*** Interesting Articles -- November/December

Please share interesting articles, images, etc. you encounter by posting links here. It’s the season of looking back/looking ahead so feel free to link to recaps, predictions, and best-of lists, too.

http://www.livescience.com/41002-worried-about-dementia-learn-a-second-language....

Pimsleur anyone?

Regarding ongoing discussions about translations.

The negative correlation Alzheimer-Multilingualism is also discussed in Jared Diamond's The World until Yesterday. On one hand my six practiced languages should give me a safe feeling, on the other hand, it didn't prevent my multilingual father from hitting dementia prety badly...

And books on happiness with some analysis, a bonus day at Arts and Letters Daily.

Robert

Had to post this sweet 'Letter Of Note' from John Steinbeck to his lovestruck son:

Nothing Good Gets Away

That is so beautiful. Thom was fortunate to have such an understanding father. Thanks for sharing this.

Thanks for that Polaris. I knew there was a reason I love John Steinbeck! That letter is going to get passed on to some people I know.

Silly buzzfeed "30 things Librarians Love"
http://www.buzzfeed.com/jessicamisener/things-librarians-love
When I worked at my college library, I loved stamping the due dates on the inside of the books. (HA!)

http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/Latest-News-Wires/2013/1117/Nobel-prize-winner-Do...

I havn't read any of Lessing's works. Anyone have any thoughts on if or where to begin?

I read a lot of Lessing back in the 70s and early 80s, so naturally I don't remember most of what I read. Her work is very varied, in subject and in quality. The Golden Notebook is probably the most famous of her novels, but it could seem dated, I suppose.

>6 Polaris-: Loved the Steinbeck letter. Makes me interested in the whole Letters of Note book. Looks like a US edition will be out next spring.

The December issue of mental_floss magazine has an interview with "Calvin and Hobbes" creator Bill Watterson. Here’s a tease and here’s another. Plus, he and cartoonist Richard Thompson (“Cul de Sac”) will exhibit their works next March at Ohio State Univ.

Doris Lessing, one of the best writers in the science fiction genre.

I posted this in the Virago Modern Classics group, excuse the duplication.

I always credit Doris Lessing with saving my cat's life. He burned his paws - jumped up onto the stove - and was going downhill fast. He stopped eating, grooming, and just decided to die. In one of Ms Lessing's writings (don't recall which one - it may have been an autobiographical article) I read how she helped her sick cat by giving him a bath. She likened it to getting between clean sheets in fresh pyjamas after being ill. Our dear Sebastian thought we were trying to drown him and didn't resist. As we wrapped him in a big fluffy towel and patted him dry, he amazingly started to purr again. He never looked back. Thank you Ms Lessing.

#15, great story

So good I just read it to the missus. Thanks for posting.

Ah Vivienne that is wonderful. Going to share that one.

>15 VivienneR: Beautiful story.

http://mentalfloss.com/article/30937/famous-novelists-symbolism-their-work-and-w...

Do the authors put that symbolism there intentionally or is it there because we're trying to find it? One English high school student went straight to the source(s).

Avid - that was my son's Facebook post today. Isn't it fun?

Yes! I love the English student's (and future English teacher's) audacity.

An article about how the period is becoming angry. I thought it was amusing.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115726/period-our-simplest-punctuation-mark-h...

And after perusing the comments I found this site:
http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/colons.asp

I never did understand rule number four. It has always looked so alien to me.

Rule 4
Use a colon instead of a semicolon between two sentences when the second sentence explains or illustrates the first sentence and no coordinating conjunction is being used to connect the sentences. If only one sentence follows the colon, do not capitalize the first word of the new sentence. If two or more sentences follow the colon, capitalize the first word of each sentence following.

Examples:
I enjoy reading: novels by Kurt Vonnegut are among my favorites.
Garlic is used in Italian cooking: It greatly enhances the flavor of pasta dishes. It also enhances the flavor of eggplant.

For those interested in Buddha, evidence towards dating him

http://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/unearthed-the-shrine-set-to-revolutionise-...

#23 I don't understand rule number 4 either, and I worked as a copy editor. I would have changed the colon to a semicolon in the first example and I would have rewritten the idiotic second example to something like "Garlic is used in Italian cooking to enhance flavor, in pasta dishes and eggplant, for example." That still isn't very elegant, but nobody in their right mind would write it the way it's given in that example.

I believe I remember most of what I was taught about the grammar of written English in elementary school, and I don't remember anything like that. So it might be some obscure nicety about which we should be thankful for its explication. But I also think that I've never seen it in practice. When I read I am not scouring what I read for sentence structure, but I would have stumbled over those examples.

I call "bogus."

Robert

Like you, rebecca, I would have edited those sentences to something less ridiculous.

I know I've seen people capitalize the first word after a colon but I've always changed that back to the lower case. Is there ever a case where we would capitalize the first letter?

