Home

Readings Recommends: Reference

Life Of Slang A History Of Slang
Julie Coleman

$28.95 – Hardcover book / Oxford University Pr

Bloodywas once a shocking word. It was used largely by the working classes and caused their betters to shudder with horror. ButBloodyisn't slang anymore in Britain, though it is still a swear-word. Everyone knows it, and... Buy or find out more 


Oxford Classical Dictionary
Simon Hornblower Antony Spawforth

$191.95 – Hardcover book / Oxford University Pr

For over sixty years, The Oxford Classical Dictionary has been the unrivalled one-volume reference in the field of classics. Now completely revised and updated to include the very latest research findings, developments, ... Buy or find out more 



Oxford Latin Dictionary
Dictionaries Oxford

$431.95 – Hardcover book / Oxford University Pr

The Oxford Latin Dictionary is the world's most authoritative dictionary of classical Latin, with comprehensive coverage of the language from its beginnings until AD 200. More than fifty years in the making, and original... Buy or find out more 


The Redstone Book Of The Eye
Julian Rothenstein

$39.95 – Paperback book / Random House

From Grayson Perry to David Shrigley here is a collection of extraordinary images to excite the eye, tease the eye, see things anew and make you smile.

Julian Rothenstein is the brilliant editor and designer of Redstone ... Buy or find out more 



 

Planet Word
J.P. Davidson

$45.00$39.95 – Hardcover book / Penguin Group Uk

Introduction by Stephen Fry.

According to the Snohomish tribe of North America, we speak different languages today because of a row about a duck. There are more than 6,000 languages spoken in the world, some by only a ha... Buy or find out more 


 

Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold Story Of English
John McWhorter

$31.95$13.95 – Hardcover book / Gotham

language is like it. He looks at how English grammar and sentence construction have changed more over the centuries than related Germanic languages, and traces these ties to the survival of Celtic grammatical forms after... Buy or find out more 



Endangered Phrases: Intriguing Idioms Dangerously Close To Extinction
Steven Price

$17.95 – Paperback book / W W Norton

Person to person (and station to station ), bar sinister, the weed of crime bears bitter fruit, between the devil and the deep blue sea, will o the wisp, poor as Job s turkey . . . these are just a few phrases that were ... Buy or find out more 


The Writer's Handbook 2011
Barry Turner (Ed)

$37.00 – Paperback book / Palgrave

Described by The Times as 'the book no writer should be without', this is the definitive guide for everyone in the writing profession. Including free online access to www.thewritershandbook.com, which offers access to th... Buy or find out more 



Brewers Dictionary Of Phrase And Fable Eighteenth Edition
Chambers

$55.00 – Paperback book / Headline

This paperback edition of the revised and expanded Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable features hundreds of new entries on everything from blogs and designer babies to New York's mysterious sewer-dwelling alligators,... Buy or find out more 


Found In Translation An Extremely Guide To Speaking Correctly English
Tomas Santos

$24.99 – Hardcover book / Michael Omara Books

Found in Translation is an English-language guide with a difference. Compiled by Tomas Santos - a well-meaning but incompetent foreigner of indeterminate nationality - it contains a wealth of priceless miscommunications ... Buy or find out more 



Opening Pandora's Box: Phrases We Borrowed From The Classics And The Stories Behind Them
Ferdie Addis

$17.95 – Hardcover book / Michael Omara Books

To open Pandora's Box is to get yourself into trouble through unwise curiosity. It has been one of those days. You've worked like a Trojan, displaying titanic strength and stoic endurance in order to overcome the Hercule... Buy or find out more 


Puzzles For Wrinklies

$16.95 – Hardcover book / Carlton Books

As you get older, it becomes more and more vital to keep your brain regularly exercised. Science has recently confirmed that brainpower works in much the same way as muscle power - if you work it, it gets stronger, and i... Buy or find out more 



How To Read A Word
Elizabeth Knowles

$24.95 – Hardcover book / Oxford University Pr

How to Read a Word shows us how to explore the origins, associations, and evolution of words. This is a fascinating look at the richness of words, and at the wide array of resources readers can use to explore English in ... Buy or find out more 


Vice Slang
Dalzell Tom & Victor Terry

$35.00 – Paperback book / Routledge

Are you a bit of a chairwarmer? Do you use the wins from a country straight to get scudded on snakebite in a blind tiger? Do you ride the waves on puddle or death drop?

