Reading in Reykjavík

Originally published in November 2004, in 2 parts. Book 38 in my first 52 books challenge Author: Daniel Pool Year published: 1993 Pages: 416 Genre: Social history, reference Where got: Amazon.co.uk I’ve read quite a number of novels set in 19th century England, and have often asked myself certain questions about the stories. One of those questions was “why did Mr. Darcy hand-deliver his letter to Elizabeth - surely he could have sent a servant with it?”( Pride and Prejudice ) and another formulation of the same question was “why did Elinor think Marianne and Mr. Willoughby were engaged just because Marianne sent him letters?”( Sense and Sensibility ). I had also wondered about certain social rules, like the order of precedence, which titles belonged to the nobility and which to the gentry, what was the definition of a gentleman, and when was the “season” and the “little season”. In all of these cases I could make educated guesses, based on the text and other books I had re...

Originally published in 3 parts, on March 28 to April 3, 2004. Book 10 in my first 52 books challenge. Entry 1: Full title: The Wordsworth Book of Intriguing Words: The insomniac's dictionary of the outrageous, odd and unusual Author: Paul Hellweg Published: 1986 (as The Insomniac’s Dictionary ) Where got: University Student Bookstore Genre: Dictionary, glossaries I'm studying for exams and writing final essays for the next three weeks, so during that time I'm going to review some of the reference books I use in my field of study. To make it more fun, I'm going to pick some of the more unusual reference books in my library. As a student of translation I am naturally interested in etymology, semantics and semiotics. This book is not only a nice way of finding unusual words, their meanings and origins, but it is also quite short for a dictionary and fun to read. Entry 2: Being a confirmed logolept, I like to collect words, and this dictionary was a windfall for me be...