Corporeity (noun) (rare)
kor-por-ree-it-ee
The quality of having a physical body or existence.
Early 17th century: from French corporéité or medieval Latin corporeitas, from Latin corporeus ‘composed of flesh’, from corpus, corpor- ‘body’.
Mike Barker, director of Outlander and The Handmaid’s Tale has been hired for the project, to tell the story of a young boy named Jack Sawyer and his quest through a monstrous dimension to find the mystical title object that might cure his dying mother, and even save two worlds in the process.
Gambit (noun)
gam-bit
An act or remark that is calculated to gain an advantage, especially at the outset of a situation.
(in chess) an opening move in which a player makes a sacrifice, typically of a pawn, for the sake of a compensating advantage.
Mid 17th century: originally gambett, from Italian gambetto, literally ‘tripping up’, from gamba ‘leg’.
The heartbreaking All the Light We Cannot See is set in World War II and tells the parallel stories of a French girl, who is blind, and a German boy. Marie-Laure and her father escape Paris to a seaside town when the Nazis arrive, carrying with them a precious jewel. Meanwhile German ophan, Werner is a self taught radio expert who is enlisted by the Nazis to use this ability against the French Resistance. As they both try and survive the devastation of the war, their lives collide in spectacular fashion.
Rumour was that Jim Kay was struggling to finish in time, given the length of the later books. If true it’s not great news as it means that it’s likely to be an ongoing problem as the books get longer.
Yokel (noun)
yo-kl
An uneducated and unsophisticated person from the countryside.
Early 19th century: perhaps figuratively from dialect yokel ‘green woodpecker’.
To date, Caryl Phillips has written more than a dozen novels, historical fiction and plays. Today we’re going to bring attention to some of those works with some quotes and the books they come from.
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Earlier this month the 2019 longlist for the Women’s Prize for Fiction was announced and we have that featured below. Coming up on April 29th will be the shortlist and we’ll bring you that as it happens, then the winner will be announced on June 5th.
Here’s that longlist and what a great list of books we have this year.
Welshcomb (verb)
wel-sh-coam
To comb (the hair) using the thumb and fingers; to make (a person) ready in this way.
1920s; earliest use found in James Joyce (1882–1941), writer.
Grockle (noun)
grok-el
A holidaymaker, especially one visiting a resort in Devon or Cornwall.
An invented word, originally a fantastic creature in a children’s comic, adopted arbitrarily and popularized by the film The System (1964).