For Wordies
Today, Boni Ashburn (author of Hush, Little Dragon) blogged about “Great Gifts for Word Lovers”. She lists some terrific books for anyone who loves words, and I imagine most writers out there are word-addicts, as I am! Picture book writers, especially, are always looking for The Perfect Word. I’m joined at the spine to my thesaurus and rhyming dictionary, but where to go for something a bit more fun? More joyful, lyrical, inspiring?
A book that Boni and I both like is L Is for Lollygag: Quirky Words for a Clever Tongues, “packed with quirky illustrations, fun trivia, and lists within lists… one humdinger of a dictionary.” Ounce Dice Trice, by Alastair Reid (with drawings by Ben Shahn), is my personal all-time favorite word book, and was just recently reissued by NYRB ; I blogged about it recently here.
And then, going a little beyond wordplay to how-we-put-words-together, there is Maira Kalman’s jazzy riff on Strunk and White in The Elements of Style Illustrated.
What are your favorites? For young and old?
December 14th, 2009 at 10:46 am
As a kid, I often read the dictionary — because the one we owned had these fabulous illustrations. I particularly admired the full page about armature. It was such a wonderful anachronism, even then. And sometimes, when I’m looking something up, I do get distracted. . .
December 14th, 2009 at 11:22 am
Oh good… I’m not the only nerd who reads the dictionary!