100 books like Nigger

I am Nadine Strossen’s Number One fan. What an amazing career–daughter of a Holocaust survivor, directly targeted by Nazi hate speech, yet today Professor Strossen stands out as America’s most prominent advocate of free speech.

Having served as President of the American Civil Liberties Union for an impressive term of more than fifteen years, Strossen used this book to outline in a concise yet fact-filled way the reasons why hateful attitudes are damaging, yet legal punishments on individual speakers would be even more damaging. 

I disagree with the authors’ conclusions, but I agree with their diagnosis. This book is aimed at students yet written in a style that anyone can grasp. The authors defy the old “Sticks and Stones” dictum, explaining how even seemingly mild racism feeds into deeper patterns that undermine our ability to relate to each other as citizens of a single democratic society.

Although I agree with stricter controls on internet platforms, I disagree with the authors’ proposals for punishing individual speakers. Whether you accept or reject their proposals, their account of how racist attitudes spread is passionate and compelling.

I found this book to be one of the best introductions to the endless dilemmas surrounding free speech. In the first half of the twentieth century, anxieties about free speech in the United States were triggered mostly on the left, with government attempts to stifle socialists and communists culminating in Senator Joseph McCarthy’s witch hunts, damaging and even destroying thousands of lives and careers.

Philippa Strum shows how, after the 1950s, this completely changed. The government’s increasing focus on far-right speech became an issue of burning importance when residents of a small Illinois town, home to Holocaust survivors, tried to block a Nazi march–and the courts said “No” in the name of free speech.

Waldron’s proposals for punishing individual speakers are unpersuasive, but I admire his effort to translate difficult historical and legal material into everyday language. Many writers try to challenge American First Amendment principles by questioning the very foundations of Western parliamentary democracy.

Waldron does the opposite. He articulates his challenge by arguing that speech restrictions are faithful to the letter and spirit of a democratic constitution. I disagree–at least with the way Waldron makes his case–but he does make his case clearly, and with this book, he has influenced a generation of disciples.

I love Bill Bryson’s dry and wry sense of humor, his sharp eye for the preposterous, and his fascination with detail. In his better-known books, it’s travel, but this fits my fascination with language and naming because it tells the story of English.

Well, stories of English, anyway—it’s not a scholarly history (which I’d also enjoy) but more a collection of anecdotes to illustrate some of the quirks of the language. It’s fun and easy reading, and some things piqued my curiosity enough that I dug in further with more authoritative books. 

Ok sure, she had me at the title. But Montell dives deep into the language we use every day that, yes, often demeans women. Many of our body parts were taken from Latin words that dudes used to describe them. And the meanings weren’t always flattering. She also explains the positives of Valley Girl-Speak such as “like” and of vocal fry, and women are so fast to say “sorry.” Did you know that “hussy” used to mean housewife and “slut” meant a messy person that could be a man? Or that “bitch” used to be a gender-neutral name that had nothing to do with dogs? And why are some words considered feminine and others, male? Read this book to find out. 

What terrible tome would Morticia and Gomez have read to little Wednesday in order to ensure that she would have the most noxious nightmares? I believe they would’ve cracked open this gothic children’s classic, written and illustrated by the enigmatic Edward Gorey.

This book recites the alphabet, with each letter representing how a child died. Take, for instance, the representation of our second letter: “B is for Basil assaulted by bears.” What better way for a wicked whelp to learn her letters?

I both chuckled and winced while reading this book, especially with the paired black-and-white illustrations. It’s funny and deeply dark, which is, of course, the perfect mix for an Addams Family fan.

I spent much of the past few decades online, in different online communities that each have their own special way of communicating. With how fast the internet evolved, it should be no surprise that language rapidly changed with it.

In Because Internet, Gretchen McCulloch takes the reader through a linguistic analysis of the internet, from leetspeak to doge memes. It’s already missing more recent internet language a few years after publication. Still, I love the book for a casual yet academic look at the silly side of the internet's teenage years. 

My Mother did not graduate high school. She lived on a farm in Poughkeepsie, the third oldest of nine children, and went to work. She was a smart woman who grew up to be a court reporter. I remember nighttime, when the house was quiet and dark, she would be at the kitchen table reading the dictionary with a flashlight. Self-taught, she loved words and passed that on to me. “Janie,” she’d say when I asked the definition of a word, “Look it up!” She’s been dead for years, but her memory lives on every time I grab the dictionary.

I read this book when it came out in 1985, as I was polishing my first book. I recommended it to a senior colleague who had written several books and edited a leading journal. He took it with him to some beach on winter vacation as he was completing his next book. When he returned, he said he was so engrossed in the book that his wife got mad at him for not putting it down. He loved it as much as I did.

If you have mastered this book, your writing will improve dramatically, and you will not need another style manual for the rest of your life.