Ah, grammar: you ask so many questions!

So if I say "a settlers' daughter", does that actually mean "a daughter of settlers", which is what I want it to mean? Or does the article apply inevitably to the nearest noun, and thus make a nonsense of the apostrophe, and drag the whole clause down into chaos and meaninglessness?

True things

Any man in possession of a decent library must be in want of coffee. Tragically, one of the ways in which Sunnyvale Public Library differs from the Lit & Phil is that there is no kiosk in the corner selling coffee and cake. Indeed, they don't even let you bring in your own sandwiches. But you are allowed to have a drink, so long as it's in a sealed container.

So on my way this morning I diverted via Target and bought a travel mug ($25! I am shocked! I do not yet have the skills for bargain-shopping in the US. At home I'd have gone via T K Maxx and picked one up for under a fiver). And got it filled with a pint of bang-bang (that's an Americano with extra shots, obviously) right there at the Starbucks concession behind the tills, which confirmed for me that I like the coffee at the Bean Scene better (and the Bean Scene boys too - who usually have my mug filled and ready for me by the time I reach the till).

So there's that. And I worked at the library until the coffee was all gone, and then I wandered vaguely through their vasty racks of DVDs that I can borrow now and came home for lunch with m'wife. And now I am meandering about the internets to avoid that work thing, and I find that m'friends Mary and Stuart Manley have made a Youtube video about their discovery of the original "Keep Calm and Carry On" poster, which you should all watch not for its uplifting message but for its views of one of my favourite bookshops on the planet:

And now I should get back to proofreading the scan of The Garden, but I still don't want to, so I shall mention instead that Shades of Blue and Gray, the Prime Books anthology of ghost stories from the US Civil War, is now available for pre-order and the table of contents is announced:

"Raw Recruits" by Will Ludwigsen
"The Swell of the Cicadas" by Tenea D. Johnson
"Bad Penny" by Carrie Laben
"Spectral Drums" by Devin Poore
"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce
"Ten Thousand Miles" by Connie Wilkins
"No More Amongst the Cities of the Earth" by Christopher M. Cevasco
The Country House" by Jameson Currier
"An Unclean Thing" by Cindy Potts
"The Blank Flag of Arthur Kerry" by Kristopher Reisz
"Three Silent Things" by John F. D. Taff
"Across Hickman’s Bridge to Home" by Russell Davis
"Mistress" by Jennifer R. Povey
"Tommy Cleburne" by Jeff Mann
"The Overseer" by Albert E. Cowdrey
"Red Animal" by Ed Kurtz
"Proving Up" by Caren Gussoff
"Vermont Muster" by Nick Mamatas
"Like Quicksilver for Gold" by Chaz Brenchley
"The Beatification of Custer Poe" by Laird Barron
“The Arabella” by Melissa Scott
"The Third Nation" by Lee Hoffman

There are apparently two stories set in Vermont, and Nick's is the other one, so the geographical unities are observed.