The Professor and the Madman

My summer reading list is serving me well. After an unexpectedly long hiatus from the list (thanks to a 600+ page book club pick that I didn’t like and therefore couldn’t motivate to read quickly) I just inhaled The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary. This nonfiction account addresses the history of English dictionaries and the enormously daunting task of creating the Oxford English Dictionary. Because editor James Murray and his team were tasked with including every single word in the language, complete with history, evolution, and sample sentences to show all usages, they relied on volunteer readers for help. The “madman” of the title refers to how a murderer imprisoned in a lunatic asylum spent decades contributing to the dictionary, finding partial salvation through his participation.

Definitely recommended.