Happy New Year. I just spoke to my father, & here is a small story about the act of speaking.
1/ I live & work with words as a writer, reader, & organizer of written work. My father, though not much of a writer, also loved words. At my childhood dinner table, the dictionary was a common companion. He would make me look up words I didn't know & we would talk about them. 2/

Now a break from your regularly scheduled political despair to bring you a BIBLIOGRAPHIC MYSTERY

Behold, the IBN – Index Bio-Bibliographicus Notorum Hominum: a completely nuts 300-volume compendium of biographical source references. zeller-verlag.de/ibn/241,de 1/ Now, granted I'm no humanities librarian, but I have never heard of this work. I discovered it in the Widener reading room, where I popped in to send some emails after a meeting at Harvard. 2/