Even Rule 6 I've never seen. I've only seen the comma used.

Rule 6
Use the colon to follow the salutation of a business letter even when addressing someone by his/her first name. Never use a semicolon after a salutation. A comma is used after the salutation for personal correspondence.

Example:
Dear Ms. Rodriguez:

I was taught Rule 6 in high school typing class, about 1964 ish. It was a colon for business letters, a comma was for personal, just as you say. That was in California.

I've seen the colon used in business letters. I also learned that in business letters all the paragraphs are flush left instead of indented, and that the signature block is also flush left. (This was from the book I taught myself to type with in high school in the late 60s/early 70s.) But who even writes letters anymore? (Rhetorical question; I do.)

I think you're supposed to capitalize the first word after a colon if the phrase is a complete sentence but I think it looks sill and I would probably change it too.

I'm such a grammar and punctuation geek -- I apologize for hijacking this thread.

Whence Lolita? Or what did Dorothy Parker have to do with it?

I have a goal of reading much of Nabokov one day, but I have thought, and that thought is slowly changing, that I would never read his Lolita.

Robert

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/pageviews/2013/11/peek-at-the-list-of-books-pre...

Barak Obama goes book shopping with his family. This is what they bought:

“Half Brother” by Kenneth Oppel
“Heart of a Samurai” by Margi Preus
“Flora and Ulysses” by Kate DiCamillo
“Jinx” by Sage Blackwood
“Lulu and the Brontosaurus” by Judith Viorst and Lane Smith
“Ottoline and the Yellow Cat” by Chris Riddell
“Moonday” by Adam Rex
“Journey” by Aaron Becker
“The Lowland” by Jhumpa Lahiri
“Red Sparrow” by Jason Matthews
“Harold and the Purple Crayon” by Crockett Johnson
“A Constellation of Vital Phenomena” by Anthony Marra
“The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance” by David Epstein
“Collision Low Crossers: A Year Inside the Turbulent World of NFL Football” by Nicholas Dawidoff
“Ballad of the Sad Cafe: And Other Stories” by Carson McCullers
“My Antonia” by Willa Cather
“Ragtime” By E.L. Doctorow
“The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini
“Buddha in the Attic” by Julie Otsuka
“All That Is” by James Salter
“Wild: From Lost to Found On the Pacific Crest Trail” by Cheryl Strayed

I found this link to some very interesting maps on another group here on LT.

http://twistedsifter.com/2013/08/maps-that-will-help-you-make-sense-of-the-world...

Nice link that Rebecca!

>31 Nickelini: Neat! I too went to the bookstore this morning. :)

>31 Nickelini: Nice book haul, Mr. Obama! Now if we could only get him to join LT...

>32 rebeccanyc: Great link, Rebecca! McDonald's is achieving world domination on a scale that nearly matches the past British Empire.

Thanks for those links - what fun.

I loved the maps - great for teaching - MYSELF!

A town near where I live has a policy of no franchises, chain-stores and the like. That means no McDonald's!! Or any other chain restaurant. They do have fabulous local business support though, and wonderful restaurants and coffee shops.

Then those chains just build a square fort around the city limits. That really sucks. But we all know what to do about it, right? Today is small business Saturday here in the U.S.

I love map number 4 - the one of Pangea with superimposed modern international borders.

The New York Times has outed its 100 notable books of the year:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/08/books/review/100-notable-books-of-2013.html?re...

I don't know whether you have to identify yourself to read the list.

Robert

I was able to access the list right away. Thanks for posting.

After 13, men are different from women. Do we read differently?

Robert

Besides listing the notable books of the year, the New York Times lists the ten best:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/books/review/the-10-best-books-of-2013.html?sm...

Robert

http://bookriot.com/2013/12/05/give-someone-book-actually-want/

As a non-professional I enjoyed this.

That's a useful and funny article.

NPR mixes it up re: best-of-year book lists via its Book Concierge, an interactive offering of 200+ recommended reads that is “more Venn diagram-y than list-y.” Click on a category in the list down the left side, then click on another and another to further refine (tagmash) the results. (BTW that link goes to the main page, where you can see the whole list in alpha order by clicking the "List" button over toward the top right.)

Oh, that is very cool, MJ. I'll definitely come back to it after I work my through the LT threads.

"...'tis the season to read lots and lots of best of the year book lists - fa la la la la - la la la la..."

lol oh lord I love lists.

>48 Polaris-: ..."and realize I've not read any - la la la la la - la la la la!"

Not an article exactly but a collection of covers on Nelson Mandela's death assembled by the Guardian:

http://www.theguardian.com/media/gallery/2013/dec/06/newspapers-national-newspap...

In his greatness he was beautiful.

Robert

Thank you for that, Robert.

Here's something pretty lightweight and kinda fun, stereotypical readers:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/06/book-lover-stereotypes_n_4392221.html

Robert

I can't begin to tell you how many of those are absolutely true about me and other members of my family.

