Quirky Books: Treasure-troves of trivia

Connoisseurs of the Christmas gift book market — we are a select group, with little otherwise to occupy our time — will have noticed a couple of significant absences from this year’s line-up. There is no Blue Peter Annual, for the first time since 1964, when even Christopher Trace was still a young man. More tellingly, Schott’s Almanac appears to have ceased publication after six years of, one assumes, gradually declining sales. It was beautifully designed, lovingly compiled, funny and unpredictable, and I shall miss it. No doubt Ben Schott is now holed up in his gothic tower, surrounded by pieces of paper with bizarre facts written on them, wondering what on earth he should do next.

But if he needs any consolation (other than the vast sums of money he has made) he should take a look at this year’s batch of quirky Christmas books. Although there is a lot of rubbish around, as there always is, there are also a few titles that, within the bounds of their modest ambitions, are really quite stunning, and most of them owe at least a small debt to Mr Schott’s pioneering work.

David Crystal’s The Story of English in 100 Words (Profile, £12.99) is his third book about language this year, for only James Patterson works this fast. It’s also one of his best. ‘How can we tell the story of the English language?’ he asks in his introduction. Well, you can take an overview, identify general themes and trends, and give as many examples of usage as space allows. Crystal has done that, several times. Or you can go micro rather than macro, and cobble together a whole load of individual etymologies. Crystal has done that too, ‘in my collection of international proverbs, As They Say in Zanzibar’.

Here he combines both approaches, and chooses 100 words, every one of which tells us something about the way the language has developed.