Visiting Dupont - Kramerbooks & Afterwords

I'm no stranger to bookstore tourism, which you can read about here and here.  I had plans to spend a weekend in Washington D.C. recently, so of course I had to check out the map to see if there were any bookstores nearby.  It turns out - there were!

As I had already visited the other iconic bookstore of the area, Politics and Prose, I was so excited to pay a visit to Kramerbooks & Afterwords!  When my Uber dropped me off outside, I was struck by just how small the space seemed, and how many books there were.  Once inside, however, I saw that there was much more than meets the eye.

The space itself feels cavernous, with high ceilings stacked high with a huge selection of books.  On the walk from the entryway, there are books piled on tables and displays.  It feels like you've entered a literary wonderland.

I spent most of my time scouring the fiction section, which took up a whole wall.  There were the paperback copies of books you'd expect to see in any bookstore, like "the classics" and other perennial favorites.  What I was delighted to find was that, hidden amongst the populace were a surprising selection of books from very small presses.  It's funsies just to be around books, but encountering new-to-you things is the real reason I love visiting bookshops.  I walked away with three books from indie presses -

One Hundred Apocalypses and Other Apocalypses by Lucy Corin (McSweeney's)
Tell Me How It Ends by Valeria Luiselli (Coffeehouse Press)
The Revolutionaries Try Again by Mauro Javier Cardenas (Coffeehouse Press)

In the very back of the bookshop is a dedicated cafe, serving coffee, cocktails, and meals.  Unfortunately, I didn't have time to try it out, but I will make a point to do so on my next visit. The shop is open from 7:30am-1:00am every day, except Friday and Saturday when they're open until 3:00am - so I have no excuse not to stop in next time I'm in town. Thanks for a great first experience, Kramerbooks!

Librorum annis

Winter of Women 2017 Wrapup and Reflections

In the later part of 2016, I took stock of my reading habits.  I've been interested in reading more books written by women and people of color, however my reading wasn't reflecting it.  So, I made a decision and created a reading challenge for myself.  Beginning on December 21st, the first day of winter, and ending on the first day of spring, I would read only books written by women.  You can read more about the impetus to the project here.  And because I good track record of completing projects when I give them not only a deadline but a catchy title, I decided to name this my Winter of Women 2017.

I didn't read very much between December 21 and the end of 2016, with holidays and their various requirements of my time.  I only managed to read two books, and 2AM at The Cat's Pajamas is one that I re-read every year on Christmas Eve eve, because that is the book's setting:

• Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood
• 2AM at The Cat's Pajamas by Marie-Helene Bertino

January was packed full with my teaching a night class at the local university, my birthday, and some very busy hours at my day job.  However, the #24in48 Readathon took place in January, so I was able to cram a bunch of books in there and bump up my month's reading...

• A London Child of the 1870's by Molly Hughes
• Unmentionable: The Victorian Lady's Guide to Sex, Marriage, and Manners by Therese O'Neill
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
• Talking as Fast as I Can by Lauren Graham
• M Train by Patti Smith
• Difficult Women by Roxane Gay
• The Summer Without Men by Siri Hustvedt
• Other Stories and Other Stories by Ali Smith
• The Grownup by Gillian Flynn
• The Closed Door and Other Stories by Dorothy Whipple
• Homesick for Another World by Ottessa Moshfegh
• Sad Animal Facts by Brooke Barker
• The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher
• Ms Marvel Vol. 1: No Normal by G. Willow Wilson and Adrian Alphona

February is Black History Month, so I decided to focus exclusively on books written by Black women during this month.  The only exception is the poetry collection by Claudia Emerson, which I began reading in January and finished in February. Despite it being an outwardly busy month, with not much time for reading, I finished some great books...

• White Teeth by Zadie Smith
• Love Is Love: A Comic Book Anthology to Benefit the Survivors of the Orlando Pulse Shooting by various writers/artists
• Late Wife by Claudia Emerson
• Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly
• Like One of the Family by Alice Childress
• Mules and Men by Zora Neale Hurston
• Freedom Is a Constant Struggle by Angela Y. Davis

I had initially decided that I would conclude the #WinterOfWomen17 project on March 21, which is the first day of Spring.  However, March is Women's History Month, so I decided to extend my female-only reading through the end of March.  Life has calmed down significantly this month, so I was able to read the most books yet of any month in 2017...

• Glaciers by Alexis M. Smith
• Relish: My Life in the Kitchen by Lucy Knisley
• To Bed with Grand Music by Marghanita Laski
• Frantumaglia by Elena Ferrante
• Memoirs of a Polar Bear by Yoko Towada
• Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit
• The Mothers by Brit Bennett
• Voyage of the Sable Venus by Robin Coste Lewis
• Word By Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries by Kory Stamper
• Things We Lost in the Fire by Mariana Enriquez
• Dear Ijeawele or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• The Lost Daughter by Elena Ferrante
• Dark Sparkler by Amber Tamblyn
• Why I Am Not a Feminist: A Feminist Manifesto by Jessa Crispin

Whew, those were a wholelotta lists!  Here's what this whole project looked like, at a glance:

37 books read

3 poetry collections

10 books by women of color

13 non-fiction/essay collections

3 graphic-based books

8 short story collections

Why take on a targeted project like this, limiting myself in what I could read?  What could it possibly accomplish?  Why bother?

