The Grammarians

BO/OKISH. a. [from book.] Given to books.
—A Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson

Cathleen Schine's English as She Is Spoke tells the story of Daphne and Laurel, word-obsessed twins bound together by their shared obsession, and also torn apart by it. One grows up to become a well-known language columnist, while the other becomes a poet—each poem an unlikely sampling of lines from a 1940s linguistics manual. Their once-united enthusiasm for words ruptures, and the twins find t...