h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I am a bookworm. I always have a book to read sometimes more. Paper books and Kindle books. I don't always enjoy the books I read, but one that I enjoyed recently is 'Birdcage Walk' by Helen Dunmore. I had read some of her books before, but I think this is the best. It was also her last, because she died earlier this year.

'Birdcage Walk' is set in Bristol at the time of the French Revolution. Its message of the effect of political turmoil across Europe resonates today. The heroine, Lizzie Fawkes, is a headstrong young woman, whose mother is much involved in Radical politics. But Lizzie has married a property developer, John Diner Tredevant. He is a controlling husband, who believes Lizzie belongs to him and should do as she's told. As the French Revolution undermines his business, his behaviour becomes troubling and Lizzie faces danger.

The book is beautifully written -the language is not flowery but precise. The characters are so well drawn we believe in them wholeheartedly. And the book is also about history - about the people who contributed at the time but who have been largely forgotten. I recommend it.

Thanks for the recommendation! Sounds just like my kind of book!

Yes!

Where does the expression 'bookworm' come from, I wonder?

Perhaps from some kind of a worm, that devours books? Not a good worm to take on a day out to the library. Actual bookworms must be left at reception, although human bookworms may enter and stay all day.

Perhaps when books were made of vellum, they could attract worms. They wouldn't get far with a Kindle.

Wormholes in vellum are a persistent problem for palaeographers. They create 'lacunae', which is Latin for 'holes'. The problem is: what word was that the worm ate? It could change the whole meaning of the text. Munch, munch.

I have participated in long and intense discussions of such passages. People even write academic papers about them.

This lacuna in the Exeter Book wasn't caused by a worm, though: it was somebody dropping a piece of burning wood onto the manuscript, which caused increasing lacunae from folio 119 backwards...it messed up the reading of Riddle 70 by leaving out *one word*:

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.2307/2852029

Here's a Greek papyrus with a wormhole problem:

http://books.google.com/books?id=TiAcAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA27&lpg=PA27&dq=lacunae+wormholes&source=bl&ots=kve2uzUDNT&sig=E3-CodQLthq7H95GFSJCBTunqm8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiesPjZxMvXAhUojlQKHdLxDjwQ6AEISzAM#v=onepage&q=lacunae%20wormholes&f=false

It should be stressed that these are not the useful kind of wormhole - the ones which allow you to move from the Alpha to Gamma Quadrant instantaneously, thus avoiding years of interplanetary travel at warp speeds.

A very erudite posting!

Good word, erudite.

Ah yes, , Papyri. And that Exeter Book.

Of course! That other type of wormhole, the one connecting the Alpha to the Omega, via the Gamma Quadrant.

This is how mvp knows about the patterns, as seen from the Tenth Floor, which repeat in parallel universes. What??? Oh, sorry, I'm on the wrong thread.

Maybe I'm an really. That might explain a few things...