As a child, I spent part of every summer at Grandma’s house in Ohio. Some of my earliest memories are of crawling into Grandma and Grandpa’s bed and snuggling up with Grandma as she read to me from a big book of Peanuts comics. My grandfather worked the second shift for GM and came home late, after I was asleep, so reading together became a nightly bedtime ritual, just for Grandma and me. It was on those nights that I learned about the magic of words on the page, about how they could be entertaining and funny and then suddenly poignant. (Okay, back then I didn’t quite get the “poignant” part; that came a little later.) I learned that reading was something worth doing.

Of course I grew a little each year, and one year I informed Grandma that I didn’t need her to read to me anymore; I could do it all by myself. Yeah, I was sort of a twerp sometimes (or a blockhead, as Lucy Van Pelt would say). So I started reading silently and alone. Somehow, it wasn’t quite the same, even when I read to myself from the old book Grandma and I used to share.

I still have that book. It’s called Peanuts Treasury and was published the year I was born. The strips in it run from the late ’50s into the mid-’60s. I still read from it sometimes, and still, whenever Lucy is mean, Charlie Brown is pitifully hopeful, Linus is wise, or Snoopy is, well, Snoopy, they all speak in my grandmother’s voice.

I downloaded my copy a couple of weeks ago and have skimmed its pages, eager to see what has changed in the world of writing and editing in the past 104 years. Some things are certainly different in the 1906 edition (it offers absolutely no guidance on citing online publications in your notes and bibliography, for example), but certain bits of its wisdom are still relevant today. In just a few minutes of browsing through the file, I found several little gems. Here’s my favorite so far:

Read everything as if you yourself were the author, and your reputation and fortune depended upon its accuracy.

That’s from the “Hints to Proofreaders” section, but editors can also take it to heart.

Expect more gems from the 1906 edition to appear here in the coming weeks!

I should explain what attracted us to Operation Red Jericho in the first place. It was the illustrations. The book is an adventure novel, but it is full of fold-out illustrations: maps, diagrams, “The Weaponry, History, and Fighting Techniques of the Sujing Quantou,” and more. Better still, much of this material is marked “confidential.” This excites me.

My friend and I immediately contacted our inner twelve-year-olds and started reading. Soon we had both acquired the second book in the series, Operation Typhoon Shore. We also formed a secret club. I can’t even tell you what it’s called—it’s that secret. I can tell you that we have saved the world numerous times by meeting at our favorite Indian restaurant and consuming large quantities of butter chicken. The food was the only thing that got us through many agonizing months of waiting for the final book, Operation Storm City. We’re not sure how we’ll entertain ourselves now that the story is finished.

You’ll be wondering what that story is all about. A young brother and sister, Rebecca (handy with a sword) and Douglas (brilliant thinker with lucky socks), search for their parents in China in 1920. They end up on a ship belonging to their uncle, Captain Fitzroy MacKenzie (owns a pet tiger), and adventure ensues. The books are full of secrets, plots, ne’er-do-wells, sword fights, explosions … I could go on and on. Let’s just say the world needs saving from some serious bad guys, and soon it’s up to Becky, Doug, and their friends to do the saving.

If you’re looking for serious literature, this is not it. But if you want a little fun, or perhaps an excuse to wake up your inner twelve-year-old and form a secret club …

I have owned three copies of this book. The first I bought at a particularly un-fun time in my life when I was working hard (and not very successfully) on “un-slumping” myself. Did the good doctor’s wisdom help? Well, it certainly did put things into perspective, reminding me—no, change that—teaching me for the first time that you can reach new and undreamed-of highs after you’ve hit the lowest of lows. No one had ever told me that before.

The second copy was given to me a few years later when I left an old, worn-out job. Was I on my way to bigger and better things with my “head full of brains” and my “shoes full of feet”? You bet! Before I knew it I was full of dreams and energy and hope. I wasn’t famous, but I certainly was “ready for anything under the sky.” Until the next lurch, slump, bump. Ah, but that’s just life, as I was now learning.

These two copies are lost now. My third copy of Oh, the Places You’ll Go! is included in the book Your Favorite Seuss. I pull it out and read it once in a while, when life looks bright—or dark; when I am hopeful—or not; when I am moving ahead, certain of my direction—or stalled in place, waiting for things to change. The reading always brings a smile to my face.

So what have I learned from this wise philosopher? Simply this: You never know what is coming next. It might be good, or it might be bad. It might carry your master plan forward, or it might send you in a new direction or derail you entirely. What’s to be done? Just keep going, keep trying. This is how mountains are moved. This isn’t a profound philosophy with a great mystery at its center, but it does work.

And the last part of my message today?

Your mountain is waiting.
So … get on your way!

I first read The Mother Tongue in the early 1990s and was reintroduced to it a few years ago when my great-uncle Tom loaned me a copy to take my mind off my cancer treatment. For some of us, a romp through the oddities of language is just the thing to brighten our day. This is not a serious linguistic study, but has lots of tidbits of information presented with a touch of humor.

If you’ve been reading along with Adventures in Editing, by now you have probably realized I enjoy humor, and you will not be surprised to know that my favorite part of The Mother Tongue is the short but entertaining chapter about swearing. Actually, I very rarely swear, but I like to have a good supply of naughty words to say when I, for example, drop a can of soup on my foot. And Bryson has given me a whole new outlook on one of our language’s most versatile words, which I will not write here because this is a PG-rated blog. You’ll have to look that one up for yourself!

