Year-End Favorites from CMOS Friends
This year, Shop Talk asked some trusted colleagues in publishing to introduce us to a favorite book or website. We hope you find a new love among them!
Brooke Borel talks about The Chicago Guide to Fact-Checking
Brooke Borel, author of The Chicago Guide to Fact-Checking, is a science writer and journalist. She is a contributing editor to Popular Science, and her writing has also appeared in such places as the Atlantic and Slate. She teaches fact-checking at the Brooklyn
Bryan Garner talks about The Chicago Guide to Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation
Bryan A. Garner is the author of the new book The Chicago Guide to Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation as well as the author of the “Grammar and Usage” chapter of The Chicago Manual of Style. His other best-selling books include
Sarah Grey talks about inclusive language
CMOS: When we talk about using inclusive language, who are we talking about including? SG: Everyone—but especially readers from groups that have historically been excluded by the conventions used and the assumptions made in publishing. One of the earliest and most obvious examples would be
Helen Sword talks about trimming your prose with The Writer’s Diet
CMOS: How did you come to think about writing as “flabby”? HS: Many years ago, I read Richard Lanham’s book Revising Prose, which influenced me deeply as a writer. Lanham teaches you to identify the “lard factor” in your writing, based on the percentage of words that you could omit without significantly changing its meaning. The Writer’s Diet follows similar principles, but with
Angela Gibson talks about the new MLA Handbook
Today CMOS talks with Angela Gibson, associate director of scholarly communication and head of book and online publications at the Modern Language Association, about the newest edition of MLA Handbook.
CMOS tells all in historic interview with “Chicago Style Q&A”
Today, in a historic first, the reclusive 110-year-old Chicago Manual of Style grants an interview to its youthful offspring, the online “Chicago Style Q&A,” which has been answering readers’ questions on behalf of the Manual since 1997.
Louise Brueggemann talks about libraries and books for young people
Q.Have you seen big changes in what young people want to read over the course of your career as a bookseller turned librarian?
Peter Sokolowski at Merriam-Webster Dictionary talks about a billion “lookups” a year
Would you play Scrabble against this man? Peter Sokolowski is editor at large at Merriam-Webster, where he works on the Word of the Day podcast, Ask the Editor videos, articles about word trends and etymologies—and serves as pronouncer for spelling bees around the world. Editor Carol Saller asks him about Merriam-Webster’s billion lookups each year.
Robert Alter talks about translating the Hebrew Bible
CMOS: You have now translated a large portion of the Hebrew Bible into English. What motivated you to take on such an enormous, high-profile, high-stakes project?