First of all, it wasn't a hassle or hindrance to find books written by women.  They are available everywhere, brought out through all manner of publishing.  There were no libraries, bookshops, or other retailers where I couldn't find female authors' work.  I'll admit that, although I had more than enough books to read for the whole project on my own shelves, I also borrowed some from my local libraries.  New releases, backlist, older works...it was a delight and a joy deciding which books to read every month.    

Second, I wanted to make a concerted effort to make my reading more female-centric.  Most of my literary education was made up of books written by men, including those that are commonly regarded as "classics" or "books everyone should read".  The reasons for this kind of classification, and their overwhelming masculinity and dudeliness, befuddle me.  I wanted to explore a variety of women's voices to discern if there were significant differences between them and those of their male comrades.
After completing #WinterOfWomen17 I believe wholeheartedly that women authors (and women in general) are just as capable, talented, empathetic, curious, scholarly, artistic, creative, and deserving of praise and attention as men.  Both genders write in all the styles, and do so successfully.  Fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and any other form written by women is not any less valuable than those written by men.  Will I make it a permanent change - only reading books by women for the rest of my life?  Decidedly not.  Not only do I have many male authors' books sitting unread on my shelves, but there will be new/republished works I will certainly be interested in reading.  However, I will think a little more before I blindly reach for a book written by a male author.



Librorum annis

Kory Stamper and Word by Word

Last week, I had the opportunity to attend a reading and book signing for Kory Stamper's non-fiction book Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries.  The author, who lives near Philadelphia, held this event in the Parkway Central Library branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia.  The event was rescheduled from March 14th, because that day the East Coast got a hefty dose of snow.  The fact that it was rescheduled was the only reason I could attend - I had already scheduled that day off of work, so I didn't have to worry about missing anything to make the trek to Philly.  I'm so glad that I attended, because the author was both entertaining and engaging, and answered lots of burning grammar and lexicography questions from the audience.

Do you read a dictionary, just hoping to find an error?  Do you love words, and bemoan the inclusion of such things as "phat" and "OMG" into modern dictionaries?  Do you enjoy learning about how the English language became what it is today, and considering where it may be going in the future?  If so, then you will love Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries by Kory Stamper. 

Throughout the text, the author sets out to accomplish four things: 1. Explain and explore lexicography to an audience who may very well be clueless, 2. Highlight the day-to-day tasks that culminate in new editions of Merriam-Webster dictionaries, and 3. Dive into the history of English language use in the past/present/future.  She is successful on all three counts, and peppers her writing with enough subtle and snarky humor to make even the most grammatically snobbish person crack a smile. 

While she explains lexicography, the author redresses the misconception that most of us have about dictionaries.  They are not bastions of the "right and proper" words that all English speakers must use.  In centuries past, dictionaries did serve that purpose to a certain extent, but such is not the case now.  The job of the lexicographer is to include words, which have to meet specific criteria, as they are used in our speech and writing currently.  He/she does not edit out a word because it may be offensive (curse words), morally reprehensible, or opined by some as slang or a non-word ("irregardless").  As long as the word meet the dictionary's basic criteria, it is eligible for inclusion.

Working at the Merriam-Webster office, nestled in Springfield, MA, reads like an introvert's dream come true.  There are great pains taken so that human interaction is kept to an absolute minimum.  Most correspondence takes place via email.  Casual notes or queries, like where to go for lunch, are passed from editor to editor via color-coded slips of paper.  Chatter and extraneous sounds are discouraged.  The intent is for the lexicographers to spend their brain power reviewing existing definitions which may need updating, considering new entries for a future dictionary, and responding to customer comments and questions.  The author spends chapters discussing exactly what it means to be a lexicographer at Merriam-Webster, and delves into some of her more memorable, and memorably frustrating, experiences.  For example, during her month trying to edit the definition for the word "take", she had spent hours and hours making serious piles of notecards that she would need to refer to during a later stage of the defining process.  That night, the cleaning crew toppled over her work, forcing her to re-do everything. 

Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries is divided into 14 chapters, as well as an epilogue, acknowledgments, notes, bibliography, and index.  Sprinkled throughout the text are footnotes, most of them giving shade like "No matter how book smart, we are all idiots at seventeen" (pg. 5), and the gem "Jimmy Carter spent his time in the U.S. Navy working on propulsion systems for nuclear submarines, acting as an engineering officer of a nuclear power plant, and actually being lowered into a nuclear reactor core that had melted down in order to dismantle it.  To my mind, he has earned the right to pronounce "nuclear" however he damned well pleases" (pg. 211).  There are other footnotes that are structured like dictionary definitions, giving the meaning(s) of a word as well as its pronunciation.  The Index alone is hilarious to read, just by the key words that the author uses to structure it.  But would you expect anything less from such a dictionary-minded person?

Overall, Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries is a book that is not only informative about English words, grammar, and dictionaries.  It is deeply personal and speaks to the ways in which language intersects with other areas of our lives.  If you're someone like me, who had to memorize the prepositions (in alphabetical order, to the tune of "The Mexican Hat Dance") and can still recite it perfectly after 20 years, then you should read this book.  If you don't understand what all the fuss is about when it comes to grammar, then you should read this book.  It's the author's blend of info and hilarity that makes this a standout read.




Librorum annis