, Tullik, set me straight on this misconception, and in light of the recent explorations of my own stash of dictionaries (here and here),  I am really looking forward to digging in to this book about the famed OED.