(In fact, he says, in certain situations reading the book is the worst thing you could do). Using examples from such writers as Graham Greene, Oscar Wilde, Montaigne, and Umberto Eco, he describes the varieties of "non-reading"—from books that you've never heard of to books that you've read and forgotten—and offers advice on how to turn a sticky social situation into an occasion for creative brilliance. Practical, funny, and thought-provoking, How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read is in the end a love letter to books, offering a whole new perspective on how we read and absorb them. It's a book for book lovers everywhere to enjoy, ponder, and argue about—and perhaps even read.Pierre Bayard is a professor of French literature at the University of Paris VIII and a psychoanalyst. He is the author of Who Killed Roger Ackroyd? and of many other books. Jeffrey Mehlman is a professor of French at Boston University and the author of a number of books, including Emigré New York. He has translated works by Derrida, Lacan, Blanchot, and other authors.

    Yet, as Oliver Kamm cleverly demonstrates in this new book, many of the purists' prohibitions are bogus and can be cheerfully disregarded. Accidence Will Happen is an authoritative and deeply reassuring guide to grammar, style, and the linguistic conundrums we all face.

    Since then, the ways we process written language have changed dramatically with many concerned about both their own changes and that of children. New research on the reading brain chronicles these changes in the brains of children and adults as they learn to read while immersed in a digitally dominated medium.Drawing deeply on this research, this book comprises a series of letters Wolf writes to us—her beloved readers—to describe her concerns and her hopes about what is happening to the reading brain as it unavoidably changes to adapt to digital mediums. Wolf raises difficult questions, including:Will children learn to incorporate the full range of "deep reading" processes that are at the core of the expert reading brain?Will the mix of a seemingly infinite set of distractions for children’s attention and their quick access to immediate, voluminous information alter their ability to think for themselves?With information at their fingertips, will the next generation learn to build their own storehouse of knowledge, which could impede the ability to make analogies and draw inferences from what they know?Will all these influences, in turn, change the formation in children and the use in adults of "slower" cognitive processes like critical thinking, personal reflection, imagination, and empathy that comprise deep reading and that influence both how we think and how we live our lives?Will the chain of digital influences ultimately influence the use of the critical analytical and empathic capacities necessary for a democratic society?How can we preserve deep reading processes in future iterations of the reading brain?Who are the "good readers" of every epoch?Concerns about attention span, critical reasoning, and over-reliance on technology are never just about children—Wolf herself has found that, though she is a reading expert, her ability to read deeply has been impacted as she has become, inevitably, increasingly dependent on screens.Wolf draws on neuroscience, literature, education, technology, and philosophy and blends historical, literary, and scientific facts with down-to-earth examples and warm anecdotes to illuminate complex ideas that culminate in a proposal for a biliterate reading brain. Provocative and intriguing, Reader, Come Home is a roadmap that provides a cautionary but hopeful perspective on the impact of technology on our brains and our most essential intellectual capacities—and what this could mean for our future.

    Landmarks is about the power of language to shape our sense of place. It is a field guide to the literature of nature, and a glossary containing thousands of remarkable words used in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales to describe land, nature and weather. Travelling from Cumbria to the Cairngorms, and exploring the landscapes of Roger Deakin, J. A. Baker, Nan Shepherd and others, Robert Macfarlane shows that language, well used, is a keen way of knowing landscape, and a vital means of coming to love it.

    To survive in the most sophisticated - and the most scathing - nation on Earth you will need to understand the many peculiarities of the (very peculiar) French culture. And for that you need A Certain Je Ne Sais Quoi.If you want to fit in with the French you'll have to know how to deal with sardonic waiters; why French children hate Charlemagne; the etiquette of kissing, joke-telling and drinking songs, what to do with a bidet, the correct recipe for a salade nicoise and, of course, how to convey absolute, shattering indifference with a single syllable (Bof!).Charles Timoney, the author of Pardon My French, provides a practical, pleasurable guide to the charms of the Gallic people - from their daily routines to their peerless gesticulations, from their come-ons to their put-downs. Read on and put the oh la la back into your French vacances. Your inner gaul will thank you for it.

