Finds - The Mystery of the Ivory Charm

I have bought things other than language books. There are a number of interesting books that end up at the library book sale. One of them was this copy of the 13th book from the Nancy Drew series, The Mystery of the Ivory Charm by Carolyn Keene, first published in 1936.

I bought it for...a dollar? I think? The librarian I paid down at the circulation desk was always really weird toward me, acting like I was suspicious whenever I bought something and I remember she actually went and checked with another librarian to make sure that really was the price. There are the shelves where you pay by type of book and then another section where the books have price stickers because they are more valuable. I think she thought I'd taken the sticker off to get it at the normal hardback fiction price. I am so glad she no longer works there. I don't know what I did to make her think I was some sort of cheat.
Anyway. The initials of whoever owned it were S.A.

Well, not actually by Carolyn Keene. These adolescent book series were ghostwritten by a number of different people, apparently, and this one was penned by Mildred Wirt Benson. It's 216 pages and 19cm x 13cm. There's a picture endpaper and one picture at the start of the book.

The illustrations were done by Russell H. Tandy and the original edition had more and in color from what I've found. This particular copy must have been printed in about 1954 or so because there is a list of other books in the series and one for the Dana Girls Mystery Stories and both of the last books listed were published in 1953. The dust jacket did not come with the book.

It was sold at The Book Shop in Fitchburg, MA.

It appears to have been at 536 Main St. and opened in 1952 by a man named Alexander Krysil and run until his death in 2014. Here's a link to a picture of their window display in the 1958 Billboard.

I have never read a Nancy Drew book in my life.

Introductory Punjabi - Inside

I honestly love the example sentences in this book. They feel like they've been taken out of random conversations that we don't have the context for.  You could make up mini scenarios for most of these.

"I too slapped him."

"But she seemed quite young."

There are quite a number of sentences about thieves and beatings.

"If Bihari Lal dares open his mouth, I will fix him well."
I feel like every language book should include this sentence with [insert name here]. It should be an essential phrase.

And, of course, at the end you have your vocabulary.

And a few more sentences I never thought I'd see in a phrase book but am now saddened by the fact that I haven't. These are phrases of living rather than visiting.

"Not to talk of running, he can't even get up (from his seat)."
"Paramjit! what a hell of a girl she is?"
"A girl! she is a virtual bat."
"Do not step on the engine." "Don't keep your arms outside the window." "Do not jump from a running train."
2 different ways to say "Plucking flowers is prohibited."
"May you be a widow!" "What can such children do for the country?"
"Some body told me that you have lost your clothes."
"Well, when we are turned out of this house, you may come."
"Your performance has been much better than what we expected of you."
"Rather than act in such a manner, you should have thrown yourself in the river."
"My father, who is over forty now, still plays hockey."
"As soon as you entered his room you could appreciate his aesthetic sense."
"Stop here for octroi." "Beware of quack doctors." "Get yourself vaccinated." "He was sentenced to two years rigorous imprisonment."
"Her husband drinks (wine) too much." "A boy was run over by a motor car." "He is just a yes-man."
"The sight of the yellow fields of Saron is very delightful during the spring season."
"Death is inevitable."

Introductory Punjabi

The Language learning book with my most favorite example phrases is Introductory Punjabi, put out by Punjabi University Patiala. Looks like the school is still around, too.

I'm going to assume the authors listed were instructors there. Bahri appears to have written a few other texts on the language as well as one on Hindi. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Introductory+Punjabi+bahri&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss

We even get the price the students had to pay for their textbook.

WorldCat lists 3 different editions - this 1968 one, 1987 and 2003. 30 libraries have a copy including the Library of Congress. https://www.worldcat.org/title/introductory-punjabi/oclc/62665?referer=di&ht=edition

This book is not actually for English speakers despite being in English.

So this text isn't truly complete as is. You need familiarity with Punjabi cultural items and a native speaker to listen to and practice with.

The back cover of the book just has the price again. It's 114 pages and 22 by 14cm.

Next post will be the interior.

Hindi in a Month - inside

So inside you find the normal parts of a language workbook: lists of vocabulary, exercises requiring you to translate short paragraphs, instruction on how the language is used. What's interesting is the choice of words for vocabulary and the example sentences used. An American or English book might not give you the translation for the castes or worry about whether you could say "Incarnation".

"Palpitating" is also not a word I would expect to learn in a beginner's course.

The vocab sections are broken up into examples of words starting with a certain written character and sections with a theme. Here's one on hygiene and self-care.

Here's a section on disease. Note: Fatness can be cured in 40 days.

There are also several pages with common sayings, many of which are familiar to me. Some of which are not.

Then grammar. Don't do it?

We have example sentences.

And here are sentences from the section on cloth.

A bit of instruction on fruit and vegetables.

Mangoes are mentioned quite a bit in the book. Mangoes are mentioned quite a bit in the book on Punjabi I also own. This is why I like seeing language books published elsewhere - they have a different flavor from what I am used to.

