3.38 Heavy Words Lightly Thrown: The Reason Behind the Rhyme by Chris Roberts. This book is a series of stories explaining the meaning behind various nursery rhymes. Mr. Roberts has a very conversational as a result of having worked as a tour guide, which a lot of readers did not enjoy. Also, a lot of his research is more folkloric than historical so there aren't great citations or even backup for all of his interpretations. However, I found the book entertaining enough to overlook all of these faults and I really appreciated that multiple plausible explanations were provided for some of the rhymes.

Of the 1,459 books I have read, Heavy Words has the 45th lowest average rating.

Also notable, I gave 4 stars to the 3rd lowest average rating in my list (at 2.43): the Encyclopedia of Ethical Failure by the US Federal government's Office of General Accountability. It's is a series of short summaries of the abuses of power that were caught and punished. It is dry, but still often fascinating and occasionally funny. It's also heartening to read about so many people who abused their power getting their just desserts.