A fun and frolicking book of wordplay. - Hundreds of acrostics, anagrams, palindromes, puns, riddles, and spoonerisms - Presented in lively prose and light verse - Features a chapter of skill-testing word games

Why do word puzzles fascinate us? How do they help develop problem-solving skills? How do they teach us about geography, literature, sports, and popular culture? How are they an international language? Jonathan Berkowitz offers a brief history of wordplay, with insights into puzzles and the brain. He offers tips on how to solve puzzles and explains the educational value of puzzles. Challenges in the form of rebuses, anagrams, codes and cryptograms, crosswords, and wordplay with numbers supply even more fun! The Whirl of Words is a unique, rich, and intriguing tour of a wide variety of word puzzles certain to stimulate a brain work-out.

After a multi-decade career of stimulating readers to appreciate and laugh at the glories and oddities of our English language, beloved language maven Richard Lederer has collected his very best and most popular pieces in Word Wizard. In this career-capping anthology the reader will find essays that enlighten, inspire, and tickle the funny bone. From his hilarious bloopers to his hymns of praise to the English language, these essays are the brightest gems of a storied career. Word Wizard includes a new introduction, prefaces for each essay, sprightly verse, and material never before published in Leader's language books. With classic chapters such as "The World According to Student Bloopers," "English Is a Crazy Language," and "The Case for Short Words," and shiny new essays such as "The Way We Word" and "Add Wealth to Your Vocabulary," Word Wizard is sure to delight language lovers and Lederer fans everywhere.

Praise for David Darling The Universal Book of Astronomy "A first-rate resource for readers and students of popular astronomy and general science. . . . Highly recommended." -Library Journal "A comprehensive survey and . . . a rare treat." -Focus The Complete Book of Spaceflight "Darling's content and presentation will have any reader moving from entry to entry." -The Observatory magazine Life Everywhere "This remarkable book exemplifies the best of today's popular science writing: it is lucid, informative, and thoroughly enjoyable." -Science Books & Films "An enthralling introduction to the new science of astrobiology." -Lynn Margulis Equations of Eternity "One of the clearest and most eloquent expositions of the quantum conundrum and its philosophical and metaphysical implications that I have read recently." -The New York Times Deep Time "A wonderful book. The perfect overview of the universe." -Larry Niven

Words have come a long way since they were invented as a nifty tool to help us communicate. We have played with them, made up rules for them, added bits to them and taken bits off. We've gathered them into languages, adopted and defined them. The words we use say so much about who we are, yet most of them slip from our mouths without a second thought. The Book of Words is a brief pause for reflection in the ever-changing life of words, a snapshot of the English language and how we use it today. . Long words . Short words . Old words . New words . Brilliant words . Annoying words From the historical to the grammatical, the biographical to the sociological, this is an A to Z of words about words for word lovers, from 'aardvark' to 'zythum' and beyond.

Dip into the greatest collection of wordplay ever assembled, by a puzzle columnist for the MENSA INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL. Every conceivable category is covered--puns, anagrams, palindromes, malapropisms, oxymorons, and just plain curiosities--many never before published in book form. Snack on contronyms, military acronyms, misnomers, pangrams, rebuses, spoonerisms--the whole wide world of wacky things people do with words.

From the author of "Complete Pun Book" comes an all new collection. Here, readers will find a hilarious abundance of pun-ishment for the millions who can't resist giving a word or phrase a twist--and ammunition for many occasions from movie, TV and theater wags; from the wits of Wall Street and Washington; the gems from poets and pundits and some of the bottom-of-the-barrel crumbs! Introduction by Bob Hope. **Lightning Print On Demand Title

The bestselling Chambers Crossword Dictionary is the essential reference for crossword lovers everywhere. This brand new edition, compiled from Chambers' highly acclaimed and vast crossword resources, has been fully updated with thousands of new solutions to be even more useful to crossword fans. New synonyms for publication such as 'podcast' and 'blog' bring the content bang up-to-the-minute. New topic lists such as 'curries' and 'geese' help solve general knowledge clues. All words are grouped by meaning, then by number of characters, then alphabetically, to make finding the solution quick and easy. Special cryptic crossword words which indicate anagrams, reversals, etc give hints and tips for solvers.