Hindi in a Month

I like old, bilingual dictionaries and learn to speak another language books. I especially like old bilingual books when they were written and sold in another country. You get an entirely different set of example sentences and textual flavor than you do when they're from your own country, written with someone of your background in mind. So when I see them at my local library book sale I snap them up. I've found quite a few gems and I've wanted to share them.

I have been unable to find a copy for sale or referenced online outside of Worldcat - there are 7 copies of what appears to be 3 different editions, none of which quite match mine. This one here was published for the Varma Brothers in 1964. It is 205 numbered pages, 18 cm.

The other cataloged books were published 1962, 1966 and 1951. The last was published by National Book Stall. It appears to have gone through several editions. The author is only listed as J.S. Bright but his entry on library pages gives the name Jagat Singh Bright.

Looking at other works he is connected to it appears he made quite a career writing and editing books about Indian history, language and important figures. A cursory search turns up nothing on Rajendra Kushwaha. This copy was sold at Minerva Bookshop.

Are Simla and Bombay completely separate locations? There's a Shimla north of New Dehli but I'm not finding any on the map near Mumbai. Did Minerva Bookshop have two stores? Is the Minvera Book House in Shimla the inheritor of the Minerva name? Not amazing detective work but I'm being lazy. Here's the back cover.

And here's a list of their other publications:

I'm especially interested in "Friends: How to win and retain them", "Ideal jokes", "Timber calculator" (I have no idea - do you calculate timber? probably.) and my favorite - "How to increase your height".

More on the contents of the book in the next post.

Update on CVS Specialty Pharmacy

Nope. Not in today. My mother spoke to a nice lady on the phone who said she could see the order on her account but for some reason it didn't go through and they have no idea why. She got a supervisor who sent the order to shipping and she'll check on it to make sure everything is okay before she goes home for the day.

Now it's supposed to come tomorrow.

The aggravating thing is you can only call the general line to straighten these things out. You make your way through an interminable phone tree, wait for the next call center representative and then get shunted to any one of hundreds of reps in their centers around the country. So when you have a recurring problem, you have to deal with a new person each time who is only just now learning the case. They refer to customers as "patients" but that's rather disingenuous.

The people at these call centers seem very nice but I also believe they are working under rules and regulations that are anything but. Businesses are built around making money, not helping people. Those two things can be very much at odds and the tension between them can be harmful.

Another review - CVS Specialty Pharmacy - Absolute Shit - They are going to get someone killed

So my mother now needs specialty medications in order to continue living. Like the kind where she cannot miss a dose. And unfortunately her insurance has deemed that she has to go through CVS Specialty Pharmacy otherwise it would cost her first born child and I would really rather not be traded for drugs. Now the people she actually gets to talk to on the phone don't seem horrible; they genuinely wish to make sure she comes to no harm. They're just people and most people would rather not see random strangers suffer by their hand. However. CVS Specialty Pharmacy must be one of the most incompetent damn organizations in the country.

The first time she had to refill her medications they jerked her around and jerked her around for over a week. She calls for a refill on a Monday. They say they are going to have it at the local pharmacy on Friday. They call Friday morning and say, hey do you live at home or in a facility and she's like, I already told you and they're like, oh, haha, whoops. We'll have it Saturday. And she's coming to the end of her medication. Crunch time. That night, another call. Do you live at home? I already told you! Oh. Sorry. We'll have it tomorrow.

Guess what? They didn't have it tomorrow.

Then they gave the local pharmacist some bullshit about how she couldn't have a refill until Thursday which was blatantly not true. The pharmacist was incredibly upset about the way they were behaving and eventually got it out of them that UPS was delayed two days. That shouldn't have mattered, of course, which means some idiot didn't send out the order on Monday like they were supposed to and they were trying to cover their greedy asses so they wouldn't have to pay for extra meds. In the end they read a Visa gift card code off to pay for a bridge dose. The pills came Tuesday. When they should have come Friday.

This was a month ago. And now it's started all over again. They allow you to refill online so that's what Mom did, end of last week. She gets a phone call couple days later. Do you live in a facility or at home? What kind of unprofessional, inept, amateurish organization is this!? The guy on the phone says they've been having "IT issues". You're in a business where mistakes could cost people their lives. Pull your heads out of your asses. So, he says everything's cleared but she gets his name to be sure.

What do you know. Next day someone calls her again. We just have a few questions. She name drops the last guy and this next person says she'll get the info from him. And now tonight she's gotten a voicemail and a text asking her to call. (I tried to call but they "are having an unusual amount of incoming calls so, apologies, just hang on the phone for hours hoping to plead for their service. What happened to the users of a company being the customers? Now we have to beg for their largess?)

 Her prescription is supposed to be in tomorrow. You know. The pills she needs to live. We'll see if they actually care about the lives of their customers.

It's a giant corporation and giant corporations have basically been given carte blanche to do as they please, up to and including murdering people because the heartless jasckasses who run these things have so much unneeded money they can use that to fill the void left by their souls instead of human emotions. So I don't really have a lot of hope. It says something that the pharmacist says they do this sort of thing to people all the time.