I’m not Kindle’s biggest fan, but it does have its good points. Of course, you can carry an entire library around with you in your pocket and always have something to read just about anywhere you can take your phone. But the point is really in the end to actually read, right? If I had a quarter for every Kindle book I picked up (on sale, to be sure) but haven’t yet read, I’d have about $23.75…enough for a few more Kindle books.
Seldom do I pick up a book at full price, but if I do, I’ll read it. So when someone recommended The Wilder Shores of Marx: Journeys in a Vanishing World, I felt compelled to shell out the whole $4 to make it happen (the hard copy is listed over $100 on Amazon – which means it’s only available from one of those crazy sellers).
And as I’ve mentioned in an earlier post, I’m really enjoying the book.
I’m not much for summarizing and reviewing though, but here’s another bonus with Kindle: the dictionary and highlight functions. I absolutely love that if I come across a word with which I’m unfamiliar or unclear on the meaning, I can simply highlight it and it’ll popup a dictionary entry for it. I’ll then highlight the word and that allows me to go back to it and review it later on the notes page. Of course it’s always helpful with context, and the good thing about Kindle is it will take it right to that word in the book if you’d like.
And Dalrymple is a gold mine for new words. I’ve collected a list so far, and although I’d seen some of them, I had to review. Most of these were new to me. I certainly hope I can learn and use some. I seldom do, but when I find a favorite, I try to work it in [see “higgledy-piggledy,” a word used in the “Extracts” portion of Melville’s Moby Dick, and much later by Berke Breathed in his comic strip Bloom County].
So here’s what I’ve found so far in The Wilder Shores. How many do you recognize?
| adumbrated | to produce a faint image or resemblance of; to outline or sketch. to foreshadow; prefigure. to darken or conceal partially; overshadow. |
| anodyne | not likely to provoke dissent or offense; inoffensive, often deliberately so. |
| antimacassar | a piece of cloth put over the back of a chair to protect it from grease and dirt or as an ornament. |
| autochthonous | (of an inhabitant of a place) indigenous rather than descended from migrants or colonists. |
| autodidact | a self-taught person. |
| avaricious | having or showing an extreme greed for wealth or material gain. |
| capacious | having a lot of space inside; roomy. |
| clement | (of weather) mild; (of a person) merciful. |
| contumely | insolent or insulting language or treatment. |
| ersatz | (of a product) made or used as a substitute, typically an inferior one, for something else. |
| febrile | having or showing the symptoms of a fever; having or showing a great deal of nervous excitement or energy (“a febrile imagination”). |
| gallimaufry | a confused jumble or medley of things. |
| groupuscule | a political or religious splinter group. |
| insouciance | casual lack of concern; indifference. |
| longueurs | a tedious passage in a book or other work. |
| meretriciousness | alluring by a show of flashy or vulgar attractions; tawdry. based on pretense, deception, or insincerity. pertaining to or characteristic of a prostitute. |
| perspicacity | the quality of having a ready insight into things; shrewdness. |
| prolixity | extended to great, unnecessary, or tedious length; long and wordy; (of a person) given to speaking or writing at great or tedious length. |
| prurience | having, inclined to have, or characterized by lascivious or lustful thoughts, desires, etc. |
| pullulating | breed or spread so as to become extremely common. |
| pusillanimity | lack of courage or determination; timidity. |
| reliquary | a container for holy relics. |
| rodomontade | boastful or inflated talk or behavior. |
| rutilant | glowing or glittering with red or golden light. |
| saurian | of or like a lizard. |
| simulacrum | an image or representation of someone or something. |
| turgid | swollen and distended or congested. |
There will certainly be more over time. I’ll never stop reading as long as I can, so I’ll never stop finding more words.