2107 Curious Word Origins, Sayings and Expressions
This enormous collection of almost one thousand pages contains the four previously published bestselling titles, A Hog on Ice, Thereby Hangs, A Tale, Heavens to Betsy! and Horsefeathers. How did the expression "a wild goose chase" originate? Why does the word "dunce" come from the great philosopher, Duns Scotus? Dr. Funk has taken these and over 2000 other curious words, expressions and sayings that we use in our daily speech and traced them back through the years to find their amusing, practical and surprising origins. These sayings are derived from classical sources, historic events, famous literature, frontier humor and the frailties of mankind.
In this latest thriller from perennial bestselling author James Patterson, Washington cop Alex Cross gets involved in his partner's effort to save the life of an old Army buddy who's facing execution for a horrendous and inexplicable murder spree in North Carolina. The Army's evidence against Sergeant Ellis Cooper, a decorated Vietnam vet, is overwhelming, which isn't surprising since it's all been planted by a quartet of killers whose reason for framing the erstwhile hero isn't revealed until long after they are.
Combining southern warmth with unabashed emotion and sidesplitting hilarity, Fannie Flagg takes readers back to Elmwood Springs, Missouri, where the most unlikely and surprising experiences of a high-spirited octogenarian inspire a town to ponder the age-old question: Why are we here?
Percy Darling, 70, the narrator of Glass's fourth novel, takes comfort in certitudes: he will never leave his historic suburban Boston house, he is done with love (still guilty about his wife's death 30 years ago), and his beloved grandson Robert, a Harvard senior, will do credit to the family name. But Glass (Three Junes) spins a beautifully paced, keenly observed story in which certainties give way to surprising reversals of fortune. Percy is an opinionated, cantankerous, newly retired Harvard librarian and nobody's "darling," who decides to lease his barn to a local preschool, mainly to give his daughter Clover, who has abandoned her husband and children in New York, a job.
