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Alphabetter Juice: Or, The Joy Of Text (2011)

by Roy Blount Jr.(Favorite Author)

3.53 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0374103704 (ISBN13: 9780374103705)

languge

English

genre

Humor

publisher

Sarah Crichton Books

review 1: I wanted to like this book, I really did, but sad to say this is truly a boring and uninspired book. The subtitle while certainly “juicy” or at least a half-way decent pun does little to convey the poor quality of this effort. You know that a book has failed to catch your attention when the free newspapers that the street people give away on the DC Metro are more engaging than the book you have with you. There are better books about dictionaries (Winchester’s “The Meaning of everything: the story of the Oxford English Dictionary") and funnier books about the meaning of words and language (try Jacob’s “The Know-it-all: one man’s humble quest to become the smartest person in the world"). In fact, there are funnier and more engaging books by Blount and if you li... moreke his style generally I would recommend that you read something else by him and give this book a pass.
review 2: I won an autographed copy of this book at the American Library Association's annual conference. In this follow-up to Alphabet Juice, Blount, Jr examines language through his own observations on words and phrases as well as research on their pronunciations and origins from a variety of sources. There was a lot of humor integrated into many of the entries, but as there is no narrative arc I found the book a little tedious to read. It's kind of like trying to sit down and read the encyclopedia straight through. Lots of interesting information, but not necessarily the easiest thing to do. less

Download links for: Alphabetter Juice: or, The Joy of Text

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