AudioFile's Best Audiobooks of 2020  Search by all categories or choose a category.  https://www.audiofilemagazine.com/best-audiobooks-2020/ 

Damp, dimly lit, and decorated with skulls, chandeliers, and stuffed animals, this quirky drinking establishment is part of the extensive cave system cut into the soft sandstone upon which Nottingham is built.  Accessed via a dark and uninviting alley, through a heavily disguised door with a polished brass skull as a handle, a staircase leads into a basement beneath a 200-year-old building.  Along a corridor in this basement, a further series of rock-cut steps lead into the cavernous void beneath the city.  The final descent into the Lost Caves is by escort, as they have a strict maximum occupancy.  Here, 26 feet below the venerable old George Hotel, which has accommodated guests as diverse as Charles Dickens and Elizabeth Taylor, is a most unlikely gin palace.  When, why, and by whom these deep grottoes were excavated is unknown, however, they do appear to have been adapted for the purpose of storing and brewing ale on rock-cut ledges.  Instead of holding barrels of beer, these rock ledges now make a cosy cushion-strewn perch upon which gin and cocktail aficionados can sample the bar’s latest below-ground beverage creations.  https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-lost-caves-nottinghamshire-england 

A cedilla (from Spanish), also known as cedilha (from Portuguese, European  or Brazilian) or cédille (from French), is a hook or tail added under certain letters as a diacritical mark to modify their pronunciation.  In Catalan, French, and Portuguese, it is used only under the c (forming ç), and the entire letter is called, respectively, c trencada (i.e. "broken C"), c cédille, and c cedilhado (or c cedilha, colloquially).  It is used to mark vowel nasalization in many languages of sub-Saharan Africa, including Vute from Cameroon.  See table of diacritics in Latin & Greek at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedilla

"Alcohol is a word that you will not find in dictionaries of Classical Arabic.  In the final analysis, however, this word is of Arabic origin.  It is derived from the Arabic al-kuhl, which means 'kohl'.  When the Europeans became familiar with this substance in Andalusia, which was also used for medical purposes, they referred to it and gradually all other fine powders, and subsequently all kinds of volatile essences, as alcohol.  In Catalan, kohl is still called alcofoll.  Today, we thus have two Arabic words:  The one that started this development, i.e. al-kuhl, which still means 'kohl', and the loan word al-kuhul, which means 'alcohol'.  https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140124082656.htm 

During his leisure time, Mahinda Dasanayaka packs his motorbike with books and rides his mobile library—across mostly muddy roads running through tea-growing mountain areas—to underprivileged children in backward rural parts of Sri Lanka.  Having witnessed the hardships faced by children whose villages have no library facilities, Dasanayaka was looking for ways to help them.  Then he got the idea for his library on wheels.  He started his program called “Book and Me,” in 2017 with 150 books, and it has become very popular among the children.  “There are some kids who hadn’t seen even a children’s storybook until I went to their villages,” he said.  His collection includes about 3,000 books on a variety of subjects.  “Boys mostly like to read detective stories such as Sherlock Holmes, while girls prefer to read youth novels and biographies,” he said.  So far, he said, his program has benefited more than 1,500 children, as well as about 150 adults.  Apart from giving away books, Dasanayaka also speaks to the children for a few minutes, usually under a roadside tree, highlighting the value of reading, books and authors.  He then conducts a discussion on books the children have read, with the aim of eventually forming reading clubs.  https://tucson.com/ap/national/books-by-bike-sri-lankan-man-runs-mobile-library-for-kids/article_f60cf23e-4ab2-5026-a964-3aac579365c2.html

On December 22, 2020, the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference (SVWC) announced that American author, essayist, and fiction writer Barry Lopez has been awarded its inaugural Writer in the World Prize, which recognizes and honors a writer whose work expresses a “rare combination of literary talent and moral imagination, helping us to better understand the world and our place in it.”  The Award, established and funded anonymously by the board members of the SVWC, comes with a $20,000 cash prize.  “On every level, Barry Lopez is the ideal recipient for our first Writer in the World Prize,” said Robin Eidsmo, SVWC Executive Director.  “A writer full of curiosity and compassion, he has gifted us with words of optimism and of alarm about our planet and our need to protect it and each other.”  Over the past 50 years, Lopez has traveled the world—from the High Arctic to Antartica, from Oregon to Kenya—to bring us exquisite prose that illuminates our intense relationships and connections to the planet we inhabit.  He is the author of several books, including the now-classic Arctic Dreams, winner of the National Book Award, and Of Wolves and Men, a National Book Award finalist.  Rasheeda Saka  https://lithub.com/barry-lopez-has-won-the-inaugural-20000-writers-in-the-world-prize/ 

Steve Bannon, who frequently receives “very nasty” e-mails meant for the right-wing political operative, is a pharmacist and the chair of the select board in Great Barrington, a town of around seven thousand souls in the corner of the Berkshires where Massachusetts meets Connecticut and New York.  In October, 2020 more than three dozen epidemiologists, physicians, and statisticians, as well as a stray philosopher, published a report called the “Great Barrington Declaration.”  Sponsored by the American Institute for Economic Research, a libertarian think tank based in the town, the declaration argues against lockdowns and in favor of a strategy of herd immunity as a way to contain the coronavirus.  Ed Abrahams, another select-board member, gave an interview to the Berkshire Edge, an online newspaper, in which he pointed out that “the Paris Accords were signed in Paris and I don’t think the people of Paris formally approved that document.”  He added that Ralph Lauren had once marketed a line of bedding named for Great Barrington.  “Though it’s possible,” the Edge noted, “those pillow shams and dust ruffles are named after the village of Great Barrington in Gloucestershire, England, from which the southern Berkshire County town derives its name.”  O’Reilly had first picked on the town in 2007, when the select board imposed an ordinance mandating that Christmas lights be turned off at 10 p.m., to save energy.  Great Barrington weathered those unwelcome moments in the limelight.  Residents are hoping that this one, too, shall pass.  Ed Abrahams, another select-board member, gave an interview to the Berkshire Edge, an online newspaper, in which he pointed out that “the Paris Accords were signed in Paris and I don’t think the people of Paris formally approved that document.”  He added that Ralph Lauren had once marketed a line of bedding named for Great Barrington.  “Though it’s possible,” the Edge noted, “those pillow shams and dust ruffles are named after the village of Great Barrington in Gloucestershire, England, from which the southern Berkshire County town derives its name.”  Leo Marani  https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/12/28/the-great-barrington-declaration-ruffles-locals-feathers  Thank you, Muse reader!  

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2303  December 24, 2020