Quantity:

Express Checkout with PayPhrase

What's this? | Create PayPhrase

More Buying Choices

62 used & new from $4.83

Have one to sell? Sell yours here

Share with Friends

Share your own customer images

Search inside this book

Tell the Publisher! I�d like to read this book on Kindle Don�t have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here.

Ella Minnow Pea (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "Thank you for the lovely postcards..." (more)
Key Phrases: Minnow Pea, Aunt Mittie, Georgeanne Towgate (more...)

4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (58 customer reviews)

List Price:	$22.00
Price:	$16.50 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
You Save:	$5.50 (25%)
	o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

Want it delivered Tuesday, November 24? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details

20 new from $5.75 36 used from $4.83 6 collectible from $9.99

Formats		Amazon Price	New from	Used from
Hardcover $16.50 In Stock. Published September 30, 2001	Hardcover, September 30, 2001	$16.50	$5.75	$4.83
	See # more hardcovers
	Show fewer hardcovers
Paperback Available from these sellers. Published July 2, 2003	Paperback, July 2, 2003	--	$9.52	$4.98
	See # more paperbacks
	Show fewer paperbacks

Frequently Bought Together

Price For All Three: $32.08

Show availability and shipping details

This item: Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Random House Reader's Circle) by Mary Ann Shaffer
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters

by Mark Dunn

4.5 out of 5 stars (82) $10.08

Ibid: A Life

by Mark Dunn

3.8 out of 5 stars (9) $18.81

Welcome to Higby : A Novel

by Mark Dunn

3.5 out of 5 stars (16) $22.95

Discovering Arguments: An Introduction to Critical Thinking and Writing with Readings (2nd Edition)

by Dean Memering

4.0 out of 5 stars (3) $81.00

CliffsAP English Language and Composition (Cliffs AP)

by Barbara V. Swovelin

4.1 out of 5 stars (11) $11.04

› Explore similar items

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

laywright Dunn tries his hand at fiction in this "progressively lipogrammatic epistolary fable," and the result is a novel bursting with creativity, neological mischief and clever manipulation of the English language. The story takes place in the present day on the fictional island of Nollop off the coast of South Carolina, where over a century earlier, the great Nevin Nollop invented a 35-letter panagram (a phrase, sentence or verse containing every letter in the alphabet). As the creator of "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog," Nollop was deified for his achievement. The island's inhabitants live an anachronistic existence, with letter-writing remaining the principal form of communication. Life seems almost utopian in its simplicity until letters of the alphabet start falling from the inscription on the statue erected in Nollop's honor, and the island's governing council decrees that as each letter falls, it must be extirpated from both spoken and written language. Forced to choose from a gradually shrinking pool of words, the novel's protagonists a family of islanders seek ways to communicate without employing the forbidden letters. A band of intrepid islanders forms an underground resistance movement; their goal is to create a shorter panagram than Nollop's original, thereby rescinding the council's draconian diktat. The entire novel consists of their letters to each other, and the messages grow progressively quirkier and more inventive as alternative spellings ("yesters" for "yesterday") and word clusters ("yellow sphere" for "sun") come to dominate the language. Dunn obviously relishes the challenge of telling a story with a contracting alphabet. Though frequently choppy and bizarre, the content of the letters can easily be deciphered, a neat trick that elicits smiles. Wordsmiths of every stripe will appreciate this whimsical fable, in which Dunn brilliantly demonstrates his ability to delight and captivate.

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School-With shades of Kurt Vonnegut, George Orwell, and William PŠne du Bois, Ella Minnow Pea is delightfully clever from start to finish. It's set on Nollop, a fictional island off the coast of South Carolina named for its long-dead founder, Nevin Nollop, the "genius" who came up with "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog." A huge cenotaph of Nollop's sentence stands over the town square-and one day, the "z" falls to the ground. Nollop's elected-for-life Council interprets this as a missive from beyond the grave, "that the letter `Z' should be utterly excised-fully extirpated-absolutely heave-ho'ed from our communal vocabulary!" Other letters soon follow, and the novel becomes progressively lipogrammatic (a "lipogram" being writing in which one or more letters are forbidden), told exclusively in the form of letters from one citizen to another as they struggle to adapt (a third offense means banishment). Not even the discovery that the glue holding the letters up is calcifying sways the zealots on the Council (perhaps Nollop intended its deterioration). It's decided that only the construction of another sentence that uses every alphabet letter in only 32 graphemes could discredit Nollop's "divine" word. Dunn plays his setup to the hilt, and the result is perfect for teens fond of wicked wit, wordplay, and stories that use the absurd to get at the serious.
Emily Lloyd, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

