Learning Strategies

Recent Posts - page 8

• What was the 2024 Word of the Year?

  By ljd42 on January 1, 2025

  

  Time’s up! Now that 2024 is over, what do you think was the Word of the Year (WOTY)? Actually, there are many possibilities, largely because many different organizations determine their own answer to that question. But you should first ponder… Read More ›

• Say “Happy new year!” in 27 languages, won’t you?

  By ljd42 on December 31, 2024

  That’s Afrikaans, Basque, Breton, Chinese (Mandarin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Latvian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Ukrainian, and Welsh, of course. https://youtu.be/iygnwZoxNHw

• The traditional mid-day Christmas dinner…

  By ljd42 on December 25, 2024

  

  …at Chau Chow today: Yum, yum!

• The Good Detective

  By ljd42 on December 23, 2024

  

  Sometimes you just have to trust your instincts. I had checked out a copy of The Good Detective from the library on the strength of the review in the New York Times, which said this: John McMahon is one of… Read More ›

• Accidence Will Happen

  By ljd42 on December 20, 2024

  

  The title is a pun — but it makes sense only if you know what linguists mean by the word “accidence.” Despite that limitation, Accidence Will Happen is very much a book for the general educated reader, not for the… Read More ›

• A close-up view of Neighborhood #2, PowerTown

  By ljd42 on December 18, 2024

  

  Slowly but surely (well, slowly at any rate) we continue our journey through the neighborhoods of Rose City, a.k.a. my model railroad layout. Keep in mind that all of it is a work in progress: I won’t keep waiting until… Read More ›

• The Grey Wolf

  By ljd42 on December 15, 2024

  

  Louise Penny’s 19th Gamache novel, The Grey Wolf, is a gripping mystery that raises as many questions as it provides answers. Clearly that fact bugs a vocal minority of readers — see below — but it’s just fine with me,… Read More ›

• Close to Death

  By ljd42 on December 13, 2024

  

  Close to Death is the fifth Hawthorne and Horowitz Mystery by Anthony Horowitz. Yes, you read that correctly: Anthony Horowitz is both the author and the co-protagonist of this series. That’s part of its charm. Of the books in this… Read More ›

• The Lady in the Silver Cloud

  By ljd42 on December 8, 2024

  

  If you want to read a New York–based mystery that’s funny without being frivolous, serious while still being amusing, try The Lady in the Silver Cloud, by David Handler. Although this novel is #13 in a series — the “Stewart… Read More ›

• Prostate cancer awareness

  By ljd42 on December 4, 2024

  

  A parody performed as an important public service by the wonderful Marsh Family, with music of course by Kurt Weill and words by members of the Marsh Family themselves: https://youtu.be/IkVLe_qI2dw?si=PMaz9T5ef6fNi3Hj (sorry about the ad — not my choice)

• Hallelujah (the movie)

  By ljd42 on December 2, 2024

  “If I knew where songs came from, I would go there more often.” So replied the late great Leonard Cohen in an apt twist on the answer to that annoying question everyone asks writers: “Where do you get your ideas?”… Read More ›

• Dinner at Henrietta’s

  By ljd42 on November 28, 2024

  

  Barbara and I just got back from the middle-of-the-day Thanksgiving dinner buffet at Henrietta’s in Cambridge (in the Charles Hotel, if you’re not familiar with it). Henrietta is a pig, by the way. No comment on that, please. This all… Read More ›

• Cloud Cuckoo Land

  By ljd42 on November 24, 2024

  

  Have you been fortunate enough to have studied ancient Greek theater (either in the original or in English translation)? You know which playwrights I mean — Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes. If those are all Greek to you, just keep reading…. Read More ›

• We solve murders.

  By ljd42 on November 21, 2024

  

  Richard Osman reassures us: “Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron and Ibrahim remain immortal.” I do feel reassured (despite the absence of the Oxford comma). I think. The issue, as I’m sure you’ve figured out, is that Osman’s new mystery novel does not… Read More ›

• A close-up view of Neighborhood #1, Center City

  By ljd42 on November 17, 2024

  

  As you know, if you’ve been following this blog, the semi-fictional Rose City is the locale of the model railroad that I’ve been constructing with the assistance of my friend Meredith. You may also recall that there are nine named… Read More ›

• Math for English Majors

  By ljd42 on November 14, 2024

  

  No, I was never an English major (although my mom was). I wasn’t even a math major (although I taught math for decades). But, as a linguistics major, I had entwining connections with both English and math, as linguistics intersects… Read More ›

• Developing the new development

  By ljd42 on November 11, 2024

  

  As we discussed last month, a new development is in store for Rose City: Rose City’s wealthiest real estate developer, J. Elon Mark Jorgensen — who happens to be the mayor’s brother-in-law, but that of course is just a coincidence… Read More ›

• “We need a little Xanax.”

  By ljd42 on November 7, 2024

  Click to listen.

• Says Who?

  By ljd42 on November 4, 2024

  

  My mom would have hated this book; I loved it. My dad, as a psychiatrist, would have had some thoughts about this family disagreement — but he would have kept quiet about it. (Apparently that’s the role of a Jewish… Read More ›

• Another Day’s Pain

  By ljd42 on November 2, 2024

  

  Two very different mysteries: K. C. Constantine’s Another Day’s Pain is quite a contrast to Maria DiRico’s The Witless Protection Program, which I recently reviewed. As Constantine’s mystery is dark, serious, and grim, it might seem strange when I say… Read More ›

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