2516: Such childish vocabulary

The nouns from the first sentence of a book (in the ODQ) appear as unclued lights — apart from two. One of these two is revealed by extracting one or two letters at a time from six normal solutions, leaving real words as entries. The other appears diagonally in the grid and must be highlighted. Two of these unclued lights also appear in the title of the book. Elsewhere, ignore an accent.

Across

1 Lark serving man truffles? (5)

4 Lothario excited almost all maidens (9, two words)

11 Suits altered with European woven fabric (6)

12 Sleep for moment in time, like Shakespeare’s night? (7)

14 Genus of flowers: Paul messed with it (6)

15 Case, ultimately small and sweet? (5)

22 Liquid that’s distilled from new ulcer (7)

24 One taken in by most of mock doesn’t pass (5)

Most popular

Ross Clark

Britain is living beyond its means

25 Poem’s recital did not pay (4)

33 Love to get a bit of power back for capital (6)

34 Three, odd number (5)

38 Record number of goals? (5)

41 Most lavish plants are deadheaded in fort (6)

Down

1 They’re stealing pirate’s parrot, we hear, and they’re making chips (13, hyphened)

2 Throw us a ten, somehow (6)

3 Good Joanna gives up ecstasy, sadly (6)