I concede the novel has detractors, but I found the writing very clever.

Changes are coming this year to the website. In the meantime several thousand definitions have been updated since last October.

Over four months have passed since any updates to the website, so this is long overdue. The Yellow Wallpaper is a short, well-written, easy read with an interesting history. Enjoy!

At the same time the police in Minneapolis, New York, Louisville, Atlanta, and San Antonio remind us what “normal life” in the United States of America actually means: racist police dressed in combat fatigues attacking peaceful civilians. Suddenly escape to a deserted island does not sound too bad, and Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe seems to fit the bill. It offers something for everyone: Racist police will appreciate the racism in the book while the rest of us can focus on the escapism. (Message to Bill DeBlasio: Do the right thing and fire the entire New York police force.)

We will add to the Robinson Crusoe vocabulary list as more terms are found.

We applaud the school board’s decision—there is no better way to make a book popular than to ban it. (At least we assume that was their goal since nobody could be so stupid as to not realize that will be the result. Sneaky.)

It is a fantastic book, and to help with some of the vocabulary and the obscure people mentioned in the book we released the vocabulary list today, broken down by category as usual.

Last month I finally got around to reading Pride and Prejudice (it was the only book on the home page which I had not read). It is boring, it is tedious, and it is by far the worst book I have read in years. FWIW my wife strongly disagrees with my opinion, but I cannot, in good concience, leave that book on the main page. Its replacement is Rebecca, a romance novel set roughly 100 years later than Pride and Prejudice. The novels have many things in common, but the most critical difference is that Rebecca is NOT BORING.

With most of the world in some state of panic over the coronavirus, no book seems more apropos than The Stand—basically a prequel to Will Forte's TV series The Last Man on Earth. Know what I mean, happy crappy?

Ralph Ellison's 1952 novel and H. G. Wells' 1897 novella have little in common aside from the title—but just to make it confusing we released both vocabulary lists today. At less than 50,000 words, Wells' story about a man who literally turns invisible is a relatively fast and easy read. Ellison's novel is a deeper story about a man dealing with racism in America—a sombre topic which Ellison handles well by interleaving humor throughout. Both books are classics of their genre.

If you are curious about the cutting edge of Elizabethan era medical science there is no better source than Ambroise Paré. He delves into a broad range of topics; including anatomy, physiology, dentistry, pathology and surgery. While not the most medically sound, the physiology and pathology portions may be the most fascinating:

• where does phlegm come from? (excess CSF from the brain)
• Where does menstrual blood flow after menopause? (varicose veins)
• Where does breast milk come from? (converted from blood)
• What causes syphilis? (God's punishment for “lascivious lusts of unpure whore-mongers”)

Others may find his descriptions of treatments and surgury the most interesting as they are more factual (even if not always helpful). Trust us, adjusting to the obsolete “long s” (ſ) character does not require much effort.

As this is an ouevre we will continually add to this vocabulary list as we find more words. Our current vocabulary breakdown is here.

There will likely be changes to both the font settings interface and the font selections over the coming months, so consider this version 0.9. Some of the font selections include DejaVu, Open Sans, Source Sans Pro and Open Dyslexic. When a non-default font is selected, a secure cookie is set in your browser—we do not log these cookies. Click here to access the font selection dialog.

Note that these font settings will have no effect if they are overridden by your browser’s settings, such as font overrides or not allowing cookies.

Americanah is not just a great novel, Chimamanda Adichie gives us insights into how outsiders view America (and England) while simultaneously providing a glimpse into modern Nigerian culture that is more refreshing than the dated (and slanted) views of Africa found in most classic literature.

The vocabulary breakdown is here.

Not long after the first submarines were invented, Jules Verne already imagined a rogue captain using one to terrorize ships. We may have gone somewhat overboard in covering every artist mentioned in the book (Captain Nemo’s ship featured paintings by various famous artists) but we kept to our creed: if it’s mentioned, it’s fair game.

The vocab breakdown is here.

It may not be a literary classic, but this 1998 Coen brothers film is definitely a cult classic—and we like it. Some people may find the movie offensive as the characters drop the occasional F-bomb. (The word itself makes some people uncomfortable. Fuck.)

While the vocabulary is not exactly challenging, the vocab breakdown is here.

After writing The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde was maligned, persecuted, and proscecuted for writing it; now it is heralded as a classic. During Oscar Wilde's trial it was revealed the esoteric À Rebours was the book which played a central theme in his novel, so of course we are posting these two controversial books on the same day.

Word lookups for vocabulary words containing punctuation are much faster now.

Moby Dick is somewhat of a strange book (even by Herman Melville's description) but some readers love it. The vocabulary is more difficult than many 19th century novels, so it helps to brush up—especially on nautical terminology. Our complete Moby Dick vocabulary breakdown is here.

It's been a few years in the making, but ajvocab.com finally launched. We know, you've all been waiting with bated breath—wait no more. Perhaps some of you didn't know about the website launch because today (being black Friday) the story got buried underneath sensationalist nonsense about holiday shoppers fighting over talking kewpie fitbits...or whatever the latest toy craze may be.

There are still bugs, errors, gremlins, and other issues, but we had to cut the cord eventually. Aside from bug fixes and minor updates we are taking December off; next year we will start adding more content.

—November 29, 2019