Anecdotal Evidence

“Style means the necessary word. The rest matters little.”   I sometimes conduct an informal test on a piece of prose that either pleases ...

“The words you see are all there is worth seeing.”   Adagia are maxims, proverbs, the root of our current word, adage . It entered Englis...

“This day proving wet, we should have passed our time very uncomfortably, had we not found in the house two chests of books, which we eagerl...

Readers often ask interesting questions. One wrote on Tuesday to say he enjoyed the “great variety” of writers and books I write about at An...

On August 23, 1939, Hitler and Stalin agreed to the secret non-aggression Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The Germans invaded Poland from the west ...

The stuff starts as white powder at the bottom of a one-gallon plastic jug. Add lukewarm water to the line, shake vigorously. Add a thoughtf...

Fifty-one years ago I was working as a clerk in Kay’s Books in downtown Cleveland, perhaps the best job I ever had though my six-day-a-week ...