There are three people I routinely refer to as my best friend (playing fast and loose with my superlatives) – one is my lovely brother Colin, one is my dear friend Washington Wife, and the third is wonderful Mel. (Since her blog isn’t updated, I can link instead to a review she wrote for me, that was for a long time the most read page on my blog.) They’re all enormously brilliant people, and I am very blessed to know them – and only one of them is biologically predetermined to like me.
I bring this up only because today is Mel’s wedding day, and I’m off to usher (ush?), give a reading, and probably cry. I’ll leave you with a whole range of links, rather than the usual book, blog post, and link (because there are so many this week), but first of all – I’ve done the prize draw for Stephen Leacock’s Literary Lapses and the winner is Pam from Travellin’ Penguin! Email me your address, and I’ll get it in the post. I so enjoyed reading everyone’s favourite things about Canada, and it’s made me even more determined to visit one day. And how serendipitous that I chose Canada Day to hold the draw! Right – some links:
1.) You’ll love this list of ‘book titles with one letter missing‘, and accompanying illustrations.
2.) I wrote again for OxfordWords – this time, 5 Words That Are Older Than You Think. Go and be surprised!
3.) So did Hayley! She’s written all about the language of whisky.
4.) AND Washington Wife, aforementioned! A really fantastic article on ‘journalese‘.
5.) Margaret sent me this fascinating article about the letters received after Shirley Jackson’s ‘The Lottery’ was first published in the New Yorker. Warning: spoilers, so make sure you read the short story (which you can do here) first.
Have a great weekend, all!
Hi Simon
I have, for the first time, followed each of the links you supplied for the weekend. They led me to sites I would otherwise not have visited. The nicest discovery was for Persephone Books, I have one or two of their books in my collection . Now I can add them to my favourite sites & I have already marked out quite a long list of titles that I want to acquire & read. Oh dear, yet another source of temptation to feed my bibliophile habit!
Have a great weekend.
Hi Debbie, thanks so much for your comment! Persephone Books are one of my very great joys in life, and I have got dozens of their beautiful, excellent books. Let me know if you want any recommendations!
Hi Simon,
I only have 2 , so far!
Any recommendations gratefully accepted :-)
How exciting to win something! I never win anything. haha. Email is in the mail. Hope you write about the wedding.I love weddings.
Congratulations! I'll get it off to you soon :)
Nice links! – off for a read. I always howl at weddings… (er, not like a wolf).
I only cried the tiniest bit, in the end. I cry at everything else, why don't weddings set me off?
Great links Simon. I ordered „A Thousand Darknesses: Lies and Truth in Holocaust Fiction” by Ruth Franklin. She writes about the authors I used to read so I think it’s going to be really interesting and I wouldn’t know about this book without your link, thank you.
Hope you had a good time and (like Pam) I do hope you will write something about the wedding :)
That does sound a really intriguing book, Agnieszka, for when I'm in the mood for something deep.
Great to see you at Mel & Tom's wedding on Saturday Si. I am concerned that Patch doesn't seem to have been involved in the latest prize selection – is he redundant? Have you found another unbiased selector?
A very good point! He's complaining that it's too hot to be a prize selector, and Fid's offer of flopping him hasn't gone down well.