Full name: The Grammarians: A Novel

Author: Cathleen Schine Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: Fiction, Historical fiction, Contemporary Purchase/reserch links: LibraryThing Goodreads Amazon ISBNs: 9781250241740 9780374280116 125024174X 0374280118

"The Grammarians" are Laurel and Daphne Wolfe, identical, inseparable redheaded twins who share an obsession with words. They speak a secret "twin" tongue of their own as toddlers; as adults making their way in 1980s Manhattan, their verbal infatuation continues, but this love, which has always bound them together, begins instead to push them apart. Daphne, copy editor and grammar columnist, devotes herself to preserving the dignity and elegance of Standard English. Laurel, who gives up teaching kindergarten to write poetry, is drawn, instead, to the polymorphous, chameleon nature of the written and spoken word. Their fraying twin-ship finally shreds completely when the sisters go to war, absurdly but passionately, over custody of their most prized family heirloom: Merriam Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition. Cathleen Schine has written a playful and joyful celebration of the interplay of language and life. A dazzling comedy of sisterly and linguistic manners, a revelation of the delights and stresses of intimacy, The Grammarians is the work of one of our great comic novelists at her very best. Similar books: Gone So Long by Andre Dubus At Paradise Gate by Jane Smiley Alva & Irva by Edward Carey My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh Reading in Bed by Sue Gee This Side of Brightness by Colum McCann The Treatment by Daniel Menaker Last Things by Jenny Offill May We Be Forgiven by A. M. Homes Manhattan Loverboy by Arthur Nersesian The Good People of New York by Thisbe Nissen The Blindfold by Siri Hustvedt The Sorrows of an American by Siri Hustvedt Circle of Three by Patricia Gaffney Have the Men Had Enough? by Margaret Forster Trail of Broken Wings by Sejal Badani A Woman is No Man by Etaf Rum The Road Home by Rose Tremain A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne A History of Loneliness by John Boyne