    Now at last here's a feast for them and other verbivores. Eat up!-Barbara WallraffSenior Editor at The Atlantic Monthly and author of Word CourtPraise for A Word a Day"AWADies will be familiar with Anu Garg's refreshing approach to words: words are fun and they have fascinating histories. The people who use them have curious stories to tell too, and this collection incorporates some of the correspondence received by the editors at the AWAD site, from advice on how to outsmart your opponent in a duel (or even a truel) to a cluster of your favorite mondegreens."-John Simpson, Chief Editor, Oxford English Dictionary"A banquet of words! Feast and be nourished!"-Richard Lederer, author of The Miracle of LanguageWritten by the founder of the wildly popular A Word A Day Web site (www.wordsmith.org), this collection of unusual, obscure, and exotic English words will delight writers, scholars, crossword puzzlers, and word buffs of every ilk. The words are grouped in intriguing categories that range from "Portmanteaux" to "Words That Make the Spell-Checker Ineffective." each entry includes a concise definition, etymology, and usage example-and many feature fascinating and hilarious commentaries by A Word A Day subscribers and the authors.

    In this brilliant book about metaphor James Geary is no less astonishing, as he deciphers the subtle implications embedded in advertising slogans, familiar slang and government double-talk…. You'll scarf down every page of I Is an Other and then ask for more.” —Michael Dirda, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic and author of Book by Book and Classics for PleasureFor lovers of language and fans of Blink and Freakonomics, New York Times bestselling author James Geary offers this fascinating look at metaphors and their influence in every aspect of our lives, from art to medicine, psychology to the stock market.

    The literary critic Roland Barthes dies—struck by a laundry van—after lunch with the presidential candidate François Mitterand. The world of letters mourns a tragic accident. But what if it wasn’t an accident at all? What if Barthes was . . . murdered?

    Writing is hard work and can be difficult to wedge into a frenetic academic schedule.This revised and updated edition of Paul Silvia's popular guide provides practical, light-hearted advice to help academics overcome common barriers and become productive writers. Silvia's expert tips have been updated to apply to a wide variety of disciplines, and this edition has a new chapter devoted to grant and fellowship writing.

    Learn the Alphabet and pronunciation as well as useful phrases in 8 categories, such as greetings, travel and directions, making friends to business and emergencies. Download, read and enjoy your vacation like never before.

    So when she discovered that schools today forego handwriting drills in favor of teaching something called keyboarding, it gave her pause: “There is a widespread belief that, in a digital world, forming letters on paper with a pen is pointless and obsolete,” she says, “and anyone who thinks otherwise is right up there with folks who still have fallout shelters in their backyards.”Florey tackles the importance of writing by hand and its place in our increasingly electronic society in this fascinating exploration of the history of handwriting. Weaving together the evolution of writing implements and scripts, pen-collecting societies, the golden age of American penmanship, the growth in popularity of handwriting analysis, and the many aficionados who still prefer scribbling on paper to tapping on keys, she asks the question: Is writing by hand really no longer necessary in today’s busy world?

    Taking her own experience of translating Roland Barthes’s lecture notes as a starting point, the author threads various stories together to give us this portrait of translation as a compelling, complex and intensely relational activity. She recounts the story of Helen Lowe-Porter’s translations of Thomas Mann, and their posthumous vilification. She writes about the loving relationship between André Gide and his translator Dorothy Bussy. She recalls how Robinson Crusoe laboriously made a table, for him for the first time, on an undeserted island. With This Little Art, a beautifully layered account of a subjective translating experience, Kate Briggs emerges as a truly remarkable writer: distinctive, wise, frank, funny and utterly original.

    Drawing on a wide range of  great writers, from Philip Roth to Antonin Scalia to Jane Austen, How to Write a Sentence is much more than a writing manual—it is a spirited love letter to the written word, and a key to understanding how great writing works.

    The majority of scholars now believe that an understanding of verbal aspect is even more important than verb tense (past, present, etc.). Until now, however, there have been no accessible textbooks, both in terms of level and price (most titles on the topic retail for more than $100). In this book, Constantine Campbell investigates the function of verbal aspect within the New Testament Greek narrative. He has done a marvelous job in this book of simplifying the concept without getting caught up using terms of linguistics that no one except those schooled in that field can understand. The book includes exercises, an answer key, glossary of key concepts, an appendix covering space and time, and an index to Scripture cited. Professors and students, at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, will use this is as a supplemental text in both beginning and advanced Greek courses. Pastors that study the Greek text will also appreciate this resource as a supplement to their preaching and teaching.

    For four decades, he has worked for newspapers, from the Sun to the Financial Times, from local weeklies that sold a few thousand copies to the Guardian, with its global readership of nine million, turning the sow's ear of rough-and-ready reportage into a passable imitation of a silk purse.The chaos might be sloppy syntax, a disregard for grammar or a fundamental misunderstanding of what grammar is. It could be an adherence to "rules" that have no real basis and get in the way of fluent, unambiguous communication at the expense of ones that are actually useful. Clear, honest use of English has many enemies: politicians, business and marketing people, local authority and civil service jargonauts, rail companies, estate agents, academics ... and some journalists. This is the book to help defeat them.