Category: More Words

An add on to what we discussed in our podcast episodes. Anytime we have something that didn’t quite fit, or maybe would have been a little too boring for an audio program, it might find a home here.

August 22, 2025

Reading Sherlock Holmes in 2025

Recently on the podcast we covered The Hound of the Baskervilles. This was my co-host’s first Holmes story and he was unimpressed. I mentioned on the podcast that if I had known he had never read any Holmes story before that I would have recommended that he choose a different one. I have read every Sherlock Holmes story ever published...

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July 30, 2025

Technical Problems

You may have noticed that the blog has a new look and that many of the posts (all of them prior to July 30, 2025) have broken image links. We had a bug that caused our wordpress install to grind nearly to a halt. We had to do a complete reinstallation to fix the issue. I had a back up...

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July 16, 2025

Extra Nate: What More Can I Even Say About The Futurological Congress?

It’s Extra Nate! This week I have to write a long-overdue blog about the Futurological congress or I Ben will make me run a mile. So what can I say? Nothing. The end. Okay, fine. These blogs are about supplemental material to the book rather than a book review or a rehash of the podcast anyway. So what can I...

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July 13, 2025

A Theory About Why Ash Harms Fey in ACOTAR

In Sarah J Maas’s books, Ash wood is the only weakness the fey have that humans are able to exploit. Maas has yet to offer an explanation for why this material, of all substances on Earth, can disrupt the fey’s supernatural healing abilities. Anyone who listened to our recent episode on A Court of Mist and Fury will know that...

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July 6, 2025

Extra Nate: Oblivion is Mid

Welcome Moon and Star. I have provided a place for you. This week we’re talking about Morrowind’s Inferior Sequel’s book: Oblivion. But why is Oblivion the inferior sequel? Also let’s address another question: why is Oblivion an inferior prequel? Yes that’s right. There are 3 Elder Scrolls games in the mainline series that are worth talking about and Oblivion is...

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July 1, 2025

Extra Nate: What is a Locked Room Mystery

Hello, my name is Nate. Welcome to my original blog post idea. After reading You Are Fatally Invited by Ande Pliego, I got to thinking. What even is a locked room mystery? Because whatever that was, that wasn’t it. Looking at Wikipedia (as my original source didn’t even list “locked room mysteries” as a subgenre and is thus wrong) there...

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June 22, 2025

Extra Nate: AITA for disowning my daughter

I (F67) have recently had to disown my oldest daughter (F40) because she is a hateful, hurtful child. I raised her and her three siblings all by myself while they grew up. I kept them clothed and fed and sheltered. Yet when she looks back at her childhood she doesn’t think of the time I was able to get her...

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June 15, 2025

A Very Special Blog Post (Yaya Sisterhood)

Content Warning: Alcoholism, Child Abuse Younger listeners may not know this, but in the 90’s there was a phenomenon of “Very Special Episodes” where ordinarily funny sitcoms would tackle a very heavy and serious topic. These episodes were gut punches that came out of no where and everyone felt terrible afterward. That got me thinking, for no reason in particular,...

More Words Comment: 1

May 18, 2025

Five Years of Words About Books and Thrawn

I am older than I was 5 years ago. I suppose most of us are. It’s strange to me to remember that there was a time before Words About Books. Believe it or not, working on this has become a part of my daily routine. Literally every day I am either recording, editing, reading, or writing something for this project....

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May 5, 2025

What is a Locked Room Mystery?

This is going to contain major spoilers for You Are Fatally Invited by Ande Pliego (and to a lesser extent And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie). It’s not a bad book and this is a rare case where spoilers will affect how much you’ll enjoy it. If you plan to read it at all, please read the book...

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Ben's books

The President Is Missing

by Bill Clinton

Where to start with this book? Should I talk about how I don't believe that either James Patterson or Bill Clinton actually did much of the writing? Should I talk about how Bill Clinton is spending his retirement creating Bill Clinton fa...

A Court of Mist and Fury

by Sarah J. Maas

I thought this was pretty ok. I'm team Night Court. I really enjoy that Feyre is getting to have a hipster phase with the cool kids in a fancy Bohemian city. I dont even mind that she has all the super powers, I thought that would bug me...

The Infernal City

by Greg Keyes

I don't often do this, but I'm going to engage in a controversial DNF review. I'm fairly confident that being forced to read every word of the rest of it would only lower my score. I made it about half way through Part 1 of the audio boo...

Beowulf: A New Translation for Oral Delivery (Hackett Classics) by Dick Ringler (1-Oct-2007) Paperback

Beowulf: A New Translation for Oral Delivery (Hackett Classics) by Dick Ringler (1-Oct-2007) Paperback

by Unknown Author

I've read a few translations of Beowulf, and the only thing that's really missing from this one is the original language text. Ringler does a pretty good job of the translation itself. He includes very solid explanation and context as well.

Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

by Rebecca Wells

I'm neither a mother nor a daughter so take this with a grain of salt, I guess. Siddalee is a famous stage director who stages a hit play. She's interviewed for a New York Times article. When asked about her childhood she accidentally pr...

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