Dogberry Pages

Book Giveaway: Radio Shangri-La: What I Learned in Bhutan, the Happiest Kingdom on Earth

GaryPaulson — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 19:53:06 +0000

Title: Radio Shangri-La
Author: Lisa Napoli

I have 2 Advance Reader Copies of Radio Shangri-La: What I Learned in Bhutan, the Happiest Kingdom on Earth that I would like to give away. First call will go to folks in the Tri-Cities.

Leave a comment letting me know you would like a copy.

Tags: giveaway, Lisa Napoli, Radio Shangri-La

Vocabulary: fabulist – teller of fabulous tales

GaryPaulson — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 15:00:26 +0000

Title: Unbroken
Author: Laura Hillenbrand

Sentence: Ever a fabulist, he told investigators that Ofuna [prison camp] interrogators were “always kind to prisoners,” that he’d never seen a prisoner abused, and that prisoners rarely complained.
Page: 369

Word: fabulist
Definition:

A composer of fables.
A teller of tales; a liar.

Source: The Free Dictionary

You may look fabulous but don’t be a fabulist.

Tags: fabulist, Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken

Vocabulary: poleaxed – stunned, to say the least

GaryPaulson — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 07:41:01 +0000

Title: For the Win
Author: Cory Doctorow

Sentence:
He got three steps before two rocks caught him, one in the arm and the second in the face, a spray of blood and a crunch of bone and a tooth that flew high in the air as the boy fell backwards as if poleaxed.

He'd never had much use for art, but he'd been poleaxed by these ones.

Page: 276 & 317

Word: poleaxed
Definition:

to attack or fell with or as with a poleax (a long-handled battle-ax)

Source: YourDictionary.com

Interesting to find this ‘new to me’ word used both literally and figuratively in the book. I have not had much experience with battle axes but am betting my kids have in their virtual worlds.

Tags: Anne of Green Gables, Cory Doctorow, For the Win

Vocabulary: imperious – domineering and overbearing

GaryPaulson — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 14:00:45 +0000

Title: Unbroken
Author: Laura Hillenbrand

Sentence: It was the fighters, gunned by the B-29s, blowing up. The bombers flew on, imperious.
Page: 275

Word: imperious
Definition:

domineering in a haughty manner; dictatorial; overbearing: an imperious manner; an imperious person.
urgent; imperative: imperious need.

Source: Dictionary.com

I guess bombers can fly arrogantly but more likely they were impervious?

Tags: imperious, Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken

Vocabulary: balletic – just add ‘ic’ to make an adjective

GaryPaulson — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 02:12:49 +0000

Title: Radio Shangri-La
Author: Lisa Napoli

Sentence: Out of the airport and onto the eight-lane freeway we went, weaving through the balletic tangle of traffic.
Page: 206

Word: balletic
Definition:

adjective form of ballet

Source: YourDictionary.com

Thought this was some fancy new word only to find out it is just the adjective form of ‘ballet’

Tags: balletic, Lisa Napoli, Radio Shangri-La

Vocabulary: rictus – mouth wide open

GaryPaulson — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 14:00:10 +0000

Title: Unbroken
Author: Laura Hillenbrand

Sentence: When the bombs were falling, the Bird would snap, running through camp with his sword in the air, wailing at the men, foam flying from his mouth, lips peeled back in a wicked rictus, eyelid drooping, face purple.
Page: 276

Word: rictus
Definition:

the gape of the mouth of a bird.
the gaping or opening of the mouth.

Source: Dictionary.com

That is quite a rictus you have there….

Tags: Laura Hillenbrand, rictus, Unbroken

Vocabulary: tony – high toned manner

GaryPaulson — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 02:00:02 +0000

Title: The Inner Circle
Author: Brad Meltzer

Sentence: All cities have old money, Washington D.C. has old money, but it also has old power. And Oak Hill [Cemetery], which was tucked into one of the toniest areas of Georgetown and extended its sprawling 22 acres of rolling green hills and obelisk dotted graves deep into Rock Creek Park, was well known, especially by those who cared to know, as the resting place for that power.
Page: 257

Word: tony
Definition:

marked by an aristocratic or high-toned manner or style

Source: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/toniest

Definitely not the circles I run around in…

Tags: Brad Meltzer, The Inner Circle, tony

Vocabulary: namaste – greetings in Hindu

GaryPaulson — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 15:53:56 +0000

Title: For the Win
Author: Cory Doctorow

Sentence: He checked to see if he'd laid it on too thickly, decided he hadn't, grinned and namasted to her, just to ice the biscuit
Page: 213

Word: namaste
Definition:

a conventional Hindu expression on meeting or parting, used by the speaker usually while holding the palms together vertically in front of the bosom.

Source: Dictionary.com

Namaste is a combination of two Sanskrit words: nama meaning “to bow” and te meaning “you.”

Tags: Cory Doctorow, For the Win, namaste

Vocabulary: garrulous – trivially wordy

GaryPaulson — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 02:03:23 +0000

Title: Dead or Alive
Author: Tom Clancy
Author: Grant Blackwood

Sentence: Truth be told, he usually found most Americans quite tolerable, if a tad garrulous.
Page: 541

Word: garrulous
Definition:

excessively talkative in a rambling, roundabout manner, especially about trivial matters.
wordy or diffuse: a garrulous and boring speech.

Source: Dictionary.com

Now I have a word for the few garrulous folks I know.

Tags: Dead or Alive, garrulous, Tom Clancy

Quote: Turtles all the way down

GaryPaulson — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 16:03:31 +0000

Title: For the Win
Author: Cory Doctorow

Page: 153

There’s a saying from physics, “It’s turtles all the way down.” Do you know it? It comes from a story about a British physicist, Bertrand Russell, who gave a lecture about the universe, how the Earth goes around the Sun and so on. And a little old granny in the audience says, “It’s all rubbish! The world is flat and rests on the back of a turtle!” And Russell says, “If that is so, what does the turtle stand on?” And the granny says, “You can’t fool me, sonny, it’s turtles all the way down!” In other words, what lives under the illusion is yet another illusion, and under that one is another illusion again.

Tags: Cory Doctorow, For the Win, illusion, physics, turtles