By Ben, on December 25th, 2009
As usual, this Christmas enabled me to stock my bookshelves again, this time with a couple of excellent gifts from my lovely wife: Bugs in the System (NY: Basic Books, 1995) by May Berenbaum, and The Earwig’s Tail (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2009), by the same author. I have only just begun to read, but have already found a gem in each.
By order of seniority, I’ll quote from the older volume first. The topic is etymology:
The body division is the trait to which insects owe their name: Insecta derives from the Latin for “cut into,” as in “cut into pieces,” a [...]
By Ben, on September 14th, 2008
Remember the Thorn Birds, by Colleen McCullough? Australian novel that got turned into a miniseries here in the States? I don’t. I wasn’t allowed to stay up late enough to watch it when it came out, and now I don’t really care too much to track it down and find out whether I’ve missed something or not. And why bother? I have all the drama I need right here in my backyard in Boca. Of course, you have to look a bit more closely; this is not the wide-open sweep of the Outback (even though it is, technically, out back).
