Slate reviews dictionaries. Reading the article made me pause and think about the reference books I have in my apartment:
A 9th edition of Merriam-Webster’s dictionary.
WAY too many Japanese dictionaries:
Martin’s Basic Japanese Conversation Dictionary
Martin’s Concise Japanese Dictionary (I carted this around in my backpack in Japan)
The Nelson Modern Reader’s Japanese-English Character Dictionary
Sanseido’s Daily Concise English Japanese/Japanese English Dictionary
Kodansha’s Japanese/English and English/Japanese Dictionaries
Assorted other Grammar/Verb/Kanji references
Dictionary of Chinese Symbols
2 Rhyming Dictionaries
Roget’s Thesaurus
Merriman-Webster’s Thesaurus
The Devil’s Dictionary
NYPL Desk Reference (3rd ed)
MLA and Little, Brown Handbooks
Various entertaining pseudo reference books from the “Worst Case Scnario Survival Handbook” series
The Deluxe Transitive Vampire and Torn Wings and Faux Pas by Karen Elizabeth Gordon
The Dark Side a collection of quotes on “the futility of life from the Ancient Greeks to the present”
Cheese Primer (given to me by some of my librarian friends after a grilled cheese incident)
And most of this I acquired before I went to library school. Maybe I was destined to become a reference librarian. That is a scary thought!
What reference books do you have?
7:06 am on December 9th, 2003 1
Some of my favorite home reference books are:
The New Fowler’s Modern English Usage 3rd edition
Garner’s Modern American Usage 2nd edition
The Merck Manual 17th edition
The Random House Dictionary of the English Language 2nd edition
Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
Webster’s New World College Dictionary
Schotts Original Miscellany
The Book of Rock Lists
8:10 pm on December 9th, 2003 2
Hmm…
A couple of computer-related reference books, like stuff on HTML…
A couple of reference books on birds and dogs…
A lot of books on fighter jets I accumulated as a kid (I really wanted to be a fighter pilot)
A couple of parenting reference books…
and a couple of movie reference books…
8:47 am on December 10th, 2003 3
As someone who aspires to be a librarian and is a recovering comic book addict, I just want to say that I love this site.
Reference books I have:
Some HTML guide I can’t remember the name of
Strunk and White, Elements of Style
1998 Time Almanac (It’s never been so useful that I wanted to buy the newer ones, but useful enough that I can’t get rid of it)
Big, fat dictionary and big, fat thesarus, but I can’t remember which ones
Magic the Gathering: Official Encyclopedia: The Complete Card Guide, vols. 1-3 (I almost never use this as a reference, but it’s got “encyclopedia” in it and it sits on my reference shelf)
Overstreet Price Guide — I think I’m still using 2002
Llewellyn’s Magical Almanacs 2000-2003
Some one’s (I think Maltin’s) movie guide for 2001
I’m really wanting an etymology dictionary and a slang dictionary, too, because, among other things, I totally don’t understand this whole shizzle, nizzle, fizzle thing. What’s that all about?
9:48 am on December 10th, 2003 4
Merck Manual is certainly part of a core collection (now available on the net, incidentally), but how does anyone survive without a copy of the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics within easy reach?
10:38 am on December 10th, 2003 5
A few guides to saints
Dictionaries of various mythologies
Two arabic-english dictionaries (cohen and another one)
French-english/english-french dictionary
MLA handbook
World atlas
Historical atlases
A few guides to sf worlds
An herbal
And a lot of books I use as reference guides, but really aren’t (like histories, guides, etc.)
2:00 am on December 11th, 2003 6
hi…i am librarain too from Indonesia