No Fancy Hazmat Suit Required
Maybe it's an occupational hazard but we library types love words. If you, too, love words these books (none of them dry, all of them spicy) may be for you.
Joshua Kendall's The Man Who Made Lists tells the life story of Peter Mark Roget (1770-1869) who penned the world famous Roget's Thesaurus. Roget's life, which reads like a modern-day thriller, is highlighted by family troubles, even troubles with the leading European personality of his time, Napoleon.
The Meaning of Everything and The Professor and the Madman, both by Simon Winchester, discuss the origins of the OED (Oxford English Dictionary) 'the definitive record of the English language'. You'll be surprised by how the original OED effort came together and who contributed.
Jonathon Green's Chasing the Sun presents a history of lexicography from pre-Babylonian Sumeria to current times. Like the age old question, which came first, the chicken or the egg, this book asks the question which came first, the culture or the language?
