January 9th is Word Nerd Day, and with that in mind, I brought you a form-i-copia of poetic forms and devices earlier this week. Today, I bring you five lists of wordy things you’ll love (some of them might have five of those things within them! eeks, I hear you say, but I promise you’ll be glad you went through it all!) Words are worth it after all.

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Word-ish Book-ish Five

Frindle and The Frindle Files

(1 & 2) Book Beginnings and First Line Friday

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAY is hosted by Rose City Reader. What book are you happy about reading this week? Please share the opening sentence (or so) on BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAY! Add the link to your blog or social media post and visit other blogs to see what others are reading.

Happy Friday and welcome to the FIRST LINE FRIDAY, hosted by Reading is My Superpower! It’s time to grab the book nearest to you and leave a comment with the first line.

From Frindle:

From The Frindle Files

3 Friday 56

THE FRIDAY 56 is hosted by by Anne at HeadFullofBooks. To play, open a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% on your e-reader). Find a sentence or two and post them, along with the book title and author. Then link up and visit others in the linky. 

From Frindle:

“Like I said, I won’t be disrespectful, but I do like my word. And I guess we’re just going have to see what happens.”

From The Frindle Files

“I can’t explain everything now, but if you get a second, google the word frindle — spelled f-r-i-n-d-l-e. Then go to the images, and check out the first picture in the results. And we have to keep all of this totally between us, okay?”

4 Book Blogger Hop

The purpose of THE BOOK BLOGGER HOP is to give bloggers a chance to follow other blogs, learn about new books, and befriend other bloggers. THE BOOK BLOGGER HOP is hosted by Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer.  

Looking back, which books from 2025 stood out as your favorites?

Some picture books that come to mind first, are Beekle by Dan Santat, John Rocco’s Blackout, Emily Field Martin’s Day Dreamers, If I Had a Little Dream by Nina Laden, and You Can Say Hi with Only a Smile by Merriam Sarcia Saunders.

Talk Nerdy to Me: 5 Wordy Things You’ll Love

Word Games

• Digital Word Games – Wordle, Crossclimb, Words With Friends, Wordscapes, TypeShift, Hangman (digital versions)
• Paper-and-Pencil Word Games – Hangman, Name/Place/Animal/Thing, Crosswords, Anagrams, Word Ladders (Doublets), Exquisite Corpse / Consequences
• Board Games – Scrabble, Boggle, Taboo, Codenames, Letter Tycoon, Word on the Street
• Card Games – Apples to Apples, Anomia, Wordsmith, Scrabble Slam!, Balderdash
• Word Puzzles – Crossword puzzles, Cryptograms, Word searches, Acrostics, Rebuses, Palindromes

Bonus: Party / Social Word Games – Charades (words/phrases), Pictionary (word version), Catch Phrase, Balderdash, Heads Up!

Quirky & Curious Words

• Agelast – A person who never laughs.
• Brontide – The low rumble of distant thunder.
• Cymotrichous – Having wavy hair.
• Esquivalience – The willful avoidance of one’s official responsibilities.
• Glabella – the area of skin/flat area of bone between the eyebrows and above the nose.
• Jentacular – Pertaining to breakfast.
• Limerence – The obsessive, euphoric feeling of being infatuated with someone.
• Nephophilist – One who loves clouds.
• Selenotropism – The tendency of plants to grow towards the moon.
• Vellichor – The strange wistfulness of used bookstores.

Books for Word Nerds

Books for Kids (5 Picks – Word-Loving Young Minds)

• The Boy Who Loved Words by Roni Schotter – Max discovers the magic of words and builds a vocabulary empire of his own.
• Once Upon a Word: A Word-Origin Dictionary for Kids – Explores the origins of words through stories, definitions, and etymology.
• Posted by John David Anderson – A fun story about friendship, communication, and the power of notes and words.
• The Old Woman Who Named Things – Celebrates imagination, naming, and the joy of giving words to the world.
• My Father Knows the Names of Things – A tender exploration of language, memory, and discovering the beauty of words.

Books for Adults (5 Picks – Word Nerd Treats)

• The Book of Random Oddities is a weighty (I mean is 704 pgs) but delightful collection of quirky words, unusual facts, and language curiosities that will surprise and amuse any word lov
• The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester tells us the fascinating story behind the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary and its quirky contributors.
• In the Land of Invented Languages by Arika Okrent is a fun dive into the quirky, fascinating world of constructed languages like Esperanto and Klingon.
• Lost in Translation by Ella Frances Sanders brings us stories of words that defy direct translation and the quirks of language across cultures
• Talk on the Wild Side: Why Language Can’t Be Tamed by Lane Greene is a lively, witty exploration of how language really works — full of real‑world examples, surprises, and the delightful truth that language refuses to behave the way prescriptive rules say it should.

Word-Loving Movies

• Akeelah and the Bee. I loved this movie, and just noticed that there is a novelization of this movie, so need to keep it in mind for a future read.
• Spellbound. Still in spelling bee mode, this one is a documentary that is a must for Spelling bee fans.
• Dead Poets Society . Love the book, and the movie. And one I have talked about many a time on my blog.
• The Grammar of Happiness. Another documentary that I recall watching a little of somewhere (maybe on a plane sometime) and loving it.
• The King’s Speech. Well, it does have Colin Firth!
• The Great Debaters. And this one has Denzel!! I recall watching this ages ago (it seems like) and it was powerful.
• My Fair Lady was one of my father-in-law’s favorite movies. I have watched it a few times as well.
• Finding Forrester
• Arrival is a cool watch.
• The Linguists – Another documentary but a fascinating watch.

Wordy Posts From My Blog

• Every Word has Magic and Power and Stories!
• Many Wonderful Ways to Use Words
• Playing Along, Again: This Time With Wonderful Wordy Words
• Ten Books for People Who Love Words and Language
• Word Play and its Wonders

And Now, the End of This Post

Fellow word nerds and readers, what are your favorite wordy games, books, movies, or quirky words? Share them below! And let me know which book/movie/word-game intrigues you the most here?