A place for everything : the curious history of alphabetical order
(Book)

Book Cover
Published
New York : Basic Books, 2020.
Format
Book
Edition
First US edition.
Status
Port Angeles - Nonfiction (Adult)
025 FLANDER
1 available
Sequim - Nonfiction (Adult)
025 FLANDER
1 available

Copies

LocationCall NumberStatus
Port Angeles - Nonfiction (Adult)025 FLANDERAvailable
Sequim - Nonfiction (Adult)025 FLANDERAvailable

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Published
New York : Basic Books, 2020.
Edition
First US edition.
Physical Desc
xxviii, 319 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 25 cm
Language
English

Notes

Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 270-299) and index.
Description
Few of us think much of the alphabet and its familiar sing-song order once we've learned it as children. And yet the order of the alphabet, that simple knowledge that we take for granted, plays far more of a role in our lives than we usually consider. From the school register to the telephone book, from dictionaries and encyclopaedias to the library shelves, our lives are ordered from A to Z. This magical system of organization not only guides us to the correct bus route or train schedule or the jar of coriander seeds between the cinnamon and the cumin in the supermarket, but it also, in the library or the bookshop, gives us the ability to sift through centuries of thought and writing, of knowledge and literature. Alphabetical order allows us to sort, to file and to find the information we have, and to locate the information we need. In this entirely original new book, Judith Flanders draws our attention both to the neglected ubiquity of the alphabet and the long and complex history of its rise to prominence.