2026 Literary Exploration Society to Expand Reading

 

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

~ Robert Frost,  Two Roads Diverged in a Yellow Wood

Since we began 52 Books in 52 Weeks in 2009, the variety of 52 books challenges has exploded. While imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I think it's time for us to slip off the beaten path and take the one less traveled. The first order of business, change the name.  

My husband always comes up with code words or nicknames for things we do. When I narrowed our book reading challenge name down to two options, he went with the first option and immediately added 'to expand reading' and lovingly provided a nick name. Which lead us to today.  Welcome to the: 

Literary Exploration Society To Expand Reading 

or L.E.S.T.E.R for short

The url of read52booksin52weeks.com will remain the same 

L.E.S.T.E.R. is still the home for a variety of weekly, monthly, and annual reading quests, as well as the perpetual and past challenges linked above from our many reading adventures around the world. 

2026 Bingo quest:  25 new categories to inspire with Mile Davis and all those Jazz rabbit holes to David Bowie's Book lists to the quirky and the cozy.

2026 Literary Legends: Explore authors and stories that have endured throughout the years.

2026 Contemporary Authors: From Haruki Murakami to Alan Moore, there is a variety of modern day authors to explore.

2026 A to Z and Back Again in which there are many ways to complete the project and you don't have to stick with authors or titles only. The choices are unlimited.

and /or try one or more of our perpetual challenges:  

Agatha Christie  -- Read her books in chronological order as listed, group by detective or collection, or randomly if you choose. 

Brit Trip Adventures - Follow the Roman Road through England with the intent of reading a book from each of the 45 counties with a few extra trips to London. 

Mind Voyages - A science fiction / fantasy challenge through the decades, exploring the Hugo and Nebula winners and nominees, Philip K. Dick, and Robert Heinlein. 

Dip into past challenges such as Brit Tripping, Dusty and Chunky, Feed Your Muse, Inspiration, Nobel Prize Winners or Sounds of Silence.

The goal is to set your own goal and how you get there is up to you. Ask yourself these questions:  Are you a promiscuous reader or prefer to inhale one book a time?  Do you like to follow a plan, or be spontaneous? Do you like to read fiction or nonfiction? Do you like to read from your own shelves, buy books, or get them from the library? Do you like to read widely and broadly or do a focused study of something new or old?  Do you like to reread stories time and again?  Do you like to delve into your favorite author's backlist to the exclusion of all else or sip them slowly through the years. Do you need more time to dive into that chunky or dusty book that's been languishing on the shelf? Do you like to explore new to you authors, genres, spaces and places?    Do you like to follow connections, take side trips, or dive into rabbit holes? Let your books be your guide and see where they take you.

Reading is as necessary as breathing so my answer is yes to all these questions since all that matters is the reading. To our current readers, I appreciate you and look forward to next year. If you like to lurk, wave hello. And if you just found us, please join us to play along or chart your own path. 

 

BW49: December, December!

I Heard a Bird Sing

by

Oliver Herford

I heard a bird sing

In the dark of December.

A magical thing

And sweet to remember.

"We are nearer to Spring

Than we were in September,”

I heard a bird sing

In the dark of December. 

Happy Sunday!  December is a time of crisp air, snow, rain, warm winter coats, smoky fireplaces, Christmas shopping, sleigh rides, singing carols, sorting through all your lists and checking them twice, making plans for the end of the year and the beginning of the year.  And reading of course. 

Booker Prize: best wintry reads from the Booker Library, chosen by you  Including Dickensian tales which are also one of our 52 Books Bingo Categories.

Keeping Up With The Penguins: 7 Dickensian Novels

Wreninkpaper:  All the (Dickensian) Year Round

Story Graph: Books with December in the title 

Goodreads Favorite Christmas Stories 

Goodreads December Reading Lists

Happy Reading! 