I haven’t read it in a while, but I got to thinking about Lapsing Into a Comma again when I was writing my lament on lost hyphens (“Where Have All the Hyphens Gone?”). I’ve never seen anyone other than Bill Walsh take the time to explain why “bad hair day” isn’t hyphenated. In fact, I don’t know of anyone else who has explained the ins and outs of hyphenation in a way that makes sense and is often downright funny.

Of course the whole book isn’t about hyphens. Walsh also explains other misunderstood punctuation marks, points out some frequently misspelled and/or misused words, and reminds us to look out for “$100 dollars” and other sneaky errors. Best of all, his fun-to-read explanations show the reader how to think editorially. Lapsing Into a Comma has certainly made me a better writer and editor, and it didn’t even hurt!

This post could have been longer, but I got distracted while flipping through the book. Rather than go on and on describing the contents, I’ll just recommend that you read it yourself. Right now I’m going to read about “Moniker Lewinsky” again.

Your Favorite Seuss is a collection of thirteen Seuss stories, compiled by Janet Schulman and Cathy Goldsmith. Just reading the table of contents makes me giddy: If I Ran the Zoo, The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, The Sneetches, The Lorax… These are the books that first made me love reading. I believe Green Eggs and Ham was instrumental in turning me into a word nerd (“I do not like them, Sam-I-am” —a phrase that is still useful!).

Dr. Seuss taught us that words do not have to be serious things. You can take them out and play with them, and sometimes you can even make up new ones. You can let words roll around on your tongue and then you can say them in a silly voice. You can take them apart and put them back together in new and interesting ways. And when you’re done doing all that, you can take them and make them into a hat!

No, seriously—if by playing with words you learn to love them and learn what they’re all about, you will be better able to use those words to say what needs saying. Because words aren’t just for playing; they’re also (and mostly) for communicating our very important thoughts. Something Dr. Seuss never ever forgot.

For reasons I have never really understood, many people think I am very serious, a deep-thinking intellectual who just doesn’t know how to have fun. What planet do these people come from? Sure, I listen to NPR and watch PBS and think a lot about a lot of things, but “serious”? Ha!

As evidence of my totally non-serious nature, I offer my thoughts on another of my favorite books, Bill Watterson’s The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes (1990). A masterpiece! Spaceman Spiff never looked better. And that first bit with the elephant—I laughed till I peed.

Seriously though, Calvin and Hobbes has long been one of my favorites, and I still suffer from occasional withdrawal thirteen years after Watterson stopped drawing the strip. (Get Fuzzy has taken most of the pain away—most, but not all.) What a relief to be able to dip into one of the C & H books and instantly feel the cares of the day slip away. So many of the Calvin and Hobbes strips are like old friends to me, the kind you can meet up with every few years to laugh and reminisce and say, “Remember when scientific progress went boink!?” Good times.

I feel like I should keep writing—there’s so much more to say—but I have the book open in front of me, Calvin and Hobbes are playing archaeologist in the backyard, and I’m having trouble tearing myself away. If you’re also a fan, you will understand why I have to stop writing and turn the page; if you’re not a fan, poor you.

I’m going to read now, and maybe later I’ll jump into my spaceship and zoom off to an unexplored and very dangerous planet, or perhaps I’ll transmogrify myself into an elephant. Boink!

“Then practice losing farther, losing faster.” None of us gets through life without losing some things. The trick is to become an expert at losing; then it won’t bother you so much. Sometimes losing brings freedom. I learned this the hard way when I got cancer. In only a few months I lost my health, my apartment, my ability to support myself, my sense of security, my assumption that I would still be alive the following year. I was very aware of having lost quite a lot. Strangely, though, I didn’t feel as if I’d lost; I felt free. I’d lost far and fast, and it wasn’t a disaster.

There’s always a catch though, isn’t there? After tripping along through line after line of minor and major losses, the poem takes a sudden turn:

“—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love)…”

I read these lines and feel that old familiar catch in my throat, and I remember that sometimes the pain of one particular loss will linger, no matter how many years it’s been or how practiced you are at losing. On some days, some losses still feel like disaster.

(Read the complete poem at Poets.org.)

Enter Karen Elizabeth Gordon and The Deluxe Transitive Vampire. This is a grammar book that is actually a joy to read, plus it has pictures of gargoyles, bats, and other fun things. (Some of the illustrations are nudes, so if you’re offended by that sort of thing, you may want to choose a more conventional grammar book. But you will miss so much!) This is the grammar book I would write if I decided to write a grammar book. Fortunately for me, the book already exists and I can just sit back and enjoy it.

I suppose I enjoyed the sentences I learned to diagram and parse back in middle school. If I hadn’t I probably would have gone into molecular biology rather than editing. But we never had a sentence quite as interesting as

The bat suspended from Loona’s hairdo was repulsed by her Nuit Blanche perfume.

Or how about

The rat shot the pizza chef dead.

That second sentence always makes me smile. I think it has something to do with the illustration of the rat holding a revolver, presumably aimed at the unfortunate pizza chef, who I guess made a really bad pie. Not enough cheese, perhaps. Or maybe too many mushrooms.

Back to reality (drat!). If you feel your grammar is a little rusty and the thought of actually reading a grammar book makes you yawn, you may want to try The Deluxe Transitive Vampire. You will learn some things and be pleasantly entertained. You will learn that

The mannequin gave the baby vampire her phone number, but she knew he’d never call.

(Actually, in this example you’re learning two things: how to join independent clauses, and, more importantly to some of you, baby vampires are unreliable.)