Having nothing better to do on a lazy weekend sometime in 1969, the esteemed French novelist Georges Perec (1936-82) wrote an entire 300-page book without using the letter “e”. Why? you ask. Well presumably it’s one of those “Because it was there” things. Or, more precisely, wasn’t there.

Still, at a time when many other French intellectuals were at the barricades, young Georges was bending his formidable intellect to the project of avoiding Es. One can’t help but wonder what effect this project had on his subsequent output. Did Georges resist the popular vowel ever after?

This useful information, along with seven other little-known facts about vowels, is set out in Arika Okrent’s fascinating Mental Floss piece, 8 Things You Might Not Know About Vowels.

There was a time when bibles were chained to pulpits and armed guards watched over royal libraries. But there were historically more subtle ways to discourage theft. A fascinating report from Atlas Obscura reveals popularity of curses.

A good curse can go a long way to putting, literally, the fear of God into any would-be thief. Just try writing a little ditty like this on the first page of a treasured tome:

“For him that stealeth, or borroweth and returneth not, this book from its owner, let it change into a serpent in his hand & rend him. Let him be struck with palsy & all his members blasted. Let him languish in pain crying aloud for mercy,  & let there be no surcease to his agony till he sing in dissolution. Let bookworms gnaw his entrails in token of the Worm that dieth not, & when at last he goeth to his final punishment, let the flames of Hell consume him for ever.”

That should do the trick.