Learning Strategies

Dot Block Diner

By ljd42 on April 21, 2026

Yay! The Dot Block Diner has finally opened! (Still waiting for Sweet Teez Bakery to open next door… but one out of two ain’t bad.) And they even have parking! Barbara and I enjoyed our lunch there today. Barbara had… Read More ›

Recent Posts

Where are the women?

By ljd42 on April 13, 2026

What is your typical stereotype of a model railroader? Let’s see… well… perhaps a retired white male introvert in his ’70s? In other words, me? As is the case with most stereotypes, there is actually a grain of truth to… Read More ›
Interesting address

By ljd42 on April 8, 2026
My front yard says that it must finally be spring!

By ljd42 on April 5, 2026
The story of classic crime in 100 books

By ljd42 on March 27, 2026

The longer you spend trying to decode this book title, the more confused you will be. You can probably think of six different interpretations before breakfast, depending on what you think story, classic, crime, and books might mean in this… Read More ›
First do no harm.

By ljd42 on March 24, 2026

Yes, I do know what they say about books and their covers. And I do love S.J. Rozan’s Lydia-Chin-and-Bill-Smith series. But I was still initially irritated as soon as I glimpsed the cover of the latest book in that series,… Read More ›
At Midnight Comes the Cry

By ljd42 on March 21, 2026

As you can see in the image below, that’s the title of a novel by Julia Spencer-Fleming. If you like having the context that you can get by reading previous books in a series, you may want to go back… Read More ›
Happy spring! Happy buck-a-shuck!

By ljd42 on March 20, 2026

According to Google AI, cioppino is “a hearty Italian-American seafood stew from San Francisco, made with a tomato and wine broth filled with a variety of fresh fish and shellfish like clams, mussels, shrimp, and crab, using whatever the “catch… Read More ›
Famous railway modellers

By ljd42 on March 16, 2026

Or railroad modelers, as we spell it on this side of the pond. I don’t know why the Brits have such problems with spelling two perfectly good words that we ’Murricans invented: railroad and modeler. Nonetheless, railroad modelers are of… Read More ›
Vance and Moore… back when both of them were younger

By ljd42 on March 11, 2026

Every day, it seems, I read something by or about two of our distinguished politicians: J.D. Vance and Wes Moore. Well, one of them is distinguished; the other is, well… what are the appropriate adjectives to describe someone who has… Read More ›
The Dry

By ljd42 on March 8, 2026

This is not a review. More of a warning, I suppose. The reason it’s not a review is that I can’t write one for a book that I didn’t finish, and I didn’t even come close to finishing Jane Harper’s… Read More ›
Picard: Welcome to the Sticks!

By ljd42 on March 6, 2026

No, no — not that Picard! Not Jean-Luc. I’m talking about the language called Picard, not the Star Trek character. You say you’ve never heard of that language? Well, read on… First, take a good look at the map below…. Read More ›
Taunton vs. Colmar?

By ljd42 on March 4, 2026

Several decades ago — at this point I don’t remember exactly how many — I was traveling in France and happened to stop in Strasbourg and Colmar because of recommendations in a guidebook. These two are not by a long… Read More ›
The Little Altar Boy

By ljd42 on March 2, 2026

No, not the song by that name, nor the TV series. What I’m reviewing here is the 2020 crime novel of that name, written by John Guzlowski. (Why, you ask, am I so late to read and review it? It’s… Read More ›
A special brunch at Tavolo

By ljd42 on March 1, 2026

As I enter my 80th year of life — and no, that does not mean that I’m 80; do the math again! — Barbara and I celebrated with a delicious brunch at our favorite local restaurant, Tavolo. Barbara had a… Read More ›
Time to snuggle

By ljd42 on February 23, 2026

Cassie and Barnaby say it’s time to snuggle together during the blizzard:
Death of the Party

By ljd42 on February 22, 2026

Take one part gothic thriller, two parts cozy mystery clichés, and three parts Agatha Christie, stir them all up and you get Carolyn Hart’s Death of the Party. It’s a serviceable combination of those components, but what stands out is… Read More ›
Everything you wanted to know about the Great Vowel Shift but were afraid to ask

By ljd42 on February 8, 2026

Odds are that you studied a European language back in high school — most likely Spanish or French, possibly German or Italian — and you quickly realized that the vowels in those languages are not pronounced as they are in… Read More ›
Streets of Minneapolis

By ljd42 on January 28, 2026
Definitely a bonded pair

By ljd42 on January 25, 2026

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