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Sunday, February 24, 2013

"Goblinproofing One's Chicken Coop"... "God's Doodle: The Life and Times of the Penis"...

"How Tea Cosies Changed the World"... "How to Sharpen Pencils"... "Lofts of North America: Pigeon Lofts"... "Was Hitler ILL?..."

I'm going to recommend "How to Sharpen Pencils," which actually has a subtitle, so it's "How to Sharpen Pencils: A Practical & Theoretical Treatise on the Artisanal Craft of Pencil Sharpening for Writers, Artists, Contractors, Flange Turners, Anglesmiths, & Civil Servants."

You're probably thinking what's the point?, but go to the link and check out the table of contents. I, for one am pleased to see a separate chapter on the wall-mounted, hand-crank pencil sharpener (though as long-time readers of this blog know, my personal "wall-mounted" pencil sharpener is mounted on a horizontal surface, so I'm concerned about whether the author recognizes that what he terms "wall-mounted" can indeed be rotated for attachment to a shelf or table-top)).

Also, there's an appendix: "Wines That Taste Like Pencils."

(And by the way, Hitler was not mentally ill and therefore fully responsible for his actions, according to"Was Hitler ILL?: A Final Diagnosis.")

(And here's "God's Doodle: The Life and Times of the Penis." Excerpt (displaying fact-filled but awkward prose): "The classical Roman term for penis was mentula, which one might think had a certain resonance equating as it does to 'little mind.' But eighteenth-century wordsmiths preferred the idiomatic penis, meaning tail, not just to mentula but to the most popular Roman slang of gladius, or sword — which as vagina meant sheath or scabbard, fitted nicely.")

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