WORD OF THE WEEK Publique Deposited
BIBLIOPHAGE
The E-Sylum: Volume 3, Number 25, June 18, 2000, Article 4
WORD OF THE WEEK: BIBLIOPHAGE
Another email newsletter which may be of interest
to E-Sylum subscribers is A.Word.A.Day, available at
this address: http://www.wordsmith.org/awad/index.htmlThe newsletter's current theme is words about booklovers,
and for fun we'll publish some in the next few E-Sylum
issues. Here's the first one:"bibliophage (BIB-lee-uh-fayj), noun
An ardent reader; a bookworm.
[Biblio- book + -phage one that eats.]
"A thousand facts crowd the mind of the bibliophage narrator
who recites fragments -- proper names, book titles, writefly
quirks--at a dizzying clip."
Sybil Steinberg, et al., PW's best books, Publishers Weekly,
Nov 1996.So many books, so little time! Do you find yourself muttering
these words as you browse the shelves in a library or a bookstore?
Rest assured, you are not alone in your love of books. It was the
Dutch writer Desiderius Erasmus who once said, "When I get a
little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes."This fondness for books subsumes a wide range. At the extreme,
books have been ascribed as the motive behind murders (Don
Vicente, a Spaniard killed as many as eight people to acquire a
book in 1836), and there have been thieves who steal only books
(Stephen Blumberg of the US, stole precious books worth
millions of dollars from hundreds of university libraries during the
1970s and 80s, all for his own pleasure, not for resale)."- 2000-06-18
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