Book club takes 28 years to read novel

A book club in California took 28 years to read James Joyce’s novel Finnegans Wake. The group in Los Angeles began by reading two pages a month before slowing to a page per discussion. The novel is written in a "torrent of idiosyncratic language" over more than 600 pages, including "made-up words in several languages, puns and arcane allusions to Greek mythology", said The Times. Joyce once described the perfect reader of the novel as "suffering from an ideal insomnia".

Secrets 'energise' us

A new study has concluded that keeping secrets may be a good thing for people, reported Fox News. Researchers put around 4,000 participants in five different experiments and found good news that was being kept a secret was more "energising" than good news that was not a secret — leading people to want to keep the good news to themselves. "People feel more in control over their positive secrets" said one researcher, "and feeling in control is energising."

Man honoured for pencil collection

A man in Iowa was officially awarded a Guinness World Records title for his collection of 69,255 pencils. Aaron Bartholmey staged a public counting event during the summer with help from the American Pencil Collectors Society and submitted the grand total to Guinness World Records with "ample evidence", said UPI. "I've just always enjoyed the stories that the pencils can tell," said Bartholmey.