> CP wrote --
>> He's more into science fact books, reading these mini encyclopedia type
>> compendiums of animal or other Nature facts.
> We had an Encyclopedia Britannica, c. 1948, and I think over time I read
> most of the the like 26 volumes.  Not every single story, not every single
> word, but I would open a book and flip through to find something that caught
> my attention.
> Over the years and a series of moves those were lost along the way.

Dag! My Mom had bought the 1967 Silver Title Edition on the occasion of my  birth. (they were leather-bound & embossed with sterling silver lettering)

I did as you, & would use them as my go-to boredom relief, just grab one, open  it, read something, follow the "sees also" into multiple volumes.

When I gahad to find a fact for school, instead of, as my peers, just finding  that sentence, I'd read the context, chase down other related articles & know  100+ things instead of just one. I still have a lot of that info in my brain,  but my mom sold the set cheaply, after all the kids had moved out (I wished I  had it, I'd start at page 1, vol. 1, & read through the entire thing, & time it then challenge the world to beat me! (& be sure to get some sort of token from  Britannica for promotional efforts--maybe the latest set & yearbooks(my mom had 20 years of the yearbooks, too.)

We had the World Book, too, but I didn't  bother with that -- once I was in the EB, I was not going to read from lesser. . .

I like reading the OED, too, but no way can I afford the full 11-volume set of  tomes. I see Z-Lib is lacking in reference works. I uploaded an older  Physician's Desk Reference, as they had none!

Maybe I'll put in a search for the full OED, & hopefully get it for my phone  for light reading while riding buses. . .

They do a grand job on etymology for each word.

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