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Books 

Book cover for Ladyfingers & Nun's Tummies

Ladyfingers and Nun's Tummies

 The New Yorker:

“Everything in it is delightful to learn. Barnette takes us through languages and across millennia in a charming style that, starting with words describing things we eat, turns out to offer endless food for thought.”


William F. Buckley, Jr.:

“Why didn’t anyone think of this before? . . . What fun Martha Barnette has made of it all, every name for every dish explained and traced and jollied.” 

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Los Angeles Times, 100 Best Books of the Year:

“Truly delicious … a vast multicultural smorgasbord of our culinary delights … a tour de force.”

Book cover of Martha Barnette's A Garden of Words with drawings of flowers

A Garden of Words

The New York Times Book Review:

“Sheer etymological garden fun…Barnette begins with the flower’s name and immediately jumps off the neat garden path into the wild underbrush of mythology, history, folk tales and scientific investigation.”

Book cover for Martha Barnette's Dog Days and Dandelions with drawings of various animals

Dog Days and Dandelions

Publishers Weekly:

“Beastly fun! … a sprightly compendium of the animal kingdom’s impact on the king’s English. Arranged alphabetically, the 300-plus entries make for good browsing, and readers with a penchant for odd and underused words, such as myrmidon (an unprincipled lackey) and musteline (resembling a weasel) will find them aplenty here.”    

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