Monday, June 11, 2012

What Makes a Book Good?

I really enjoy reading.  I always have and I probably always will.  I was one of those children who sat near the classroom at recess and read a book.  While other kids were playing tether ball I was traveling toward the Misty Mountain, exploring Watership Down, and experiencing other interesting places.

One of the things that makes a book enjoyable, in my opinion, is its degree of challenge.  No, I don't mean that it's so boring to read it's a challenge to get through the entire thing.  I mean that the book challenges me to continually be looking up new words to learn their meanings and pronunciations.  I guess I just like words.

I just finished reading The Thorn Birds, which I really enjoyed.  It's kind of an epic story, not unlike Gone With the Wind.  Anyway, this book had me looking up words on nearly every page.  I really enjoyed it because I learned some great new words.  Want to see some of them?  Sure you do!

alacrity
anathema
arabesque
doyenne
garrulous
glaucous
goggomobile
herzchen
hove
inchoate
limned
lissom
nebulous
 

paucity
prevarication
pugnacity
punctilious
salaam
salubrious
shibboleth
sibilance
soutane
sybaritism
unprepossessing


2 comments:

  1. In college I habitually read with a dictionary next to me. If I was in the library, sometimes I would go so far as to pull out the Oxford English Dictionary to look at the origins of the word as well. Haha. I have discovered that I am a habitual learner. Having a Kindle/Kindle app has been fantastic for me, because I can just click on a word and the definition and history of it automatically pop up. Love it!

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  2. That is a really appealing idea (the Kindle app definition function). I'll have to consider that. :)

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