In 1955, the Ford Motor Company asked Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Marianne Moore to suggest a name for a new car they were developing. They wanted to convey a “feeling of elegance, fleetness, advanced features and design.” Ms. Moore did compose a long list of possibles, including The Anticipator, The Utopian Turtletop, The Pastelogram, and The Mongoose Civique. From other sources, Ford received more than 6000 suggestions. Do you know the name they settled on? The answer is below.

Isn’t it great to browse the Longmont Library’s extensive computer inventory of books, videos, CDs and more, even from your home? But do you ever miss sorting through the old-fangled card catalog? The Library of Congress has published a lovely tribute, The Card Catalog. During the French Revolution, librarians used blank-backed playing cards to write books’ details, leading to the modern index cards we used and loved. “On December 21, 1980, the last new cards were filed in the [Library of Congress’s] Main Reading Room’s card catalog…no additional cards were ever added.” Far-sighted librarians lobbied to keep these “unique historical document[s]” out of the trash. You can see some of them in this book, by reserving it by computer!

Reacher Said Nothing. If those three words mean something to you, you are the reader this book is for. The rest of the title is Lee Child and the Making of Make Me. The author, Andy Martin, spent much of one year with Child as he wrote his twentieth Jack Reacher thriller. You fans will enjoy such revelations as where the names “Reacher” and “Child” came from. You’ll be surprised at how Child comes up with his bestsellers.

“If you were a member of Jesse James’s band and people asked you what you were, you wouldn’t say, “Well, I’m a desperado.” You’d say something like, ‘I work in banks,’ or ‘I’ve done some railroad work.’ It took me a long time just to say, ‘I’m a writer.’ It’s really embarrassing.” Roy Blount, Jr.

The name Ford chose because it had “an air of gaiety and zest” was Edsel.