BW48: Eek! It's December

 

Happy Sunday! December is upon us which means Winter is coming, plus many important celebrations including St. Nicholas Day, Christmas, Hannukah, kwanzaa, Boxing day, Las Posadas, and for the rest of us, Festivus.  It's also Art and Architecture Month, Human Rights Month, Write a Friend Month, and National Fruitcake Month.  Raise a virtual hand if you've never eaten fruit cake. Plus National Read a Book Month which isn't hard for us at all. *grin*

If you've been playing along with our Dragon Bookology spelling and reading challenge, our December dragon of the month is Kalessin from Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea Series.  Earthsee coincidently begins with E which is our letter of the week. 

E stands for Ergodic or Epistolary which are two of our bingo categories. E also stands for ebooks, elves, English, Egyptian, or European literature, essay, earth, and epic. I'm currently reading the epic Les Miserables which I plan on finishing by the end of the year.   

It's time to start writing our Christmas lists, get creative, wrap up our reading challenges, and figure out plans for the new year. 

Happy reading! 

BW37: 52 Books Bingo: Picaresque Literature

 

Happy Sunday.  Our next 52 Books Bingo category is Picaresque literature which according to litreactor:  "typically describes a low-born hero or rogue who uses his wits to wander through various branches of society without truly belonging to any of them, moving from adventure to adventure."  The  picaresque genre was established with the anonymously published Lazarillo De Tormes in the 1500's  during the Spanish inquisition. 

The Picaresque Novel: What It is and Why You Should Try Reading One

The Greatest Picaresque Books of All Time - a huge interesting and eclectic list in which I've read very few such as Don Quixote, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Gulliver's Travels, Hopscotch, White Noise, Glory Road, and the Undertaking of Hart and Mercy.

Beyond Dickens: 8 Picaresque Novels For The Modern Reader

Happy reading! 

BW33: Thought Provoking

 

Happy Sunday!  One of our 52 Book Bingo categories and our A to Z and Back Again, coincides with T which stands for thought provoking.  I just finished one which was a bit thought provoking - Orbital by Samantha Harvey.  It was a small book at 224 pages, but very dense.  I thought it would be a good book to read in bed to put me to sleep. Which it did, but like the book, for the past week my brain circled all night, same as the book, orbiting around and around the earth, detailing list after list of things, places, points, etc giving me much to think about.   Wonderful writing and a good example of list writing for other writers, but not much of a plot.  

The most thought provoking book you’ve ever read

10 Thought-Provoking Books You Must Read

"I Couldn't Bring Myself To Pick Up Another Book For Weeks": Avid Readers Are Sharing The Most Life-Changing Book They've Ever Read

13 Books That Will Make You Think For Days

57 Books That Truly Make You Think

Happy reading!

BW29: X is for Xerophyte

 

Happy Sunday! X is for Xerophyte which is a drought tolerant plant. We can go many different ways with this topic and read books set on earth or planets which matches up with our 52 Books Bingo Category with Setting as Character. 

Top Ten Tuesday: Books about Drought

15 Fantasy Books with Desert Settings

5 Mystery and Thrillers Set in Times of Drought

50 Must-Read Books Set In Space

Book where the setting almost feels like a character.

Happy Reading! 

BW23: Wuxia Literature

 

Happy Sunday! Our next 52 Books Bingo category is Wuxia! Wuxia literature is historical fiction stories in which the characters use traditional Chinese martial art disciplines for either good or bad. 

9 Classic Wuxia Stories That Define the Genre

10 Best Wuxia Novels for Martial Arts Fans

Goodreads Wuxia and Xianxia or Wuxia books

Wuxia World 

Happy Reading!

BW14: 52 Books Bingo - Narrative Non Fiction

Happy Sunday!  Our next 52 Books Bingo category is Narrative Nonfiction. Also known as creative or literary nonfiction which are true stories told in literary form rather than dry objective reporting. Narrative nonfiction entertains as well as informs but engages the reader's emotions as well their attention.  Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt was the first nonfiction book I read written in narrative or creative nonfiction format and led me to reading read more nonfiction.  Join me in reading Narrative Nonfiction this month. 

The Painted Porch Bookshops - Narrative Nonfiction

Narrative Nonfiction - created by Epic teacher, Mrs. Gorli

Allegheny County Libraries staff created list - Narrative Nonfiction: Books that read like novel

Five Books Narrative Nonfiction

Goodreads 42 Popular Narrative Nonfiction Books for Riveting Reading

Happy Reading! 

