The detective story was invented by Edgar Allan Poe, but he wrote only four of them before he lost interest. The first “career” practitioner of the genre who is still important to us today is Arthur Conan Doyle. Agatha Christie, who began publishing detective fiction thirty-three years after Conan Doyle, elaborated upon the traditional rules of detective fiction, in sixty-six novels published between 1920 and 1983. According to a number of sources, her books have sold more than two billion copies, making her the most widely read novelist in history. Read more http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2010/08/16/100816crat_atlarge_acocella#ixzz0wQZZtXyQ

There were nine Friday the 13ths in 2009—the maximum possible in a year, at least as long as we continue to mark time with the Gregorian calendar, which Pope Gregory XIII ordered the Catholic Church to adopt in 1582. "You can't have any [years] with none, and you can't have any with four, because of our funny calendar," said Underwood Dudley, a professor emeritus of mathematics at DePauw University in Indiana, and author of Numerology: Or, What Pythagoras Wrought. The calendar works just as its predecessor, the Julian calendar, did, with a leap year every four years. But the Gregorian calendar skips leap year on century years except those divisible by 400. For example, there was no leap year in 1900, but there was one in 2000. This trick keeps the calendar in tune with the seasons. The result is an ordering of days and dates that repeats itself every 400 years, Dudley noted. As time marches through the order, some years appear with three Friday the 13ths. Other years have two or, like 2010, one. Richard Beveridge, a mathematics instructor at Clatsop Community College in Oregon, authored a 2003 paper in the journal Mathematical Connections on the mathematics of Friday the 13th. He noted the 400-year cycle is further broken down into periods of either 28 or 40 years. "At the end of every cycle you get a year with three Friday the 13ths the year before the last year in the cycle … and you also get one on the tenth year of all the cycles," he said. 2009, for example, was the tenth year of the cycle that started in 2000.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/08/100813-friday-the-13th-superstitions-triskaidekaphobia/
Note: We just returned from our Pacific Northwest vacation where we met actress, dancer and painter Adrienne King who played "Alice" in the 1980 film Friday the 13th. More information on the trip is coming.

Anagrams in Literature, Movies, and Beyond
Erewhon = Nowhere
The author Samuel Butler titled his satirical novel as an angram; incidentally, the word "nowhere" is a literal translation of the Greek utopia.
Dave Barry = Ray Adverb
Ray Adverb is a character in a book by Dave Barry, titled "Dave Barry In Cyberspace"
Gregory House = Huge ego, sorry
In the television series House, in the episode titled "Housetraining", the character Dr. House says his name, Gregory House, is an anagram for "Huge ego, sorry."
See many more at: http://wordsmith.org/anagram/literature.html

Japan's former capital city (Kyoto, A.D. 794-1868) and present capital city (Tokyo) names are anagrams of each other. http://wordsmith.org/anagram/odd.html

The original Kermit the Frog has been donated to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington. The muppet was donated by creator Jim Henson's widow Jane, along with nine other characters from the 1955 TV show Sam and Friends. Some of the other muppets in the collection include early versions of Cookie Monster and Oscar the Grouch. Henson's oldest puppet, Pierre the French Rat, was also donated. Jane Henson said the original characters provided five minutes of fun each night after the local news where they mostly mimed to popular music. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11094631

Feedback to A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
From: Joe Fleischman Subject: Moraine - Boulder Field at Hickory Run SP, PA
On the East Coast of the US, one of the most amazing and accessible examples of a glacial deposit is the Boulder Field at Hickory run State Park in northeast Pennsylvania. ncompassing about 16.5 acres, the boulder field is the remnants of a retreating glacier and collection of rocks from surrounding hillsides; all deposited in a valley.
From: Henry Miller Subject: moraine
Def: An accumulation of boulders, gravel, or other debris carried and deposited by a glacier.
Iowa's gold-domed capitol building commands a view of the city from the largest hill in Des Moines, a moraine of rock and soil collected by glaciers hundreds of miles north of Iowa and deposited here during the last ice age. This fact caused one local historian to observe that Iowa's state capitol sits on Canadian soil.
From: Frank Schorn Subject: Moraine
Moraine is a word familiar to the residents of the Queens neighborhoods Glendale and Woodhaven, which sandwich Forest Park, the third largest in New York City. Forest Park was formed by the cessation of the Wisconsin Glacier, which traversed the northeast about 22,000 years ago.