Everything’s Pubbing

After going through a spell when there was nothing to really interest me on the publishing horizon, it seems that all of the books I’d been waiting for are now pubbing almost simultaneously.

In a previous post, I discussed my giddy anticipation of the new edition of Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary. After flipping through it at the bookstore, I was a little disappointed that it didn’t offer much over my facsimile copy. Though the new edition does include Johnson’s original “Plan of a Dictionary of the English Language,” I have that printed in another volume, and the reduction of the book to “selections” really cuts the book too short to warrant my buying it again.

At any rate, it’s still nice to see this fine work getting more contemporary attention, and today’s Talk of the Nation program featured Jack Lynch, the editor of the new edition. Joining Lynch was Simon Winchester, the author of the captivating The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary. It turns out that he has returned to the deep well of the OED with the ambitiously titled The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary.

As excited as I am about this new book, I might just have to wait for the paperback. I’ve already ordered Everything and More, and I expect that getting through that one might take some time.

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