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Alphabetical: How Every Letter Tells a Story

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(137 reviews)

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Description

From minding your Ps and Qs to wondering why X should mark the spot, Alphabetical is a book for everyone who loves words and language. Whether it's how letters are arranged on keyboards or Viking runes, textspeak or zip codes, this book will change the way you think about letters for ever.

How on Earth did we fix upon our twenty-six letters, what do they really mean, and how did we come to write them down in the first place? Michael Rosen takes you on an unforgettable adventure through the history of the alphabet in twenty-six vivid chapters, fizzing with personal anecdotes and fascinating facts. Starting with the mysterious Phoenicians and how sounds first came to be written down, he races on to show how nonsense poems work, pins down the strange story of OK, traces our seven lost letters and tackles the tyranny of spelling, among many, many other things.

His heroes of the alphabet range from Edward Lear to Phyllis Pearsall (the inventor of the A-Z), and from the two scribes of Beowulf to rappers. Each chapter takes on a different subject - codes, umlauts or the writing of dictionaries. Rosen's enthusiasm for letters positively leaps off the page, whether it's the story of his life told through the typewriters he's owned or a chapter on jokes written in a string of gags and word games.

So if you ever wondered why Hawaiian only has a thirteen-letter alphabet or how exactly to write down the sound of a wild raspberry, read on...

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Price Summary

  • We started tracking this book on December 2, 2013.
  • This book was £8.07 when we started tracking it.
  • The price of this book has changed 24 times in the past 4,246 days.
  • The current price of this book is £2.99 last checked 15 hours ago.
  • The lowest price to date was £2.99 last reached on July 4, 2025.
  • This book has been £2.99 5 times since we started tracking it.
  • The highest price to date was £8.09 last reached on May 7, 2014.
  • This book has been £8.09 one time since we started tracking it.
  • This book is currently at its lowest price since we started tracking it.

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Additional Info

  • Text-to-Speech: Disabled
  • Lending: Disabled
  • Print Length: 400 Pages
  • File Size: 50 KB

We last verified the price of this book about 15 hours ago. At that time, the price was £2.99. This price is subject to change. The price displayed on the Amazon.co.uk website at the time of purchase is the price you will pay for this book. Please confirm the price before making any purchases.