Verminous (pg. 21) -- Having to do with vermin. Obvious!
Auto-da-fe' (pg. 90) -- Act of faith.
Osmotically (pg.115) -- by means of osmosis . Another doh!
Apoptosis (pg. 115) -- A form of cell death.
Panopticon (pg. 131) -- A prison constucted so all prisoners can be seen at one time. I think I've looked this up before.
Sic transit gloria panopticon (pg. 168) --Thus passes the glory of the, well, panopticon!
Louche (pg. 240) -- Of questionable taste or morality; decadent.
Pre-prandial (pg. 271) -- Before meals.
Haptic (pg. 315) -- Tactile, sense of touch.
On page 86, if Lenin is one head, Stalin is another, and the big is third, who is the fourth head mentioned in the text. And I quote, "Gagarin brings his binoculars to focus on the fourth head." Not to mention that the illustration on the facing page shows three heads...
The book jackets says this is the "Signed, Lettered Edition" priced at 150 bucks. But I don't see any signing, nor lettering. Did the library get ripped off? Is this some scam edition?
hunting hide (pg.102 ) -- A camoflaged tent, used in hunting game.
electric shower (pg. 89) -- A mini water heater, located in the shower!
Ames rooms (pg. 123) -- A distorted room that is used to create an optical illusion.
nevergreen tree (pg. 178) -- "Deadly Nevergreen, that bears fruit all the year round". The gallows.
coves and queans (pg. 199) -- Men and desruptable women, i.e., prostitutes..
... a Dahon mountain bike, built out of chromed aluminium tubes. (pg. 32) -- I see a red aluminium Dahon, and a Reynolds 631 steel Dahon, but I doon't see no chromed aluminium Dahon.
Patricia Thorold-Hjorth and Alfredo Wu (pg. 248) -- So Miriam is a Wu? Where is this plotline going?
It was like standing in that baseball court at the University Of Chicago i942, when they finished adding graphite blocks to the heap in the middle of the court... (pg. 115) Baseball? I thought it was a squash court.
perotation (pg. 196) -- 1 : the concluding part of a discourse and especially an oration. 2 : a highly rhetorical speech.
solecism (pg. 196) -- A violation of etiquette.
inchoate (pg. 198) -- 1. In an initial or early stage; incipient. 2. Imperfectly formed or developed.
toiles (pg. 274) -- A mock-up model of a garment.
buxom caryatids (page 23) -- A sculpted female figure serving as an architectural support taking the place of a column.
estuary Egyptian slang (page 60) -- A semi-enclosed body of water flowing into the sea. On reflection, it is obviously referring to the slang used by the peoples of the Nile estuary, since this scene takes places in Alexandria.
anthropophagi (pg. 258) -- Cannibals.