Hardcover: 205 pages
Publisher: MacAdam/Cage Publishing; F edition (October 1, 2001)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0967370167
ISBN-13: 978-0967370163
Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.7 x 0.9 inches
Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (58 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #366,500 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

› Visit Amazon's Mark Dunn Page

Inside This Book (learn more)

First Sentence:
Thank you for the lovely postcards. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Minnow Pea, Aunt Mittie, Georgeanne Towgate, Aunt Gwenette, Uncle Amos, High Island Council, Master Creevy, Miss Pea, Mittie Purcy, Nevin Nollop, Nollopton Monty, Rory Cummels, Supreme Being, Enterprise Thirty-two

New!
Concordance | Text Stats

Citations (learn more)

1 book cites this book:

Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason by Nancy Pearl on page 79, and page 88

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

	65% buy the item featured on this page: Ella Minnow Pea 4.4 out of 5 stars (58) $16.50
	29% buy Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters 4.5 out of 5 stars (82) $10.08
	2% buy Ella Minnow Pea: Illustrated Gift Edition $15.60
	2% buy Ella Bella Ballerina and The Sleeping Beauty 4.2 out of 5 stars (4) $10.19

Explore similar items

Tags Customers Associate with This Product

(What's this?)

Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.

word play(4)

letters(3)

clever(2)

fiction(2)

boring(1)

epistolary(1)

mark dunn(1)

Agree with these tags?

Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store

If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store. Learn more

Customer Reviews

58 Reviews

5 star:		(41)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(1)

Average Customer Review

4.4 out of 5 stars (58 customer reviews)

Share your thoughts with other customers:

Create your own review

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Get Ella Minnow Pea, ASAP!, November 1, 2001

By	Dianna Johnston "Compulsive Reader" (Joplin, MO) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

How about something refreshingly original, amazingly creative, wholeheartedly unique? Or maybe something containing whimsically plausible characters encasing hearty penchants for the written word and appetites for poetically stimulating language usage? Look no further! Read Ella Minnow Pea for a divine, utterly addictive, and monumentally appealing perusing experience.

In the fictional island of Nollop, home to the late, great Nevin Nollop, inventor of the sentence, "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog," a pangram that contains all 26 letters of the alphabet, there's an uprising going on! Seems the monument depicting said sentence (in an effort to memorialize the citizens' esteemed island founder) is falling apart, letter by letter. High Council members determine this as a word from the great beyond, a way of communicating to us Nollop's wishes to eradicate that certain letter from use -- verbally or written. As an island full of people who use letter-writing and communication as an art form, these wishes could only spell 'demise.' If only there was a way to prove the tiles' falling as an act of faulty cement glue....

Ella Minnow Pea is an extraordinary book of letters from one citizen to the next that increase in hilarity and difficulty as each letter of the alphabet is increasingly banned from use. Mark Dunn is an extremely talented writer in my eyes, especially given this amazing task to expand his vocabulary beyond normal conversation. Have your Thesauruses handy -- Ella Minnow Pea will take you on quite an intellectual journey.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't overlook the author's message, March 10, 2002

By	Simon Cross (RUSTINGTON, West Sussex. United Kingdom) - See all my reviews

I am only half way through this book, which I must say reads very quickly, but I decided to have another look at the reviews of this book. After all, it was because of those reviews that I bought this book.

It concerns me, that those few readers who look beyond the humourous aspect of this book, still don't spend much time commenting upon the subtext - the loss of freedom. Not only are certain letters banned from use, but the high-minded governing Council, impose very strict punishments for anyone found using any of the banned letters, and a very strict adherence to those punishments, even to the extent of exiling nationals.

This novel shows how all too easy it is for innocent members of any group to be caught up in the fanaticism of a governing body, when that body believes that it is doing right. Look at any difficult political situation in the world today, and somewhere there is an element of fanaticism.

Whilst I am sure that Mark Dunn is very happy that people are enjoying the comic side to his novel, I guess he did not intend it to overshadow the deeper message.

This is a very enjoyable, very clever novel, but when you read it, don't forget that any of us could find ourselves in a similar situation very easily.

(Also, to the reviewer who suggested keeping a dictionary to hand, working out what is being said is probably supposed to be part of the enjoyment. You do not need a dictionary.)

