As the holiday celebrations get underway, ponder a moment on the small implement bent on prizing an echo of the feast from between your teeth. Henry Petroski was so intrigued by the toothpick that he has written more than 400 pages about its technological and cultural evolution, heavily spiced with historical anecdote (The Toothpick, Knopf, 2007). Chapter titles give the flavour — see 'The tragic heiress'; 'Talking round a toothpick'; 'The fatal martini'; 'The butler did it'.
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