LANGUAGE & BOOKS from Bookhome Sydney

New York: Grove Press, 2000. 1st U.S. ed.. Hardback small octavo, dustjacket, very good condition (in very good dustjacket), edges little foxed, minor edgewear jacket, old price marks. 250 pp. This very special book is a memoir by Diana Athill who for nearly five decades edited some of the most celebrated writers in the English language, including V. S.… Read more about this item

London: Bloomsbury, 2009. 1st ed.. Hardback small octavo, dustjacket, very good condition (in very good dustjacket), boards little rubbed, pages lightly toned, protected by removable semiarchival plastic sleeve (Brodart). 312 pp. This book is a collection of pieces by Ben Macintyre that will tease and tantalise all who enjoy all things lexical. Learn the advantage of having your own… Read more about this item

Portland, OR: Tin House Books, 2018. 1st US ed.. Hardback small square trade, no jacket, very good condition, spine ends rubbed, corner tips covers slightly rubbed, small bump with tiny tear top edge rear cover near spine, small rubber stamp front free flyleaf. 138 pp. Ursula Le Guin is interviewed by David Naimon, and in a series of essays… Read more about this item

London: John Murray / Hodder Headline, 2006. Paperback trade, very good condition, pages lightly toned, minimal foxing edges, minor edgewear, minor annotation one page, cover design differs from stock photo. 278 pp. Henry Hitchings relates the story of the first great dictionary of the English language. It is also the story of an heroic ordeal. Dr Samuel Johnson`s pioneering… Read more about this item

Sydney: Pan Macmillan, 2020. Hardcover small octavo, no jacket, very good condition, minimal edgewear. 256 pp. Sue Butler provides a fascinating idiosyncratic look at the world of words. She is a lexicographer and former editor of the Macquarie Dictionary.

London: Abacus, 2017. New ed.. Paperback small trade, very good condition, base spine little bumped, minor edgewear. 366 pp. John Simpson is the former chief editor of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), where he helped move the dictionary online in the 1980s, and led the editorial work on its Third Edition (from 2000). His main story concentrates on his… Read more about this item

Melbourne: Oxford University Press (OUP), 1992. Reprint ed.. Paperback small trade, very good condition, light toning edges, minor edgewear. 229 pp. This book covers the fascinating topic of eponyms - words in the English language which are also the names of people. There are over 500 eponyms defined, and each one is accompanied by a succinct history of its… Read more about this item

Melbourne: Oxford University Press (OUP), 2001. 1st ed.. Paperback small trade, very good condition, few black & white photos, map, light toning pages, top corner tip tip front cover little creased, minor edgewear. 200 pp. Editor Julia Robinson records 500 words of significance to Queensland, with their origins, meanings, and illustrative quotations. The words come from different aspects of… Read more about this item

Melbourne: Oxford University Press (OUP), 1994. Paperback small trade, very good condition, black & white drawings, maps, light foxing top title page & last page, minor edgewear. 222 pp. Maureen Brooks and Joan Ritchie have compiled 750 dictionary entries of words found in Western Australian newspapers. The words are defined and the sentences in which they were used are… Read more about this item

Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2005. 1st ed.. Paperback small trade, very good condition, minor edgewear. 206 pp. This dictionary compiled by Amana Laugesen brings together the diverse words produced and used by ordinary Australians at war, with evidence of contemporary usage. The meaning and origins of each word are looked at, and detailed quotations from contemporary sources are provided.… Read more about this item

Melbourne: Oxford University Press (OUP), 2004. 1st ed.. Paperback small trade, very good condition, black & white drawings & few photos, bottom corner tip front cover creased, tiny dent bottom edge rear cover & last few pages, minor edgewear. 224 pp. Dorothy Jauncey guides you through a world of language that is in chronological step with South Australia's development.… Read more about this item

Sydney: University of New South Wales Press (UNSW Press), 1999. Paperback octavo, very good condition, pages toned as usual, minor edgewear. 213 pp. Graham Seal, a respected academic linguist (Curtin University) provides a lively analysis of Australian English that goes well beyond "cobber" and "g'day", exploring the colour, variety and cultural significance of the local vernacular language. Scarce. … Read more about this item

Sydney, Potts Point: Hordern House, 1987. Hardback large thick octavo, dustjacket, very good condition (in very good dustjacket), black & white text-photos, tipped-in frontispiece, black & white drawings (some full-page, some showing a title page), minor edgewear jacket (spine little faded as common), light foxing fore-edge, minor edgewear, jacket design differs from stock photo (which wrongly shows the limited… Read more about this item

Sydney: Career FAQs Pty Ltd, 2007. Paperback large octavo, very good condition, colour text-photos, black & white drawings, corner tips covers little creased. crease fore-edge title page, minor edgewear. 188 pp. This book looks at a career in the publishing industry. Current trends are discussed, and ways to get into the industry. Includes how to prepare top resumes and… Read more about this item

New York: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 2012. Reprint ed.. Hardback octavo, dustjacket, very good plus condition (in very good plus dustjacket), cloth spine, black & white drawings, untrimmed fore-edge, minor edgewear jacket. 378 pp. In this heartfelt, and sometimes humorous ode to bookstores and booksellers, 84 well-known American writers give tribute to the real physical bookstores they love… Read more about this item

Sydney, Bellevue Hill: Cyndi Kaplan Communications, 1997. 1st ed.. Paperback trade, good condition, black & white text cartoons, few small marks, minor toning & staining rear cover, top corner front cover creased, light foxing top edge, some edgewear. 168 pp. This book covers business, self-help, travel, biography, children's, craft and cookery books. The author gives step-by-step information on how… Read more about this item

London: Robert Hale, 2000. Paperback small trade, very good condition, corners creased front cover, bottom edge little marked, top corners few pages creased, minor edgewear. 160 pp. The author looks back at his long and distinguished career in publishing. This book has many fascinating and amusing anecdotes about Claire Rayner, Nicholas Monsarrat, Jacqueline Susann and the publishers Stanley Unwin… Read more about this item

London: Maclehose Press, 2016. 1st U.K. ed.. Hardback octavo, dustjacket, very good condition (in very good dustjacket), black & white text-photos, minor edgewear jacket. 304 pp. This fascinating book is a travelogue of a lucid and curious observer, full of anecdotes and stories from the universe of writing, publishing and selling books. The author travels to Shakespeare & Co… Read more about this item

Melbourne: Text Publishing, 2014. 1st this ed.. Paperback octavo, very good condition, pages lightly toned, cover corner tips little creased, minor edgewear. 293 pp. The author read Middlemarch for the first time at the age of 17, and she has read it again every five years since, interpreting and discovering it anew each time. She writes passionately about her… Read more about this item

Sydney: State Library of New South Wales (SLNSW), 2007. Paperback large quarto, very good plus condition, colour drawings, sepia (brown-tinted) text-photos, minimal edgewear. 54 pp. This book has been published in association with the exhibition 'A Grand Obsession: The DS Mitchell Story', a free exhibition at the State Library of New South Wales from 18 June to 30… Read more about this item