Review: The Buffalo News

A very nice review from The Buffalo News, although it begins with the reviewer taking me to task for failing to acknowledge James Lipton’s An Exaltation of Larks as the inspiration for the title.

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Actually, I’d written almost the entire book before it dawned on me that “a reunion of ghosts,” in addition to being exactly what it sounds like (a bunch of ghosts coming together from far and wide to hang out and talk about old times) could also be read as a collective noun. When it finally hit me (I know; I’m kinda slow on the uptake) I did allow one of my characters to use the phrase “a reunion of ghosts” in the Liptonesque way–a gaggle of geese, a herd of buffalo, a reunion of ghosts–but it never struck me as necessary to mention Lipton’s book…nor the earlier, primary sources that originally compiled lists of collective nouns.

Per the link above, I’m remedying that oversight here. And you know what would be cool? If readers began buying both A Reunion of Ghosts and An Exaltation of Larks together, so that the Amazon algorithm began pairing them.

Is there a collective noun for a group of books that ought to live side by side on a bookshelf?

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