BW12: Literary Linguistics

 

Happy Sunday!  Literary Linguistics - the interface between literature and linguistics and the study and analysis of language.  Since one of our 52 Books Bingo categories is linguistics, I figured it would be fun, and ended up following so many rabbit holes on the internet, I forgot what I was there for.  Digging myself out of the linguistic hole before I forget to write this post.  LOL! 

There are many science fiction and speculative fiction authors who enjoy creating new languages and cultures for their stories, whether from our past or the future, much to our benefit, which is what I'll probably be reading. So join me inn reading about the etymology of language or delve into fictional world where linguistics plays a huge role. 

The best books on Linguistics recommended by Professor David Adger

Pop Linguistics Books for Prep or Pleasure

A very long list of pop linguistics books and lingfic

The Best Science Fiction Books with Alien Languages

Science Fiction using Languages or Linguistics as a Plot Device

Try not to fall into any rabbit holes! 

BW7: 52 Books Bingo - Gaslamp

 

Happy Sunday! My son surprised me with two books for Valentine's day:  Alan Moore's The Great When and Carly Fortune's Every Summer After.   Neither one was on my radar, but both look equally interesting. Moore's book fits our 52 Books Category this week - GASLAMP - and Fortune's book is a love story. I look forward to reading both. 

What's the difference between Gaslamp and Steampunk?  While both are considered Victorian Fantasy,  steampunk is science fiction centering around steam powered tech and magic vs gaslamp is more fantasy and centered around magic and supernatural creature.  Gaslamp has also since evolved to take place from the early 1800's Victorian era to the beginning of World War one in 1914 according to New York Public Library's Bewitched, Bothered and Betrothed: An Intro to Gaslamp Fantasy  

Some words on Gaslamp Fantasy, Good Friends, and Great Fiction

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is an excellent example of a Gaslamp fantasy which I thoroughly enjoyed when I read it back in 2014.  I think it's time for a reread.  It's a chunky book at 1006 pages but well worth the effort. 

"The year is 1806. England is beleaguered by the long war with Napoleon, and centuries have passed since practical magicians faded into the nation's past. But scholars of this glorious history discover that one remains: the reclusive Mr Norrell, whose displays of magic send a thrill through the country.

Proceeding to London, he raises a beautiful woman from the dead and summons an army of ghostly ships to terrify the French. Yet the cautious, fussy Norrell is challenged by the emergence of another magician: the brilliant novice Jonathan Strange.

Young, handsome and daring, Strange is the very antithesis of Norrell. So begins a dangerous battle between these two great men which overwhelms that between England and France. And their own obsessions and secret dabblings with the dark arts are going to cause more trouble than they can imagine."

12 Gaslamp Fantasy Books Full of Magic and Mystery

Reddit Fantasy recommendations

Goodreads Listopia Gaslamp Fantasy

Helene Wecker's the Golem and the Jinni, Marie Brennan's Lady Trent series, as well as Devon Monk's Age of Steam series to name a few are all excellent as well.  

Happy reading!

BW2: 52 Books Bingo - Babel

 

Courtesy of Ancient Origins

Happy Sunday!  Our first 52 Books Bingo category is Babel.  In both biblical and Assyrian accounts, there was an ancient city in which the people tried to build a tower to reach the heavens and God caused all to speak in different languages.  In the dictionary, babel is described as a "confused mixture of sounds or voices or a scene of noise and confusion."  Synonyms for babel are an uproar, din, a hullabaloo, pandemonium, a lament, bedlam, or a clang.  Clang kind of reminds me of New York or cable cars. How about you?  However you want to define babel, there are a number of directions you could go for this category. 

I recently read R.F. Kuang's historical fantasy - Babel: An Arcane History which was an excellent. 

"1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel. The tower and its students are the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver-working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as the arcane craft serves the Empire's quest for colonization.

For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide . . .

Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?"

Once I started reading, I  couldn't put it down. The etymology discussions and how the characters related to the world around them. How the characters grew in knowledge, and the choices they made, some good, some bad. All their heart wrenching decisions. All of it combined to create a story that made me think about how it related to today's world and why people do the things they do.  I highly recommend it. 