Vice Slang gently eases you into the language of ga... Buy or find out more 



Love Sex Death And Words Surprising Tales From A Year In Literature
John Sutherland And Stephen Fender

$45.00 – Hardcover book / Icon Books

Love, sex, death, boredom, ecstasy, existential angst, political upheaval - the history of literature offers a rich and varied exploration of the human condition across the centuries. This title focuses on the curious ar... Buy or find out more 


Short Cuts A Guide To Oaths Ring Tones Random Notes Famous Last Words And Other Forms Of Minimalist Communication
Humez Alexander Et Al

$37.95 – Hardcover book / Oxford University Pr

Our everyday lives are inevitably touched--and immeasurably enriched--by an extraordinary variety of miniature forms of verbal communication, from classified ads to street signs, and from yesterday's graffito to tomorrow... Buy or find out more 



The Australian Writer's Marketplace (2011-2012 Edition)

$49.95 – Paperback book / Queensland Writers Centre

Details of every contact you will need to succeed in the writing business! Comprehensively checked, updated and indexed, the 11th edition of The Australian Writers Marketplace contains more than 2,200 listings with submi... Buy or find out more 


Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules Of Writing
Elmore Leonard

$22.99 – Hardcover book / Weidenfeld And Nicolson

"These are the rules I've picked up along the way to help me remain invisible when I'm writing a book, to help me show rather than tell what's taking place in the story."-Elmore Leonard

For aspiring writers and lovers of... Buy or find out more 



A Little Book Of Language
David Crystal

$29.95 – Hardcover book / Nsw University Pr

With a language disappearing every two weeks and neologisms springing up almost daily, an understanding of the origins and currency of language has never seemed more relevant. In this charming volume, a narrative history... Buy or find out more 


Possessed: Adventures With Russian Books And The People Who Read Them
Elif Batuman

$26.95 – Paperback book / Text Publishing

The Possessed draws on Elif Batuman's articles in the New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, and n+1 to tell the true story of one woman's intellectual and sentimental education and her many strange encounters with scholars devo... Buy or find out more 



Brewer's Dictionary Of Modern Phrase And Fable (Second Edition)
John Ayto and Ian Crofton

$69.99 – Hardcover book / Cassell

Based on Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, this title contains entries from 1900 onwards.

With thousands of contemporary words and phrases and a wide selection of entries on the cultural preoccupations of our time... Buy or find out more 


 

Reading The OED
Ammon Shea

$29.95$14.95 – Hardcover book / Viking

From Abluvion to Zyxt - a yearlong account of reading the greatest dictionary in the world and plundering its treasures:

Apricity (n.) The warmth of the sun in winter.

Constult (v.) To act stupidy together.

Obaginate (v.... Buy or find out more 



Telling Tales: A History Of Literary Hoaxes
Melissa Katsoulis

$24.95 – Paperback book / Hardie Grant

When Dionysus the Renegade faked a Sophocles text in 400BC (cunningly inserting the arostic 'Heraclides is ignorant letters') to humiliate an academic rival, he paved the way for two millennia of increasingly outlandish ... Buy or find out more 


The Artful Nuance: A Refined Guide To Imperfectly Understood Words In The English Language
Rod L Evans

$16.95 – Paperback book / Penguin Group Usa

?The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter.? (Mark Twain)



What?s the difference between:



Nectar and ambrosia? Bough and branch? Astonished and surprised? Sensual and sensu...


 

Big Elephants Are Useful
Sally Hartland

$29.95$9.95 – Hardcover book / New South Books

Do you know why Big Elephants Are Useful To Indians For Unloading Logs? Because it’s a BEAUTIFUL way to get a tricky spelling right. Have you ever lost an arguement? Or was it an argument? If you can just remember “I los... Buy or find out more 


Developmental Editing: A Handbook for Freelancers, Authors, and Publishers
Scott Norton

$48.95 – Hardcover book / Univ. Of Chicago Pr.

Editing is a tricky business. It requires analytical flair and creative panache, the patience of a saint and the vision of a writer. Transforming a manuscript into a book that edifies, inspires, and sells? That’s the job... Buy or find out more 



Subversive Copy Editor
Carol Fisher Saller

$19.95 – Paperback book / Univ. Of Chicago Pr.

