MY READER'S BLOCK: GAD Mystery Word of the Day

SCAM artist alert

Apparently there is someone calling themself "Luigi Calloway" out there who is claiming to be associated with the Mount TBR Reading Challenge. He is contacting authors and telling them if they pay him, then their books will be used for the challenge. It's possible he's also telling people they must pay to participate in any way. Please know that there is absolutely no charge associated in any way with this reading challenge and that this person does not represent me or anything associated with my blog. There will NEVER be a reason for anyone to have to pay for participation in any way for any of my challenges. If only people who exert this much time and effort on scamming people would put it into something worthwhile....like reading their own books!

Tuesday, January 13, 2026

GAD Mystery Word of the Day

My new bookish meme for 2026: the Golden Age of Detection (GAD) Mystery Word of the Day. Whenever I find a word that I'm unfamiliar with, I'm going to actually take time to look it up and share it with mystery-lovers everywhere. 😊

Today's GAD Mystery Word (phrase) of the Day is division bell. Taken from my most recent read, The Division Bell Mystery by Ellen Wilkinson, a division bell (noun) is a bell rung in or around parliament in commonwealth realms to signal a division (vote) to members so they may participate. May also be used to indicate the start or end of parliamentary proceedings.

Well...really rather straightforward. But being on the opposite side of the pond from Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, I hadn't come across the term before and, although the explanation comes pretty quickly when reading, I have to say I had no idea what a division bell was when I picked up the book.

~Oh...and about that "word of the day" thing...I may have been a bit optimistic about the frequency of unfamiliar words. That first GAD mystery (Don Among the Dead Men) was chock full of them. My second read of the year wasn't a Golden Age Mystery (and didn't really introduce any unfamiliar words, anyway). And the Wilkinson book has yielded only a few.