Books by Jan Freeman
Ambrose Bierce's Write It Right: The Celebrated Cynic's Language Peeves Deciphered, Appraised, and Annotated for 21st-Century Readers
by Ambrose Bierce, Jan Freeman
One of America's foremost language experts presents an annotated edition of A mbrose Bierce's classic catalog of correct speech.
Ambrose Bierce is best known for The Devil's Dictionary, but the prolific journalist, satirist, and fabulist was also a usage maven. In 1909, he published several hundred of his pet peeves in Write It Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults.
Bierce's list includes some distinctions still familiar today--the which-that rule, less vs. fewer, lie and lay -- but it also abounds in now-forgotten shibboleths: Ovation, the critics of his time agreed, meant a Roman triumph, not a round of applause. Reliable was an ill-formed coinage, not for the discriminating. Donate was pretentious, jeopardize should be jeopard, demean meant "comport oneself," not "belittle." And Bierce made up a few peeves of his own for good measure. We should say "a coating of paint," he instructed, not "a coat."
To mark the 100th anniversary of Write It Right, language columnist Jan Freeman has investigated where Bierce's rules and taboos originated, how they've fared in the century since the blacklist, and what lies ahead. Will our language quibbles seem as odd in 2109 as Bierce's do today? From the evidence offered here, it looks like a very good bet.
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Sisters: An Anthology (Paris Press)
by Jan Freeman, Emily Wojcik, Deborah Bull
A heartwarming, heartbreaking, laugh-out-loud, grind-your-teeth anthology celebrating the unique world of sisters
This heartwarming and heart-wrenching collection of stories, memoirs, and poems celebrates the beautifully complex world of sisters. A relationship like no other, the unbreakable link between sisters can be at once sweet and loving, fierce and cruel. From childhood to old age, rivalry to devotion, hysterical laughter to tears of grief, the inescapable bonds between sisters create a unique journey. Sisters is for anyone who knows sisters, wishes they had a sister, adores her own sister, or would, on occasion, like to trade her in. Contributors include: Joyce Armor, Margaret Atwood, Joan Baez, Claire Bateman, Simone de Beauvoir, Robin Becker, Jane Bowles, Gwendolyn Brooks, Lan Samantha Chang, Marilyn Chin, Catherine Chung, Lucille Clifton, Clare Coss, Edwidge Danticat, Sadie and Bessie Delany, Rita Dove, Delia Ephron, M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Glass, Barbara L. Greenberg, Jane Hirshfield, Cynthia Hogue, Beverly Jensen, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Ana Maria Jomolca, Mary Karr, Marie Luise Kaschnitz, Tsipi Keller, Barbara Kingsolver, Maxine Kumin, Jeanne M. Leiby, Audre Lorde, Grace Paley, Dorothy Parker, Martha Rhodes, Muriel Rukeyser, Myra Shapiro, Ali Smith, Misty Urban, Alice Walker, Wendy Wasserstein and Daisy Zamora.
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