Sub-titled 'The Remarkable Twists and Turns of English Words' and brimming with hidden histories, the book tells the extraordinary stories behind ordinary words. Busking for instance originally meant piracy. Grin meant to snarl. A bimbo was a man. Nice meant ignorant. Glamour was magic and a cupboard was a table. Buxom used to mean obedient, a cloud was a rock and raunchy originally meant dirty. As we find out the origin of the word aficionado as borrowed from the Spanish, about bullfighting in the mid 1600s and how its original meaning was translated into fanatic in the 1802 English edition of Fischer's Travels in Spain. Focussing on 100 surprising threads in the evolution of English, the book reveals the etymological origins and quirky developments that have led to meanings we take for granted today. Short, witty essays on each chosen word packed with fascinating and entertaining info. 242pp.

A charming book about language, love and the wine-dark sea by the author who has delighted readers with her irreverent tales of pencils, punctuation and punctiliousness over three decades in The New Yorker's celebrated copy department. Here Mary Norris delivers a wise and witty paean to the art of expressing oneself clearly and convincingly, this time filtered through her greatest passion - all things Greek. From convincing her bosses to pay for Ancient Greek studies to travelling the sacred way in search of Persephone, her book is also an unforgettable account of her lifelong love affair with words and her solo adventures in the land of olive trees and ouzo. Along the way she explains how the alphabet originated in Greece, making the case for Athena as a feminist icon and revealing the surprising ways Greek helped form English. With delightful facts and brimming with nerdish, bookish joy, Mary is a jaunty companion and her lessons slip down sweetly as we join her pouring beer libations and skinny-dipping in the waters of Aphrodite. 228pp with appendix of the Greek Alphabet. Remainder mark, US first edition.

'Language, Power, and Alexander Graham Bell's Quest to End Deafness' is the sub-title of this revelatory and revisionist biography of the renowned inventor of the telephone, and powerful enemy of the deaf community. 'Deaf people who couldn't speak were often referred to as monkeys, or prehuman. I didn't know that the chief person behind the campaign to keep deaf children from learning ASL (American Sign Language) was the man who most people thought of differently, pleasantly, as the inventor of the telephone. Or that the movement he led would change forever what was expected of the deaf.' When Alexander Graham Bell first unveiled his telephone to the world, it was considered miraculous, but few people know that it was inspired by another supposed miracle - his work teaching deaf people to speak. He was the son of one deaf woman and husband to another, motivated by a desire to empower deaf people by integrating them into the hearing world. But he ended up becoming their most powerful enemy, waging a war against sign language and deaf culture that still rages today. The book tells the dual stories of Bell's remarkable, world-changing invention and his dangerous ethnocide of deaf culture and language. It also charts the rise of deaf activism and tells the triumphant tale of a community reclaiming a once-forbidden language. In 1863 at the age of 16, Bell first started work on his speaking machine, with a mechanical body like an organ with keys to depress different portions and exhale full words. His father Alexander Melville Bell was an elocutionist who was designing a universal phonetic alphabet, one that would be able to document any sound in any language. Melville called his alphabet Visible Speech, because it acted as an instructional guide on how to shape the mouth into different sounds. Each symbol was part of a code of where to put the tongue in the mouth, how to breath, how open the lips should be. Well researched, it is a timely reminder of the flawed humanity that lies behind so much of our technological innovation. 402pp.

A great alternative to crosswords this book will keep you busy with over 300 of the Daily Mail's most popular picture puzzles. Part crossword, part pictogram there is a mix of cryptic and picture clues combined with Professor Rebus' unique sense of humour. To give you an example 'The late, great Keith (10)' and the picture is of H2O and a house. Think along the lines of the popular TV quiz show Catchphrase and pit your wits and test your deductive skills with this bumper edition for a quiet evening, lazy morning or poolside fun. Top Tip is to try out the clue in a different accent! Please note the author is from Derbyshire and specialises in the English language, especially phonetics. Paperback.

For high-beginner to low-intermediate language learners, this is a brilliant Teach Yourself trademark series title for foreign language students - and we have selected two titles (Italian too) for our Bibliophile readers. The short stories include 1000 of the most frequently used words to help you progress confidently from beginner to intermediate. With accessible grammar you learn new structures naturally without feeling overwhelmed or frustrated. Authentic spoken dialogues help you learn conversational expressions and improve your speaking ability. Chapter summaries and comprehension questions help you follow the plot and vocabulary lists help you quickly look up unfamiliar words without interrupting your flow. From science fiction and fantasy to crime and thrillers, this is an unmissable collection of eight captivating short stories for adults and young adult readers carefully written to provide a sense of achievement and progress when reading. With introduction in English followed by the illustrated stories which are each only a few pages long. 224pp, paperback.