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog, November 8, 2001

By	noone42 - See all my reviews

Speak or write the letter "z", first offense-public reprimand, second offense-public flogging or the stockades, third offense-deportment from the island of Nollop. If you refuse to go, death is the punishment.

"Ella Minnow Pea" is quite possibly the most original book I have ever read. Mark Dunn's first novel is highly creative, insiteful, with a touch of political undercurrents. Written in the form of letter correspondences, it is a quick and entertaining read. As letters become outlawed, they do in fact drop from the book, not making it harder to read (as was my worry) but only adding to its charm. "Ella Minnow Pea" will even give you a new appreciation for that wonderful thing we call the alphabet, as well as put a smile on your face. So, find out the fate of the alphabet and the citizens of Nollop and read this book!

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 58 customer reviews...

Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars A lexically troubling four months
I had to make a pangram with all 26 alphabetical letters like Nevin Nollop's. 'The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog' pertains to the novels lexical theme. Read more

Published 3 months ago by Asmah

2.0 out of 5 stars LMNO - Awful
Are you fascinated by grammar, syntax, and word play? Do you long for days spent reading the most uninteresting letters ever written? Do you enjoy gimmicks? Read more

Published 9 months ago by Scott

1.0 out of 5 stars Pretentious Bore
It's really stupid. The premise was so ridiculous, I figured it must have been, "clever" to get as high of a rating, and a prominently displayed review that said it was Orwellian,... Read more

Published 17 months ago by Bill DiBurgh Rothschild

5.0 out of 5 stars Read on three levels
I agree that this book is enormously clever and entertaining and beyond the capabilities of most of us to think of and execute. Read more

Published on August 3, 2006 by So Many Books...

3.0 out of 5 stars Eh. Not bad.
Mark Dunn, Ella Minnow Pea (MacAdam/Cage, 2001)

Ella Minnow Pea is the story of Nollop, a fictional island off the coast of Georgia whose inhabitants revere Nevin... Read more

Published on June 28, 2006 by Robert P. Beveridge

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely brilliant. I could never do it justice.
This review will likely never earn a "yes" vote for its helpfulness, but nevertheless, I wanted to share that I absolutely adored this book. Read more

Published on June 14, 2006 by Jeff

4.0 out of 5 stars Something Very Different...
I read Mark Dunn's 'Welcome To Higby' quite some time ago, and loved it. I've had this book on my wish list for a couple years, and finally decided it was time to give it a... Read more

Published on March 19, 2006 by Mercedes L. Johnmeyer

2.0 out of 5 stars A for effort, but....
I was enticed into reading this book by the jacket blurbs and other reviews here on Amazon. I loved the premise, and looked forward to an engaging tale peppered with some clever... Read more

Published on January 16, 2006 by Eotvos

5.0 out of 5 stars CREATIVE, IMAGINATIVE, AND ENTERTAINING

Creative? Imaginative? Entertaining? A tad absurd? You bet to all of the preceding. Read more

Published on December 25, 2005 by Gail Cooke

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful
Couldnt put it down. A light and good read no matter what your intrests are. Very creative and well written. Read more

Published on May 4, 2005 by Bryan Qualls

› See all 58 customer reviews...

.jsOffDisplayBlock { display: block; } .jsOffDisplayInline { display: inline; } .jsOffVisibility { visibility: visible; } .jsOnDisplayBlock { display: none; } .jsOnDisplayNoneBlock { display: block; } .jsOnDisplayNoneInline { display: inline; } .jsOnDisplayInline { display: none; } .jsOnVisibility { visibility: hidden; } .jqOnDisplayBlock { display: none; } .jqOnDisplayInline { display: none; } .jqOnVisibility { visibility: hidden; } .jqOnDisplayNoneBlock { display: block; } .jqOnDisplayNoneInline { display: inline; }

Customer Discussions

This product's forum

Discussion	Replies	Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight

Start a new discussion

Topic:

First post:

Receive e-mail when new posts are made

Prompts for sign-in

Guidelines

Active discussions in related forums

Discussion	Replies	Latest Post
fiction Great Drama - Books like The Thorn Birds - Where are books like this?	11	1 hour ago
fiction What are you currently reading?	362	2 hours ago
fiction Have you written a book - tell us about it	1153	3 hours ago
literary fiction Modern emotional fiction-suggestions?	13	4 hours ago
literary fiction Have You Written Literary Fiction - Come Tell Us About It.	862	5 hours ago
textbook textbook scam	77	1 day ago
textbook Textbooks for Kindle DX?	63	3 days ago