And it makes me want to reread Samuel R. Delaney's science fiction class - Babel-17 - which I have on my shelves.

" At twenty-six, Rydra Wong is the most popular poet in the five settled galaxies. Almost telepathically perceptive, she has written poems that capture the mood of mankind after two decades of savage war. Since the invasion, Earth has endured famine, plague, and cannibalism—but its greatest catastrophe will be Babel-17.
 
Sabotage threatens to undermine the war effort, and the military calls in Rydra. Random attacks lay waste to warships, weapons factories, and munitions dumps, and all are tied together by strings of sound, broadcast over the radio before and after each accident. In that gibberish Rydra recognizes a coherent message, with all of the beauty, persuasive power, and order that only language possesses. To save humanity, she will master this strange tongue. But the more she learns, the more she is tempted to join the other side . . ."

or 

Josiah Bancroft's steampunk adventure - Senlin Ascends, the first book in his 4 part series the books of babel. 

"The Tower of Babel is the greatest marvel in the world. Immense as a mountain, the ancient Tower holds unnumbered ringdoms, warring and peaceful, stacked one on the other like the layers of a cake. It is a world of geniuses and tyrants, of airships and steam engines, of unusual animals and mysterious machines.

Soon after arriving for his honeymoon at the Tower, the mild-mannered headmaster of a small village school, Thomas Senlin, gets separated from his wife, Marya, in the overwhelming swarm of tourists, residents, and miscreants.

Senlin is determined to find Marya, but to do so he'll have to navigate madhouses, ballrooms, and burlesque theaters. He must survive betrayal, assassins, and the long guns of a flying fortress. But if he hopes to find his wife, he will have to do more than just endure.

This quiet man of letters must become a man of action."

Check out Goodreads collection of stories about Babel or Punctum Book's The Anthology of Babel.

Happy Reading! 

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BW34: Seeds

 

Happy Sunday!  What do you think of when you hear the word "Seeds."  Planting, germinating, thinking, gardening, tennis players, seeds of doubt, seeds of thought, parable of the mustard seed, or maybe even Svalbard to name a few.  

Read a book with seed in the title.

Read a fiction or nonfiction book about Svalbard Global Seed Vault.

What to Read: 20 Children’s Books About Seeds and Plants

Rachel Gullo's Books That Were Seeds for My Novel

The Unusual Crops of Strange Trees & Plants

Best Fiction Books About Plants

Orchards in Romance Novels

“You shall be my roots and

I will be your shade,

though the sun burns my leaves.

You shall quench my thirst and

I will feed you fruit,

though time takes my seed.

And when I'm lost and can tell nothing of this earth

you will give me hope.

And my voice you will always hear.

And my hand you will always have.

For I will shelter you.

And I will comfort you.

And even when we are nothing left,

not even in death,

I will remember you.”

― Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves

Happy Reading! 

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BW33: 52 Books Bingo - Tell Me a Secret

 

Happy Sunday! Our next 52 Books Bingo category is Tell Me a Secret. I loved books with secrets. Books about secret agents, secret societies, secret doors and passageways, secret towns or a town with a secret, secret friendships or relationships, family secrets. That hidden something the characters, people, companies, or place want to keep hidden and everyone else is trying to uncover.  Read a book about a secret or with secret in the title.

 

Pan MacMillan’s Books with secrets

 

Modern Mrs. Darcy’s 20 notable novels featuring family secrets

 

Penguin Random House Page-Turning Spy Novels

 

Goodread’s Best Books of Secrets

 

Big T, little T, what begins with T:  Tenacious, transparent, taboo, and twists.

Please share your thoughts and reviews. Link to your website, blog, Goodreads, Google+, Tumblers, or Instagram page. If you do not have a social media account, please leave a comment to let us know what you are reading. The link widget closes at the end of each book week. 