Sub-titled 'Prince Philip's Life in His Own Words', at the age of 21 he wrote to a relative: 'I know you will never think much of me. I am rude. But it is fun' he added prophetically. He complained to a friend: 'I am nothing but a bloody amoeba. I am the only man in the country not allowed to give his name to his children.' And he once remarked 'Constitutionally, I don't exist.' 'I would have been of great value to the Queen to have someone who was, in a sense, professionally qualified in something, not just traipsing around.' The worst part about marrying British royalty for Prince Philip was having to give up his career in the Navy. When pressed for his secret for handling so many public appearances, he shot back to the interviewer: 'I never pass up a chance to go to the loo or take a poo.' 'One reason I took up carriage driving is that I like watching the ponies doing all the work' the self-confessed 'pretty idle' Prince Philip once said. Despite his reputation for never suffering fools gladly, he said that after 50 years he had learned to suffer fools 'with patience' and even humour. This affectionate self-portrait brings together the best of his blunt speech making, his mocking of the media and captains of industry, fond teasing of Her Majesty himself and a host of less well-known stories about the Prince to give a fascinating firsthand insight into the royal world as a 'fella who belongs to Mrs Queen'. Bibliophile misses our dear Royal Warrant grantor. 192pp, paperback.

Sub-titled 'How a Misunderstood Punctuation Mark Can Improve Your Writing, Enrich Your Reading and Even Change Your Life', here is the story of a small mark that can carry big ideas. Some people love it, others hate it, but most people just ignore it, often because they cannot remember the rules on how to use the semicolon. This warm, funny and enlightening and thoroughly original book takes us on a whistle-stop tour of the history of the semicolon and asks whether they are for snobs, whether they are sexy, the science of semicolons and English grammar wars, loose women and liquor laws, semicolons carved in stone, and how novelists from George Orwell to Kurt Vonnegut hold forth on its ugliness or omit them entirely accusing them of 'representing absolutely nothing.' Feared, pretentious, or downright trendy in the late 1800s, the frequency of the semicolon far outstrips that of one of its relatives, the colon. But there are rules as to whether to use a comma or a semicolon and in the new books of the 1700s, grammarians didn't hesitate to impugn the grammar of writers traditionally considered superb stylists: Milton and Shakespeare were chastised for 'gross mistakes'. The book follows a chronological path and follows the semicolon's place where our anxieties and aspirations about language, class and education are concentrated, and it is also a story about grammar and language more generally. The book shows how the semicolon is essential to the aesthetic appeal of passages from Herman Melville, Raymond Chandler, Henry James, Irvine Welsh, and other masters of English fiction and non-fiction. For all fans of Lynne Truss and the beauty of language and its rules. 212pp, paperback with facsimile examples and interesting graphics.

An innovative dictionary designed especially for anyone starting to learn French. Which side of the dictionary would you need to look up and translate le vélo? The French-English side comes first and you look there to find the meaning of a French word. The second part is English-French which is the side you need for translating into French. At the side of every page you will see either a blue or a black tab and for each entry examples of phrases to show how to use the word in translation. For example 'my car has a flat tyre'. Completely modernised to include all IT vocabulary, there is also a super section French In Action including a map of France, relationships and feelings, at home, in town, jobs and hobbies, describing someone, keeping fit and healthy, email, texting, dates, festivals, time and numbers etc. Lovely clear layout with coloured headers and free online study pack. 608pp, sturdy softback.

Inside the elasticated folder is a large envelope containing 20 photocopiable practice sheets and a highly instructive and stylish guide. Discover the joy of calligraphy and creating beautifully formed characters using pen and ink. The renowned calligraphy expert Joyce Lee helps us flex your nib to discover old-fashioned cursive writing by simply varying the pressure exerted on your pen. She presents a 30 day challenge to motivate you to practice daily covering the basic strokes like the compound curve and oval, ascender and descender loops, and exceptions, then covering lower case and upper case and tips on stringing letter together into words to make simple banners, name cards, DIY plant labels, a digital monogram, a colourful splash artwork, glamorous gold acrylic gift tags, gold rings on handwritten envelopes, invitations from formal to varying your style and the use of coloured paper and elegantly handwritten envelopes. 'I found the movement of writing in cursive enchanting.' 128 page very large softback, colour photos.

Between 80 and 87 Cryptic clues across and down and the same number of quick clues for the same grid, the choice is yours across all 100 giant sized crosswords, one per right hand page in this extra large softback. A cracking collection of super-sized grids from the Daily Mail Saturday newspaper, how you solve the puzzle is up to you, whether you choose a relaxed approach or race for results. A perfect test of your vocabulary and mental agility, the book is discounted for the first time. Paperback.