Each year writers and editors submit over three thousand grammar and style questions to the Q&A page at The Chicago Manual of Style Online. Some are arcane, some simply hilarious—and one editor, Carol Fisher Saller, ... Buy or find out more 


The World Of The Book
Des Cowley and Clare Williamson

$59.95 – Hardcover book / Miegunyah Press

The World of the Book is a celebration of the book using the world-class rare books collection of the State Library of Victoria. The book includes an extraordinary range of volumes from important historical titles, such ... Buy or find out more 



Advanced Banter: The Qi Book Of Quotations
John Lloyd and John Mitchinson

$29.95 – Hardcover book / Faber

Have you ever wondered why most books of quotations are stuffed full of rather pedestrian quotes by people you've never heard of?



It's a shame because a really good quotation book, one which gathered the truest and funn... Buy or find out more 


How To Really Talk About Books You Haven't Read
Henry Hitchings

$35.00 – Hardcover book / John Murray

Ever wondered how some people seem to have an opinion on every book ever published? Nowadays, there are so many books: how can anyone be well read anymore? Well, help is at hand. Let Henry Hitchings educate you in the in... Buy or find out more 



Remember, Remember: Learn The Stuff You Never Thought You Could
Ed Cooke

$0.00 – Hardcover book / Viking

Kings and queens, British prime ministers, American presidents, countries of Europe . . .

We should all know these things - but like me, you're probably resigned to being the kind of person that just never will. Now Gran... Buy or find out more 


Pictorial Webster's
Chronicle

$45.00 – Hardcover book / Hardie Grant

Pictorial Webster's -- Featuring over 1,500 engravings that originally graced the pages of Webster's dictionaries in the 19th century, this chunky volume is an irresistible treasure trove for art lovers, designers, and a... Buy or find out more 



The English Language
Charles Barber

$49.95 – Paperback book / Cambridge Univ Pres

Where does today's English come from? This new edition of the bestseller by Charles Barber tells the story of the language from its remote ancestry to the present day. In response to demand from readers, a brand new chap... Buy or find out more 


Immortal Words: History's Most Memorable Quotations and the Stories Behind Them
Terry Breverton

$29.95 – Hardcover book / Quercus

Immortal Words is an anthology of history’s most memorable, uplifting or thought-provoking quotations from all ages and nations.

The texts are drawn not only from the works and words of great writers, thinkers and orat... Buy or find out more 



The Oxford Companion To The Book
Michael F. Suarez

$450.00 – Slipcase / Oxford University Pr

The Oxford Companion to the Book is a unique work of reference covering the broad concept book throughout the world from ancient to modern times. Including traditional subjects such as bibliography, the history of printi... Buy or find out more 


Unpacking My Library: Architects And Their Books
Jo Steffens

$34.95 – Hardcover book / Yale Univ Pr

What does a library say about the mind of its owner? How do books map the intellectual interests, curiosities, tastes, and personalities of their readers? What does the collecting of books have in common with the practic... Buy or find out more 



Best Advice Ever Given
Steven Price

$14.95 – Paperback book / Globe Pequot

With so many decisions to make in the areas of love and relationships, education and professional endeavors, success and personal happiness, it's no wonder that most of us seek good advice from the fount of collective hu... Buy or find out more 


Historical Thesaurus Of The Oxford English Dictionary

$528.95 – Slipcase / Oxford University Pr

The Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary is the largest thesaurus in the world.

Based on the OED, the Historical Thesaurus of the OED (HTOED) contains almost every word in English from Old English to the... Buy or find out more 



The Queen's English
Christopher J. Moore

$0.00 – Paperback book / Univ Nsw Pr

English may well be the most widely spoken language in the world but what exactly do we mean when we talk about 'the English language'? The Queen's English is the perfect guide to understanding what makes the English tic... Buy or find out more 


The Secrets Of Codes
Paul Lunde

$45.00 – Paperback book / Murdoch Books

There's no mystery about it -- codes are hot! Viewers around the world flocked to The Da Vinci Code, Sudoku sells everywhere, and hackers are the new heroes to a generation of coder kids. What's the secret message? The S... Buy or find out more 



Should You Judge This Book By Its Cover? One Hundred Fresh Takes On Familiar Sayings And Quotations
Julian Baggini

$30.00 – Paperback book / Granta

Unpick glib aphorisms and root out cliche with the best-selling author of The Pig that Wants to be Eaten.

Another rapid-fire selection of short, stimulating and entertaining capsules of philosophy from the master of the ... Buy or find out more 


Ad Hoc, Ad Lib, Ad Nauseam: So You Think You Don't Speak Latin
John Parker

$29.95 – Hardcover book / Summersdale

Quirky reference about the everyday use of Latin. Buy or find out more 



Copyright © 2012 Readings Pty Ltd. | Site designed and developed by Inventive Labs.