Happy World Dracula Day to all who celebrate! Visit theallusionist.org/draculae2 for more information about the topics in this episode plus a transcri...

A literary mystery came to me via a meme: “Someone translated Dracula into Icelandic, and it took over 100 years for anyone to point out he just made ...

"The word ‘suburbia’ sort of evokes a very fixed idea of a place that is identikit, that all suburbs are the same, that within the suburb everything i...

You know what's an absolutely pesky kind of word to define in a dictionary? Colour names. A passel of lexicographers spent years - decades, even - try...

Pack your oxygen tank, we're going to space. There’s a lot of etymology up there.Visit theallusionist.org/cosmic-hairball for more information about t...

It's the annual parade of Bonus Bits! Every year, the show's guests say too many interesting things and/or stuff that isn't languagey enough, so I sav...

Today, we read the novelisation of The Muppet Christmas Carol, also known as the 1843 festive lit hit A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Read by me...

"I have never felt so naked. That's how exposed I felt at the idea that my handwriting was going to be seen by the world," says Tim Brookes, founder o...

“The more we look into social structures, the more many of us realize we don't fit into them," says So Mayer, author of the new book Bad Language, "So...

A change of scene for one episode: recently the brilliant poet and performer Molly Naylor interviewed me for her podcast Making Trouble, about creativ...