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Due to circumstances I’m about to start listening to a lot more audiobooks, and I’m looking for recommendations within a few criteria: [more inside]
posted by ejs at 7:44 PM - 18 answers

Looking for engrossing, moving memoirs and novels about becoming middle-aged, but not about marriage or parenting/children. What's your favorite? [more inside]
posted by cboggs at 10:34 PM - 7 answers

I would love to find a memoir I read in the late 70’s written by a European man in Africa who became known for being able to rid villages of black mamba snakes. There was much more to the book, but the snake wrangling was memorable. Or maybe I’m conflating more than one book? Thank you.
posted by Gusaroo at 3:11 PM - 3 answers

It's driving me nuts. I think the word starts with a P like “prospective” but that's not it. When you reconstruct a skull from a few fragments, build out a face from a skull or age someone 20 years. What's it called?
posted by brachiopod at 4:05 PM - 37 answers

In Nicholas Nickleby, Lord Frederick Verisopht has a class accent that's transcribed as though it had very drawn-out "a" sounds (e.g. "ma-ake," "pa-ack"), which I assume is the same as the "aristocratic drawl" one sees referenced elsewhere. I tend to imagine this sounding like one of the the "broad" English peasant accents from the West or the North , but that can't be right. Can anyone suggest what this accent is actually supposed to sound like, and what the closest YouTube-able version would be today? Other examples inside. [more inside]
posted by Bardolph at 7:05 PM - 10 answers

It’s about men and women. The bulk of the poem is about how men and women are basically incompatible, then the last line is something like “the cars drive by, each one containing a man and a woman”. I read it years ago, so it’s not new. Thanks!
posted by Joan Rivers of Babylon at 11:51 AM - 0 answers

Do you know any con-artist theives’ cant? Or resources for it? Like, at the end of Heist, when Gene Hackman says the plan was “cute as a Chinese baby,” and this clearly means something significant to Rebecca Pidgeon’s character, but the actual meaning goes over the audiences head. [more inside]
posted by Hoenikker at 8:14 AM - 13 answers

The sentence is "...but in many circumstances psych patients can stay in the emergency department for a prolonged period of time." Can't i just say "prolonged period" without losing anything? Thanks!
posted by BadgerDoctor at 10:50 AM - 27 answers

I'm staying at a hotel in Paris, and I've tried to use the 'Do not disturb' sign to indicate that there's no need to make up my room, but housekeeping is still doing so anyway. Rather than bother reception about it, I'd like to leave a note that says 'There's no need to clean or tidy the room, but I would appreciate a change of towels. Thank you.' Do you know how to write this in French? Many thanks!
posted by Panthalassa at 4:39 AM - 6 answers

After more than a decade (with stops and starts), I've finished reading all 35 volumes in Gardner Dozois' series of short story anthologies, "The Year's Best Science Fiction." Whew! Along the way, I've bookmarked all the stories I enjoyed most and ranked the authors who've come up most often. I'd love your suggestions for any works (of any length) by these folks that I should check out. List inside! [more inside]
posted by DavidNYC at 8:18 AM - 33 answers

I hear the words "grift" and "grifter" thrown around a lot these days. I know it roughly means "crook" - the act of obtaining something illegally. My question is - I've observed the use of this word as also having connotations of cashing in on current trends/situations in an opportunistic fashion. Has the word "grift" actually developed that connotation, and if I want to emphasize the fact someone is specifically "cashing in" on a trend or movement, what word conveys it most succinctly? [more inside]
posted by Seeking Direction at 9:59 AM - 29 answers

Everybody says Octavia Butler is a visionary feminist SF writer. I vaguely remember reading some of her work aaaages ago (probably the Patternist series or parts of it), and not getting that vibe at all... like, it was all about men? [more inside]
posted by inexorably_forward at 12:59 PM - 19 answers

Help me find a missing piece of ridiculous short fanfiction. [more inside]
posted by socktopus at 10:18 PM - 4 answers

I haven't been able to get a hold of the English translation of Philippe Sollers' "Drame" (1965). Does anybody have it and could check how is the word "manqué" translated into English? It's already on the first page, the final word of the first passage. As far as I know, the text has been published both as "Event" and "Drama". Thank you!
posted by sapagan at 6:48 AM - 8 answers

Someone recommended a short story a couple of years ago, and now I can't find it. I'd rather not reach out to that person. Things I recall, but may no be iron-clad accurate: Written by Henning Mankell, it involved a boy, a spoon, and maybe something about poverty. Ring a bell?
posted by Cobalt at 10:09 AM - 3 answers

So close to beating my SpellTower score, and I’ve been stuck on this left column. Can you help? A few notes inside. [more inside]
posted by mermaidcafe at 5:53 PM - 6 answers

I am going through a difficult time and desperately need some light, undemanding, contemporary, funny fiction to get my mind off things. Last week I reread the entire Adrian Mole series over the course of a few days, and it was exactly what I needed. Can you recommend me anything in that vein, but more current? I'm out of the loop with regards to comic literature. [more inside]
posted by unicorn chaser at 4:50 PM - 23 answers

A few friends and I have been reading books together for the past few years. We keep an ongoing list of potential future reads, but given the current situation in the U.S., much of what’s on our list—and what we’ve read in the past—feels a bit too close for comfort and we are putting on the back burner for the time being. [more inside]
posted by nanook at 10:10 AM - 21 answers

When two different objects have the same name in a language e.g. straw for animals and a straw to drink out of, it's a homonym (or in this case homograph). How is it that other languages also use different words for the same pairs? For example in French, paille and paille meaning drinking straw and dried grass too.
posted by socky_puppy at 1:48 PM - 9 answers

I'm looking for poetic/metaphorical ways to refer to the day of the week Sunday. Like 'a day of rest'. Preferably not overtly religious like 'the day of the Lord'.
posted by falsedmitri at 10:47 AM - 14 answers