I have learned a lesson. Never trust a book excerpt posted on the internet. After reading and posting about the excerpt at Slate of Andrew Piper’s book Book Was There: Reading in Electronic Times, I completely disagreed with Piper and thought his argument choppy and lame. But, I thought, this is an excerpt and maybe the book is better. So I requested it from the library and my turn came up at the end of last week. I am so glad I trusted my intuition because the book has turned out to be nothing like what I was expecting and it’s pretty good too. The excerpt at Slate is taken from the first chapter, totally skewed and edited to provoke. Why am I surprised by that?
I’m not going to write about the whole book at the moment, today I am only going to give you a little tease.
Piper has a chapter in the book in which he discusses the relationship between books and trees and space. Did you know that the English word “book” came from the German “Buch” and that “Buch” was derived from the word for beech tree? In India, the word for book is derived from the word for a birch tree. The Latin word “codex” comes from the word for the trunk of a tree. No wonder we talk about the “leaves” of books!
But wait, there’s more!
The Greek, “biblion” gives us “Bible” and “bibliography” and a whole bunch of other “biblio” words. It comes from the name of the Phoenician town of Byblus which was a major exporter of papyrus in the day.
Aren’t word origins great fun?
More about Book Was There tomorrow.
On a side note, thank you all for your kind words and condolences about my grandma. I am touched and blessed.
Oh, I do love books that talk to me about the origins of words. Normally, my work as a narratologist is at much higher level of analysis but that doesn’t mean I’m not totally intrigued by what is going on down there in the depths as well. I shall look forward to your review of the entire book.
The origins of words are what make dictionaries such fascinating (if frustrating) books. The biblion/Byblus link is so utterly resonant. Look forward to the review of Book Was There.
Ian, I’ve always wanted the multi-volume OED just because of all the word origin information. Now it is no longer published in print which makes me a bit sad because part of the fun is also being able to randomly flip through the pages something impossible to do online.
Serendipity: “The faculty of making happy and unexpected discoveries by accident” according to the Shorter OED. Horace Walpole coined the word in 1754 from a fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip, Serendip being the former name of Ceylon, the princes all having the faculty. I enjoyed finding that out!
Ian, oh that is excellent! Makes me want to go get a copy of The Three Princes of Serendip!
Alex, aren’t word origins fun? Especially when they are as interesting as these were.
Loved this post & now I want to get that book! It’s not available at my library though; is it a new release?
Eva, it came out in October of 2012 so it is pretty new yet. Hopefully your library gets a copy!
How ‘interesting’ that the quote from the Piper book was out of context and skewed. Well, good for you for reading the whole thing! It really annoys me when the media do that sort of thing. Be responsible in reporting, people!
Litlove, heh, sometimes I think responsible reporting is more than the media is capable of.
Isn’t it fun discovering the original source for words? I like the sound of this book–good thing you didn’t go by the excerpt on the internet–why am I not surprised just a small bit was used and then skewed!
Danielle, word origins are great fun especially when they relate to our favorite subject of books! I was pleasantly surprised by how different the book was from the excerpt. Makes me wonder what other books I have passed by because of bad excerpts.