Notes on key reviews in this issue

Notes on key reviews in this issue

Article Type: Editorial notes and queries From: Reference Reviews, Volume 29, Issue 4

• Encyclopedia of Aesthetics (RR 2015/125). The first edition of this Oxford University Press title published nearly 20 years ago was a RUSA Outstanding Reference Source. This new edition contains in excess of 800 entries and, like its predecessor, ranges across art, culture and society from classical philosophy to critical theory.

• Encyclopedia of Humor Studies (RR 2015/129). The first reference work to provide encyclopedic treatment of the multidisciplinary field of humor studies and research with over 300 entries. It takes a more wide-ranging and thematic approach than works such as Encyclopedia of 20th Century American Humor (2000).

• Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (RR 2015/123). The eighth edition of what is probably the best and most well-known of the general quotation dictionaries, now appearing at roughly five-year intervals.

• Poet’s Glossary (RR 2015/139). A reference book from a practitioner, American poet and critic Edward Hirsch. Although entitled a “glossary”, the book offers in-depth articles, some of several pages in length, and covers poetry in languages other than English.

• Princeton Companion to Atlantic History (RR 2015/157). It examines the connections between Europe, Africa and the Americas from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries through four chronologically themed essays followed by, forming the bulk of the book, 125 shorter entries.

• Weeds of North America (RR 2015/151). “(A)n identification guide to over 600 species of noxious plants as defined by various regulatory agencies” (review) built around over 1,200 photographs.

• Wordsmiths and Warriors: The English-Language Tourist’s Guide to Britain (RR 2015/142). Jointly authored by prolific reference book producer and renowned linguist David Crystal, this unique book is, to quote our reviewer, a “historical chronology of the English language via a physical journey around linguistically significant places in Britain”.

Tony Chalcraft