Customer Reviews

The Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations (Oxford Reference)

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Not just a reference book, this volume provides hours of innocent pleasure to the reader who wants to thumb through it reading what strikes his eye.

It assembles quotations, mostly 20th century, from literature, politics, and art, more heavily leaning on British and European sources. A foreign language quotation is given in the original and also in translation. The author has worked to get the true author, e.g., when Groucho Marx said, "I'd horsewhip you, if I had a horse," the author is given not as Groucho but as the screenwriter.

Quotations are given in context. Thus instead of simply telling you that Churchill said, "Blood, toil, tears, and sweat," you are given several paragraphs of the speech as Churchill gave it in the House of Commons. This allows you to appreciate the way the speech rhythms develop and flow.

One slight problem is that the pagination in the paperback edition was not changed from the hardback and thus is incorrect; however, it is easy enough to figure out the correct page.

This is a great book. I love to just sit and page through it, reading quotes by modern day authors, poets, and artists. I turn to it to look something up and wind up reading through it for an hour or more. Funny quotes, sad quotes, quotes that epitomize life in the 20th century.

The format is pretty standard for books of this type. Artists are listed alphabetically, by the names they are known, (Maya Angelou, rather than Maya Johnson, for example). The index uses the standard format of listing the significant words from each quotation, these keywords also listed alphabetically. Then the first few letters of the author's name are shown, along with the page number and the item number of the quote itself. I didn't find any problems with pagination, as did another reviewer, every quote I looked up had an accurate page and item number (perhaps he is dealing with an older edition than I am).

All in all a wonderful book, and an excellent addition to any reference library. Don't hesitate, buy it!