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Title: The Best of An Almanac of Words at Play by Willard R. Espy, John M. Morse, Paul Dickson ISBN: 0-87779-145-7 Publisher: Merriam-Webster, Inc. Pub. Date: September, 1999 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Making Word Work into Word Play
Comment: Often learning literary terms and how to use them can be a challenge. This book makes learning the terms both amusing and enjoyable. With a small selection to read each day of the year this book allows for easy learning everyday of the year. Espy's creative set up of the book covers everything from Acronyms to Univocalic writing. Each day with a differently constructed style and purpose this book is excellent for most age levels and can be read at any pace though it is meant to last an entire year.
Rating: 5
Summary: A compilation of the wordmaster's masterpiece!
Comment: I have collected each of Espy's books as they have appeared; they occupy center place on my shelves of language books. The original "Almanac" and "Another Almanac" blew me away when they came out about 20+ years ago. I tried so hard to limit myself to one page a day so they would each last a year - they are almanacs, after all - but failed miserably - I remember sitting in bed with the flu and reading through both books in three days, giggling and chortling and slack-jawed with amazement the whole time.
Willard Espy is a true master - creative, erudite, knowledgeable, and howlingly funny. His Higgledy-Piddledy about Dorothy Thompson is burned into my brain for good. His ability to make the language dance is unequaled by any other writer I have read. Safire, Lederer, and Newman are articulate, yes, but not half as goofily inventive or funny, and they take themselves very much more seriously than Espy does, which is not at all. This man disproves the adage that no one is great all the time - he is.
Having said all that, I must confess that I haven't seen this Compilation - my comments are based on the absolute conviction that any compilation of brilliant material must, of necessity, be equally brilliant. I have spent the past 20 years lending out my copies of the two originals from which this volume is drawn, listening to people giggle over the cubicle walls, and plotting diabolical conseqences when they weren't returned. They are both ragged and bulging with yellow stickies - my own quick-reference system - so I can easily find and re-delight in my favorites when I need an Espyfix.
The man is gone from our midst now, so there will be no more crazy pleasure from him, and his original books are long out of print. So buy this one, I say, and prepare to laugh and be awed all at once by this explosion of sheer linquistic virtuosity.
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Title: Words to Rhyme With: For Poets and Songwriters (The Facts on File Writer's Library) by Willard R. Espy, Louis Phillips ISBN: 0816043132 Publisher: Facts on File, Inc. Pub. Date: May, 2001 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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Title: The Word Circus: A Letter-Perfect Book (Lighter Side of Language Series) by Richard Lederer, Dave Morice ISBN: 0877793549 Publisher: Merriam-Webster, Inc. Pub. Date: January, 1999 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: ALMANAC OF WORDS AT PLAY P by Willard R. Espy ISBN: 0517524635 Publisher: Crown Publishing Group Pub. Date: 02 September, 1975 List Price(USD): $7.95 |
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Title: The Game of Words: The Remarkable Exhuberance of the English Language by Willard R. Espy ISBN: 1579123244 Publisher: Black Dog & Leventhal Pub Pub. Date: September, 2003 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: An Exaltation of Larks: The Ultimate Edition by James Lipton ISBN: 0140170960 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: November, 1993 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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