From The Bookshelf comes this stylish country pine armoire, sure to satisfy both your left and right brains. When company's coming over, the rotating shelf allows you to hide your books behind a television, so you are not revealed as an intellectual.Details are here.--David E

Alex Haley is Scottish. DNA analysis has revealed that the author of Roots is directly descended from one William Baugh, an overseer of an Alabama slave plantation in the mid-nineteenth century. The Caledonian connection has long been part of the Haley family's lore, but has been unproven until now.Details are here.--David E

Scientists at Reading University in the UK have crunched the numbers and determined the oldest words in the English language. Among the linguistic geriatrics are "I," "we,", "two," "three," and "five."They've also predicted the imminent demise of words including "squeeze" and "bad." Verbs and adjectives are particularly prone to drift. But don't go cutting pages … Continue reading Older than "Dirt"