From Book Smart Studios, this is Lexicon Valley, a podcast about language.

Mike Volo is recovering from winter this week. I'm Bob Garfield.

The show is called Lexicon Valley. I confess we chronically pay short shrift to valleys, but we do have a proprietary

interest in lexicons, which the dictionary principally defines as the dictionary.

So imagine our good fortune to have our old friend and colleague, Stefan Fatsis, write

unabridged, a book about dictionaries.

Actually, unabridged is six books about dictionaries, intertwined narratives on dictionaries' history,

the eccentric publishing process, the industry's curious denizens, a highly fraught prospectus, a love story, and an adventure,

namely the author's personal quest to make his own mark in lexicography.

Stefan, welcome back to Lexicon Valley.

So good to be back, Bob.

Hope you're well.

I am well.

I hope you are as well.

Let's start with the love story.

To borrow the title from another of your books, you were a word freak from a tender age.

Yes.

The word freak book, of course, was about Scrabble, and I still am Scrabble obsessed and competitive.

But the love story goes way back to when I was a kid. My mom gave me a Webster's New World

Dictionary when I was 11 years old on my birthday. I have it on my desk right here is a

deluxe color edition. It had a great multicolor glossy cover with

drawings and these amazing full page drawings inside that I loved. But it was also a book that I grew

...