Why am I passionate about this?
I am a bibliophile. I love words, books, librarians, and independent bookstores. Both my novels describe the reading life of my main characters. To hold a book in my own hands generates an excited anticipation that both challenges and comforts me. So when I am reading a novel with a book within it as a character I double my reading fun! Like many readers, I fell in love with reading when I was very young and remember the smell of the modest musty library that my father used to take me to when I was knee-high to a grasshopper. So many books...so little time!
Christine's book list on books with books as characters
Why did Christine love this book?
This book is the story of etymology: words and the mystery of their origin and utilization by writers and speakers. And of course, the story of the books that officially collect and define them. I made a list of new words, arcane and whimsical. It was amusing to guess which were legitimate usage and which were contrived to aid the narrator’s search for what is true and real. Wordplay is the name of the game. Obsessive main characters with a supporting cast of a lackadaisical cat and oddly motivated associates of the dictionary compilation project amused me up until the surprise ending.
1 author picked The Liar's Dictionary as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
'Made me almost tearful with gratitude that a book as clever as this could give such uncomplicated pleasure ... And when you find a book like this, you grab it, and you hold it close.' JOHN SELF
'A delight ... As funny and vivid as Dickens, as moving and memorable as Nabokov ... An extraordinarily large-hearted work.' THE CRITIC
Picked as a 'Book of the Year' in the Guardian
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mountweazel, noun: a fake entry deliberately inserted into a dictionary or work of reference. Often used as a safeguard against copyright infringement.
In the final year of the nineteenth century,…