A beautiful and intimate exploration of first and last words—and the many facets of how language begins and ends—from a pioneering language writer.With our earliest utterances, we announce ourselves—and are recognized—as persons ready for social life. With our final ones, we mark where others must release us to death’s embrace. In Bye Bye I Love You, linguist and author Michael Erard explores these phenomena, commonly called “first words” and “last words,”...

**Essential reading for talkers and listeners of all stripes: An original, entertaining, and surprising book that investigates verbal blunders: what they are, what they say about those who make them, and how and why we've come to judge them.“An enjoyable tour of linguistic mishaps.” —The New York Times Book Review**Um... is about how you really speak, and why it's normal for your everyday speech to be filled with errors—about one in every ten words. In thi...

With our earliest utterances, we announce ourselves—and are recognized—as persons ready for social life. With our final ones, we mark where others must release us to death's embrace. In Bye Bye I Love You, linguist and author Michael Erard explores these phenomena, commonly called "first words" and "last words," uncovering their cultural, historical, and biological entanglements and honoring their deep private significance. Erard draws from personal, historical, and anthropologica...

What happens when media and politics become forms of entertainment? As our world begins to look more and more like Orwell's 1984, Neil's Postman's essential guide to the modern media is more relevant than ever."It's unlikely that Trump has ever read Amusing Ourselves to Death, but his ascent would not have surprised Postman.” -CNNOriginally published in 1985, Neil Postman’s groundbreaking polemic about the corrosive effects of tel...

The bestselling history of and investigation into human error by beloved New Yorker writer Kathryn Schulz"Both wise and clever, full of fun and surprise about a topic so central to our lives that we almost never even think about it." —Bill McKibben, author of Earth: Making a Life on a Tough New PlanetTo err is human. Yet most of us go through life assuming (and sometimes insisting) that we are right about nearly everything, from the origin...

**This New York Times bestseller is an exciting and fearless investigation of language from the author of Rationality, The Better Angels of Our Nature and The Sense of Style and Enlightenment Now."Curious, inventive, fearless, naughty."--The New York Times Book Review**Bestselling author Steven Pinker possesses that rare combination of scientific aptitude and verbal eloquence that enables him to provide l...

A surprising and entertaining explanation of how the words we use (even the ones we don't notice) reveal our personalities, emotions, and identities.We spend our lives communicating. In the last fifty years, we've zoomed through radically different forms of communication, from typewriters to tablet computers, text messages to tweets. We generate more and more words with each passing day. Hiding in that deluge of language are amazing insights into who we are, how we...

Yes, it’s true: you can learn how to be a verbal wizard!Ever hear someone utter an unforgettable phrase and feel yourself reacting with with…well, awe? Ever read a great quote and think I could never come up with anything that clever?Daunting as it may seem, there’s nothing mystical about witcraft. Crafting memorable lines doesn’t require DNA-encoded brilliance. What it does require is some knowledge of the trick...

A landmark book, “brilliant, thoughtful” (The Atlantic) and “raw and gorgeous” (LA Times), that fast-forwards the discussion of the central artistic issues of our time, from the bestselling author of The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead.Who owns ideas? How clear is the distinction between fiction and nonfiction? Has the velocity of digital culture rendered traditional modes obsolete? Exploring these and related questions, S...

“We think of English as a fortress to be defended, but a better analogy is to think of English as a child. We love and nurture it into being, and once it gains gross motor skills, it starts going exactly where we don’t want it to go: it heads right for the goddamned electrical sockets.”With wit and irreverence, lexicographer Kory Stamper cracks open the obsessive world of dictionary writing, from the agonizing decisions about what to define and how to do it to the knotty q...

In the wee hours of the night, when inspiration strikes unexpectedly, don't let it slip away.If you write, you know what it's like. Insight and creativity—the desire to push the boundaries of your writing—strike when you least expect it. And you're often in no position to act: in the shower, driving the kids to school...in the middle of the night.The 3 A.M. Epiphany offers more than 200 intriguing writing exercises designed to help you think, write...

A “smart, lucid, and entertaining” (The Boston Globe) modern classic of writing advice and a thoughtful record of the long and productive literary friendship between two renowned authors“You are in such good company—congenial, ironic, a bit old-school—that you’re happy to follow [Kidder and Todd] where they lead you.”—The Wall Street Journal“As approachable and applicable as any writing manual available.”—Associate...