Do you have strong feelings about the word “irregardless”? Have you ever tried to define the word “is”? Brimming with intelligence and personality, this vastly entertaining account of how dictionaries are made is a must-read for word mavens. Many of us take dictionaries for granted, and few may realize that the process of writing dictionaries is, in fact, as lively and dynamic as language itself. With sharp wit and irreverence, Kory Stamper cracks open the complex, obsessive world of lexicography, from the agonizing decisions about what to define and how to do it, to the knotty questions of usage in an ever-changing language. She explains why small words are the most difficult to define, how it can take nine months to define a single word, and how our biases about language and pronunciation can have tremendous social influence. And along the way, she reveals little-known surprises—for example, the fact that “OMG” was first used in a letter to Winston Churchill in 1917. Word b
Few historical figures are as intriguing as John Brown, the controversial Abolitionist who used terrorist tactics against slavery and single-handedly changed the course of American history. This brill
"A deft, ironic, beautiful novel that deserves to be a classic." —William StyronFrom the moment of its publication in 1961, Revolutionary Road was hailed as a masterpiece of realistic fiction and as t
From the award-winning author of Remains of the Day comes an inspired sequence of stories, which is as affecting as it is beautiful.?With the clarity and precision that have become his trademarks, Kaz
The novel that introduced Tommy and Tuppence, a bantering pair of 1920s bright young things who solve a mystery together while falling for each other.The Great War is over and jobs are scarce. Tommy B
NATIONAL BEST SELLERFrom the internationally acclaimed, best-selling author of The English Patient: a mesmerizing new novel that tells a dramatic story set in the decade after World War II through the
HBO迷你影集，改編原著小說，由金獎影后凱特溫斯蕾主演。 Mildred Pierce had gorgeous legs, a way with a skillet, and a bone-deep core of toughness. She used those attributes to survive a divorce and poverty and to c
By the time of her death thirty years ago, at the tragically young age of thirty-four, Lorraine Hansberry had created two electrifying masterpieces of the American theater. With A Raisin in the Sun, H
Set in Claybourne, a small town somewhere in the South, THE SALT EATERS is the story of a community of black faith healers who, searching for the healing properties of salt, witness an event that will
Robert Graves begins anew the tumultuous life of the Roman who became emporer in spite of himself. Captures the vitality, splendor, and decadence of the Roman world at the point of its decline.
This exuberantly spooky novel, in which horror, repressed eroticism, and sulfurous social comedy intertwine like the vines in an overgrown English garden, is now a major motion picture, starring Alan
An epic adventure that began with one simple question: Why does my foot hurt? Isolated by Mexico's deadly Copper Canyons, the blissful Tarahumara Indians have honed the ability to run hundreds of mile
In this generous anthology, Joel Conarroe has assembled the work of eight poets who have shaped--and to some extent defined--American verse since 1940: Elizabeth Bishop, James Merrill, Sylvia Plath, A
Alice Munro, who received the National Book Critics Circle Award for her latest collection of stories, The Love of a Good Woman, is widely acknowledged as a modern master of the short story. In this e
From the creator of the beloved and universally acclaimed television series BoJack Horseman, a fabulously offbeat collection of short stories about love—the best and worst thing in the universeWritten
Inez Victor knows that the major casualty of the political life is memory. But the people around Inez have made careers out of losing track. Her senator husband wants to forget the failure of his last