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BW30: Water

 

Happy Sunday. It's hot, hot, hot and since today is National Ice Cream Day, a bowl or cone filled with ice cream would absolutely hit the spot.  Also our next 52 Books Bingo Category will help keep us cool -  Water.  Read a story set in, on, around or under a body of water.  A story about the ocean, a lake, a pond, a river, or even a puddle. A story in which it seems water is almost a character. There are so many ways to go with this category.

Once by the Pacific 

By 

Robert Frost

The shattered water made a misty din.

Great waves looked over others coming in,

And thought of doing something to the shore

That water never did to land before.

The clouds were low and hairy in the skies,

Like locks blown forward in the gleam of eyes.

You could not tell, and yet it looked as if

The shore was lucky in being backed by cliff,

The cliff in being backed by continent;

It looked as if a night of dark intent

Was coming, and not only a night, an age.

Someone had better be prepared for rage.

There would be more than ocean-water broken

Before God's last Put out the light was spoken.

Please share your thoughts and reviews. Link to your website, blog, Goodreads, Google+, Tumblers, or Instagram page. If you do not have a social media account, please leave a comment to let us know what you are reading. The link widget closes at the end of each book week. 

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BW19: 52 Books Bingo - Space

“The three rules of the Librarians of Time and Space are: 

1) Silence; 

2) Books must be returned no later than the last date shown; and 

3) Do not interfere with the nature of causality.”

― Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!

Happy Sunday! A door opens up and you see...Space.  You look up into the sky and see...Space.  You climb aboard a train and look for...Space.   

According to Dictionary.com: 

Space is the unlimited or incalculably great three-dimensional realm or expanse in which all material objects are located and all events occur.

The portion or extent of this in a given instance; extent or room in three dimensions: a space your body occupies. 

In Fine Arts, space is the designed and structured surface of a picture, or the illusion of depth on a two-dimensional surface.

In Mathematics. space is a system of objects with relations between the objects defined.

In Storytelling, space is an interval of time; a while. 

In Music, space is the interval between two adjacent lines of the staff.

In Telegraphy, space is an interval during the transmitting of a message when the key is not in contact.

Outer Space which is the space beyond the atmosphere of the earth or Deep Space which is the space beyond the limits of the solar system

Oh my. Space travel sound rather perilous.

 I can assure you they will never get me on 

one of those dreadful Star Ships. C-3PO from Star Wars.

In our household, we are big fans of everything Star Wars, so if you have a hankering to explore through their extended world,  check out these massive list  of canon in chronological order and legends in chronological order. 

 

Have fun traveling in, out, and about space! 

Please share your thoughts and reviews. Link to your website, blog, Goodreads, Google+, Tumblers, or Instagram page. If you do not have a social media account, please leave a comment to let us know what you are reading. The link widget closes at the end of each book week. 

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BW18: May Author of the Month - Peng Shepherd

 

Happy Sunday! Our author of the month is Peng Shepherd who writes speculative fiction as well as mysteries. Shepherd's debut novel, The Book of M, released in 2018 won Dartmouth College's 2019 Neukom Institute for Literary Arts Award for Debut Speculative Fiction. Her second book, The  Cartographers, was an international best seller, and her third book, All This and More will be released in July of this year.  I'm currently reading The Cartographers which is about a young woman who finds a map with a dark and deadly secret, in a hidden drawer of her deceased father's desk. 

I have always been fascinated by Cartography, the study, science, and practice of drawing and using maps, which brings us to one of our 52 Book's Bingo categories.  From the real life cartographic crimes like in Island of Lost Maps: A True Story of Cartographic Crime by Miles Harvey to writing books like Maps of the Imagination by Peter Turchi, to creating your own maps in Map Art Lab: 52 Exciting Art Explorations in Mapmaking, Imagination, and Travel, to fictional tales of mapmakers such as The Mapmaker's War by Ronlyn Domingue, they have all been an adventure to read. 

Have fun exploring the fiction and not so fictional roads and routes of cartography! 

Please share your thoughts and reviews. Link to your website, blog, Goodreads, Google+, Tumblers, or Instagram page. If you do not have a social media account, please leave a comment to let us know what you are reading. The link widget closes at the end of each book week. 

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BW15: Onomatopoeia

 

Happy Sunday!  Our next 52 Books category meshes well with our letter and word of the week: One word titles and onomatopoeia.  

