-
A Place for Everything
- The Curious History of Alphabetical Order
- Narrated by: Julia Winwood
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: Education & Learning, Words, Language & Grammar
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Paper is one of the simplest and most essential pieces of human technology. For the past two millennia, the ability to produce it in ever more efficient ways has supported the proliferation of literacy, media, religion, education, commerce, and art; it has formed the foundation of civilizations, promoting revolutions and restoring stability.
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Publisher's Summary
From a New York Times best-selling historian comes the story of how the alphabet ordered our world.
A Place for Everything is the first-ever history of alphabetization, from the Library of Alexandria to Wikipedia. The story of alphabetical order has been shaped by some of history's most compelling characters, such as industrious and enthusiastic early adopter Samuel Pepys and dedicated alphabet champion Denis Diderot. But though even George Washington was a proponent, many others stuck to older forms of classification - Yale listed its students by their family's social status until 1886. And yet, while the order of the alphabet now rules - libraries, phone books, reference books, even the order of entry for the teams at the Olympic Games - it has remained curiously invisible.
With abundant inquisitiveness and wry humor, historian Judith Flanders traces the triumph of alphabetical order and offers a compendium of Western knowledge, from A to Z.
Critic Reviews
A Times (UK) Best Book of 2020
"Surprising and copiously researched." (Times Literary Supplement)
"Quirky and compelling.... [Flanders] is a meticulous historian with a taste for the offbeat; the story of alphabetical order suits her well." (Dan Jones, Sunday Times, UK)
"For readers who love language or armchair historians interested in the evolution of linguistics, this is catnip. For the mildly curious, it's accessible, narratively adventurous, and surprisingly insightful about how the alphabet marks us all in some way.... A rich cultural and linguistic history." (Kirkus)
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What listeners say about A Place for Everything
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Eric
- 06-29-21
interesting but admittedly dry
it's pretty hard to make something like the history of alphabetization exciting I would imagine. this is an accounting of historical occurrences and as such is not all that adrenaline inducing but who would have expected it to be right? I think the narrator did a pretty good job although having a British accent did make it more difficult at times to focus on what was being said rather than how she was saying it.
1 person found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- A. Yoshida
- 10-23-21
You have to love library science
This book provides a thorough history of alphabetical order and other ordering methods, such as hierarchical (God and king before other subjects), chronological, or topical as the organizer sees fit. It is an extremely pedantic book. You have to love library science to enjoy this book.
