Friends with Words: Adventures in Languageland

The word nerd gift book of the year! With warmth and humor, a popular radio and podcast host shares her love of language, weaving together linguistic history, regional phrases, the hidden poetry in etymologies, new words, and stories from her life and time on the air.

Martha Barnette has spent two decades as the co-host of A Way with Words, lauded by Mary Norris in The New Yorker as “a virtual treasure house” and “‘Car Talk’ for Lexiphiles.”

Over that time, she’s developed a keen sense of ...