You are not alone, Colleen, here on LT! I nodded my head in agreement with many of them!

So true!

"What do you do for fun" reminded me of a potential mother-in-law questioning me about my hobbies. If only she'd asked me "What do you read?" Instead, she turned a blind eye to my passion. Luckily I got away.

Hm, I'm not a stereotype, apparently. I think only 3 applied to me in any way.

>57 ursula: Same here, the majority I didn't agree with.

My favorite was the one about always having a book with you, wherever you go.

At some periods of my life I've done that, but it's not always feasible. If I'm going out to run errands or the like, I won't be reading. I can't read in a bus/tram, it makes me motion sick, and once out of it I'll be walking around/doing what needs done. Not to mention books get awful beat up carrying them around all the time. I prefer to keep them safe, and only take them with me somewhere that I will surely have time to actually read.

The Christian Science Monitor tests whether you could make it to high school in 1912: http://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Family/2013/0812/1912-eighth-grade-exam-Cou...

The questions themselves are interesting -- some are things we no longer really care about.

>60 .Monkey.: The Kindle was such a great invention. I can keep it in my purse. It never forgets what page I am on, and it doesn't get beat up in my purse. :)

bah I hate ereaders! :P

>53 Mr.Durick:

Love it :) And at least half of them are so so true...

>60 .Monkey.:

After over forty years of air/motion sickness, I found wrist bands with a small wooden ball as a pressure point. If you put them on correctly, you can read without any motion sickness. Should be in a local pharmacy.

That's interesting. I always wondered if such things worked.

It's important to place the small wooden pieces more or less in the exact location described in the instructions.

We don't hear nearly enough about Miguel de Unamuno.

http://www.thesmartset.com/article/article12061301.aspx

Robert

#61 - So how did you score? I missed one (the settler of Maryland). I guess my education was pretty traditional.

#62 - I agree that the Kindle is great for reading on the go, even for those who can't carry it everywhere because we don't do purses. Anything I'm reading on my Kindle I can pick up instantly on my iPhone at the point I left off on my Kindle. That's great for unexpected delays like two days ago when my wife decided on the way home from a restaurant that her granddaughter needed a new shoelace, and it somehow took 45 minutes of shopping and two bags to get it home.

#69 I missed the Maryland settler too, as well as the RI settler and the last battle of the Civil war (guessed the wrong one between the two I was considering). I had no trouble with the math, grammar, and geography questions, and was able to figure out by the process of elimination some of the others.

51 Thanks Robert - that was wonderful.

I like reading on my phone.

oh my I only scored 65%. I misread two but guessed or used process of elimination for others so.......balances out to 65%. Oh brother.

Here's xkcd's What If? blog attempting to answer the question behind the great tragedy of my life: At what point in human history were there too many (English) books to be able to read them all in one lifetime?

Oh Bragan you've given me a headache! It was worth it tho - that was funny.

I got wonderfully lost in that website for hours, but came across the perfect explanation for LT book ratings:

That's a very cool website. I wish I had time to keep up with cool websites! (Other than LT, that is.)

The five-star rating is so true!

Yes, it makes me laugh out loud each time I look at it.

Found this interesting blog in among the Literary Snobs stuff - It's an appraisal of the best 2013 film posters. Some great design in here:

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/the-best-movie-posters-of-2013

That was fun Paul!

http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2013/12/oed-birthday-words/ - what word was invented in your birth year?

(Mine was 'internet', which really surprised me to know that it went that far back).

Ha, mine was "guilt trip," and my husband's was "chill pill." Seems oddly compatible. ;)

I was astounded to find mine was frenemy, which I thought was invented in the past five years or so, but with a different spelling it was used to describe the Russians in 1953!!!!! (W. Winchell in Nevada State Jrnl. 19 May 4/4 "Howz about calling the Russians our Frienemies?")

>83 rebeccanyc: Wow, interesting! Merriam-Webster says first known use 1977, and dictionary.com says the origin is 1975-80. Presumably they're going by the 2nd entry in that OED list, ignoring the earlier other spelling version. I knew the word was older than 5yrs, but I did figure it was the last couple decades at least, not the 70s or even 50s!

"Reboot" for me, apparently. Huh. There's a word that's turned out to be useful in all sorts of contexts. Odd to think of not having really had that concept before I was born.

"Beat poetry". I come ready-dated.

Mine is "blast-off." Need I say more about my age group?

Need I say more about my age group?

Only that I'm in it, because "blast-off" was my word too.

"chill pill". Weirdly enough, I cannot think of a single time when I had used that expression... :)

I got "cyberculture". Again, surprised that word is 50 yrs old.

"Computernik"?!?!

Uh-oh! Mine is 'guilt-trip' as well. Okay, okay, I'll call my mum NOW!!

A timeline of future events as predicted by speculative fiction. It's a really complicated visualisation but gets a lot of information in.