Good Morning!  It's a cool sunny morning here in rustic Maryland.  I just watched two beautiful does run across our back yard.

We set up a hummingbird feeder on Wednesday, and a hummer immediately appeared to get a drink.  I don't see any drinkers yet today, but I'm sure they will show up.

Today, for the second time in a week, our electricity went off, but just for two hours. The last time, it was off for four and a half hours, in the evening.  It was fun moving around by candle light.  Back in Massachusetts when I was a boy, electrical outages were a usual event, but we didn't miss electric powered entertainment, because we didn't have any.

I feel sorry for those folks in the deep south who have had no electricity for over a week, with no hope for its quick return. Some folks have medical needs that require electrical power.  

My beautiful daughter, Diane, visited later and we spent a lot of time discussing all kinds of things. She also brought us some large tomatoes from her garden.  (Our helper, Kathy, also brought us some of her tomatoes.)  Boy, do they all taste good!

Today, I would like to talk about Acrostics.

There are many forms of acrostic puzzles, but the ones I like best are created monthly for the New York Times, by fellow Puzzlers, Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon.  

Doing the puzzle, I first solve the clues.  The letters of the answers are placed within a quotation grid.  After the whole puzzle is completed,  the quotation is laid bare and the first letters spell out the author's name and the title of the book from which the quote has been taken.

I have a lot of fun after I see the resultant quote.  If the book title or author catch my interest, I arrange for a book sample on my Kindle and purchase the book if my mind gets engaged. Here are a few of the books I learned about from acrostics. I probably never have learned about them otherwise.

01.  Blue Highway by  Least Heat Moon.

An eye-opening and entertaining look into small-town America.

02.   The Dictionary of Word Play by Dave Morice

This is a reference book for wordsmiths written by a fellow puzzler. It covers all (most) puzzle types, with examples shown.  I don't know how I have gotten by all these years without this book.

03.  The Mysterious Affair at Styles  by Agatha Christie.

This is the first appearance of Hercules Poirot.  There seems to be a thousand suspects in a murder.  Mr.  Poirot shared his "little gray cells" with me and I guessed who the murderer was in the first chapter of the book. It was a "fun" read, but I would recommend any of the other Christie stories that have less characters and harder solutions. 

04.  Priest Daddy  by Patricia Lockwood

A thought-provoking book by a young girl who grew up with an Anglican Priest father, with weird, to my mind, ideas about life. He was accepted into a seminary and became a Catholic Priest.

The author seemed very immature, in a family that cussed almost constantly.  A family that I would not care to visit.  However, an interesting read.

05.  The Confidence Men  by Margalit Fox.

The true story of two men who were interred in an Ottoman jail in 1917.  Through fake seances, sessions with a make-shift Ouiji Board, phony mental gymnastics, and outright lying, they hoodwinked their young interpreter, the gullible jailer, and even their fellow prisoners into allowing them to escape.

As I mentioned, without my acrostic puzzling, I never would have known about these great books.  God bless you, Emily and Henry, I hope you go on producing acrostics forever!