Dictionary Day, Giant Tortoises, Cheese Train, Haunted House Books & More: Endnotes 16 October

Every Friday, we celebrate the weekend — and all the reading and relaxing and daydreaming time ahead — with Melissa's favorite book- and travel-related links of the week. Why work when you can read fun stuff?!

This post is part of our Endnotes series.

Huzzah! Today is National Dictionary Day, a celebration of Noah Webster (‘father of the American dictionary’) and the wonder of words. Or, more specifically, the magic of documenting their meanings. Webster was born in Connecticut on 16 October 1758 — when the American colonies were in the midst of theFrench and Indian War. By the time Webster was 43, the colonies had declared independence from Great Britain, and the lexicographer was convinced American students shouldn’t have to use British textbooks. He wrote A Grammatical Institute of English Language — the primary source for spelling and grammar in the US — and started his work on the first American dictionary. He then turned his attention to An American Dictionary of the English Language; according to the Merriam-Webster website, Webster learned 26 languages to help him write his dictionary. When it was completed in 1828, 25 years after it was begun, the book contained nearly 70,000 words. Today, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary includes about 225,000 terms that are updated annually. Here are some very specific (and fun) dictionaries to explore: The Positive Lexicography Project, an index of ‘untranslatable’ words related to wellbeing from across the world’s languages. The Dictionary of Victorian Slang so you can sprinkle conversation with phrases like got the morbs and mafficking and mentasentil (see page 175). And the Time Traveler archive, which documents the new words added to the dictionary each year. (The year I was born gave us morning breath, word processor, and mindf*ck.) For two novels in which dictionaries play a major role, I loved The Great Passage by Shion Miura (translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter) and The Sentence by Louise Erdrich.

• I think this will be divisive! Would you cut up your big books to make readable volumes? (I would!)

• Also potentially divisive: Every Jane Austen Screen Adaptation Ranked. ‘To our minds, Jane Austen adaptations should be reasonably close to the text, preserve a fair bit of her snappy dialogue, and recreate that sense that we’re entering a more charming, more genteel world than today’s one – it’s the escapism we all need right now, after all.’

• Tangentially related: This is an interesting explainer about bestselling books whose screen adaptations were never made. So many favorites on this list — The Night Circus_, Circe, Mexican Gothic, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay!

• Here’s a free tool to make a grid of nine books you love. My picks for today (subject to change any time):

• Delightful! Scientists Discover 180,000 Giant Tortoises on One Seychelles Island.

• The garments in the Garden of Ethereal Realms: Guo Pei Costume Art Exhibition at the China National Silk Museum in Hangzhou, China, are stunning. One of the gowns almost looks like an open book.

• Kudos to our friend Michael (of Michael and Brent are Going Places) for bringing such positive attention to his local food bank.

• 14 Mesmerizing Mazes and Labyrinths on Atlas Obscura.

• Two words: Cute dogs.

• I cannot improve on this headline: Thieves Pulled Off Another Shocking Art Heist in France. This Time, They Took a 330-Pound Bronze Book Cover Designed by Salvador Dalí.

• Train + cheese = happiness.

• Sorta related: The Man Hiking the World in Search of Rare Cheeses. ‘…deliciousness is cultural. It’s taught. So, I always say: don’t try something once, try it 10 times. Uncomfortable foods open doors. But be sure to eat them because you’re interested in the culture, not because they’re freaky to you.’ More good news: He has a Substack!

• Have you noticed the way the internet killed the paragraph? ‘All this put some questions in my mind: Where do our ideas about paragraphs come from? And why does the internet-native paragraph work so differently from its traditional cousin?’

• 25 Haunted House Novels, from classic creaky houses to maniacal modern homes.

• Sorta related: I’ve Read 50+ Witch Books. These Are the Best.

• On the enduring appeal of Spider-Man, the tortured Hamlet of superheroes. ‘I believe the secret to the longevity of Spider-Man (as well as countless other superheroes) lies at the nexus of four qualities cultivated over many decades…’

• These blank journalsdesigned to look like Victorian science books are really lovely. (We have their passport covers, and they’re beautifully made.)

• I was curious about Music Against the Night by Yiyun Li, a historical novel about two musicians. Ron Charles review convinced me to add it to my TBR: ‘The symphonic nature of this novel — the elaborate movements that eventually resolve — is rapturous; the great upheavals of Europe in the early 19th century rumble in the bass line.’ Enjoy a sneak peek of the novel with this excerpt at LitHub.

Petition to bring back frequent use of ‘snuggery’ and ‘snugify.’

(See dictionary image above.)