Insights and Observations on Lexicography. Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries

This book presents the insights and observations on lexicography as acquired by Merriam-Webster copy editor Kory Stamper over a period of some twenty years. It does so with verve, humor, passion, and a heavy dose of personal anecdotes (very welcome). This book isn’t exactly an autobiography, but it comes close.

The observations/insights concern such matters as the enormous time/effort/reflection that can go into defining a single word and the potential minefield presented by the search for suitable verbal illustrations. The nuts-and-bolts work of a copy editor is not normally regarded as interesting to a general readership, and yet Stamper does succeed in bringing the subject to life.