Weather

by

Eve Merriam

1916 –1992

Dot a dot dot dot a dot dot

Spotting the windowpane.

Spack a spack speck flick a flack fleck

Freckling the windowpane.

A spatter a scatter a wet cat a clatter

A splatter a rumble outside.

Umbrella umbrella umbrella umbrella

Bumbershoot barrel of rain.

Slosh a galosh slosh a galosh

Slither and slather a glide

A puddle a jump a puddle a jump

A puddle a jump puddle splosh

A juddle a pump a luddle a dump

A pudmuddle jump in and slide!

Have fun! 

Please share your thoughts and reviews. Link to your website, blog, Goodreads, Google+, Tumblers, or Instagram page. If you do not have a social media account, please leave a comment to let us know what you are reading. The link widget closes at the end of each book week. 

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BW13: 52 Books Bingo - Musician

 

Happy Sunday! The musical earworm stuck in my head today is Lady Gaga's Million Reasons which if you'll notice also starts with M and is our letter of the week, which leads me to our next 52 Books Bingo Category - Musician.  Don't you hate run on sentences. I was helping my son with his philosophy class today and the text for the philosopher of the week used long run on sentences with double and triple negatives making it so convoluted, you had to read it several times to figure out what he was trying to say.  Thank goodness musicians make songs easy to understand with their repetitive melodies or story telling in musical form.  

There are numerous directions we can go with the category of Musician whether you wish to learn about music or an instrument; read a biography about a famous or not so famous musician;  read a fictional tale involving a musician or musical event; or read a book with music on the cover or in the title; or whatever your imagination conjures up for the letter M. 

Have fun and enjoy! 

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BW11: Knowledge versus Wisdom

 

Happy Sunday!   Are knowledge and wisdom the same thing?  Not exactly. Knowledge comes from education, learning about different subjects, getting the facts, acquiring the skills, an understanding of how things work.  Wisdom is knowing what to do with those facts, skills, and information.

"Knowledge is love and light and vision." ~- Helen Keller

"Wisdom is knowing what to do next. Skill is knowing how to do it. Virtue is doing it." - Thomas Jefferson.

Which brings us to our next 52 Books Bingo category -  Wisdom. - and our letter of the week - K - which brings us to Knowledge. 

Inspiring books such as the Tao of Pooh to the thoughtful wisdom books of the bible to the fictional tales of inspiration and thought, Wisdom and Knowledge presents us with a very broad category from which to choose. 

28 Books that Will Open Your Mind, Expand Your Knowledge & Transform the Way You Live

Novels for thought

What Books Would You Recommend Someone Read to Improve their General Knowledge of the World?

50 Short Books Packed with Wisdom

Don't forget to change your clocks tonight - We are springing forward. 

Happy reading! 

****

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BW7: 52 Books Bingo - Earth also known as Gaia

 

Happy Sunday.  Our next 52 Books Bingo category is another element of nature - Earth. 

The Anglo Saxons named her Erda and the German named her Erde which was changed to Old English Ertha, meaning the ground upon which we walk. The Greek's named her Gaia, the mother of all life. The Roman's named her Tellus Mater, the goddess and physical personification of earth. Chi or Tsuchi in Japanese or dìqiú in Chinese.  The planet has many names.  Share unique names you have discovered or read about for the planet Earth. 

The synonyms for earth, the celestial body on which we live include globe, planet, sphere, microcosm. Earth can also mean the surface which include the synonyms land, ground, soil, dust, and landmass to name a few.  

The spiritual element of earth relates to the Chakra that relates to feelings of safety and security. The phrase 'what on earth' relates to surprise and questions of why. 

Read a book set on the planet earth or the discovery of earth. Read a book about foreign lands or wanderlust.

Read a book about the natural world or the element of nature. 

Read a book with Earth or related synonym in the title. 

Read mythological retellings or environmental books. 

As you can see, Earth is a really broad subject in which we can go many different ways or narrow it down to the tiniest grain of sand.   

Our post is sponsored by the letter G and Gaia, globe, ground, and genius. 

*****

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