Three New Books

Three more books (among a few others) arrived in the mail yesterday from Hampstead House Books http://www.hampsteadhousebooks.com/ to add to my language library. HHB is a Canadian company "selling great books at great prices". They deal in publishers' overruns and I often make great finds in their catalogues -- sometimes it pays to have an unusual taste in books.

• Canadian Thesaurus, Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2010
• POSH and other language myths, Michael Quinion, 2004
• The Story of English – How the English Language Conquered the World, Philip Gooden, 2009.

POSH is a book for the layman, busting word and phrase origin myths. Sometimes these books just replace one myth with another, but Quinion is a researcher for OED (Oxford English Dictionary) so should be reliable.

The Story of English is a large size hardcover lavishly illustrated, again aimed at the layperson rather than the scholar. I look forward to delving into this one.

The Canadian Thesaurus should be a useful addition to my reference library. I often struggle to come up with a word that I know is there, but can't quite define let alone remember its name.

I've added these to my original book list post.