Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Sextus Textuscriptus Anniversarius (6th Blog Anniversary)


You may know it as a blogoversary, but – and I’m reluctant to be so dogmatic, but – blogoversary is wrong.


Literally blogoversary means turning of the blog, but it does not indicate an annual event. You could have a blogoversary daily, monthly, hourly, every second Tuesday of months with no R, etc.


To indicate the annual reoccurrence of the date a blog was started, and to do it in Latin, cuz ya know – Latin is cool, we need…


Sextus = sixth, textum = web, scriptus = script (record, log), annus = year, verus = turning.


Sextus Textuscriptus Annversarius = Sixth web log annual turning, or Sixth blog anniversary.


Trust me; everyone’ll be saying it soon. Jump on the bandwagon now and be one of the cool kids before all the hipster bloggers join in.


Cuz ya know, COOL is what book bloggers are all about.


Six years ago this blog started out as my quest to read The 100 Greatest Novels of all Time. More about the quest HERE. I’m not quite finished with the quest – currently on book 87. I expect to be done with the original quest sometime next year, but probably not by this date.


The blog’s grown into much more than just the 100 Greatest Novels quest. I’ve been sticking mostly to novels in order to complete the quest, but once it is complete I’ve got a little over 1200 other novels to read, and then over there on the right 
a bunch of other TBR lists for: Tolkien, Shakespeare, Sherlock Holmes, Short Stories, Plays, Poetry, Epic Poems, Mythology & Folklore, Graphic Novels, and Presidential Biographies.


No, I will not complete these in this lifetime. Next lifetime? Maybe. I don’t know what the celestial library is like.


Now, a little riddle for you. It’s pretty easy.


This blog was originally called The 100 Greatest Novels of All Time. I changed it to The Once Lost Wanderer when I decided I wanted something more creative. The new name is derived from two poems: Amazing Grace by John Newton and All that is Gold Does not Glitter by J.R.R. Tolkien. Like Newton, I once was lost, but now that I am found I still like to wander, and as Prof Tolkien asserts “not all those who wander are lost”. I like to wander – through secret places of Middle Earth, imperial courts of Russia, plantations of the antebellum South, the inner sanctum of a mad scientist’s laboratory, deepest seas, farthest planets, and the occasional insane asylum.

The Riddle – can you name novels to which these wandering locations refer? (more than one possible answer for most)


Cheers



The Wanderer

4 comments:

  1. I will try because bookish challenges and riddles are also COOL! My choices are the more obvious ones, however.
    Middle Earth – only in Tolkien novels, my favorite is The Hobbit
    Imperial courts of Russia – I haven’t read it, but this does bring to mind War & Peace by Tolstoy
    Plantations of the antebellum South –Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, though there must be others set in this time period.
    The inner sanctum of a mad scientist’s laboratory – I will choose Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson for this one.
    Deepest seas – 20,000 Leagues under the Sea by Jules Verne, again there are probably others…
    Farthest planets – Dune by Frank Herbert
    The occasional insane asylum – Dracula by Bram Stoker

    Happy Blogversary and thanks for the fun!

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    1. all of your answers are correct of course, but you on three, I had something different in mind. Mad scientist, I was thinking of Victor Frankenstein, deepest seas - Moby Dick (differing connotation to "deep"), and insane asylum I was thinking One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Well done.

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