A Wonderland of Words - A Review

 

Shashi Tharoor believes in the philosophy “Words are Power: Words are Magic.”  Chandran Tharoor, to whom the book is dedicated, is described as the ‘author’s author’. Tharoor, in the Introduction, talks about the two word games that were part of the family vacations - 'Scrabble' and the early version of the now famous game 'Wordle'  Tharoor defines his father as a 'milver', an individual who shares a strong interest in words with another person, particularly an interest in usage and wordplay. Most of the 101 essays in this book have appeared in the 'World of Words' column of the Dubai-based newspaper Khaleej Times. It is no wonder that some of the examples used are contextualised in the culture of the U.A.E. 

 

Sample this one:

 

"It's pretty safe bet that there won't be too many readers of the original version of this piece, which appeared in the Gulf newspaper, who suffer from ‘xerophobia’ - an abnormal fear of dryness and dry places such as deserts." 

 

Another one: 

"We don't have too many turkeys around either in India or the UAE, but we have the word, if not the bird." 

 

The book is well-researched, and even though the book ends on page 403, the Notes section extends to 442 pages. Every section has more than 50-60 references. Tharoor acknowledges the help rendered by Professor Sheeba Thattil, who did most of the research for this book. He describes her efforts as 'indefatigable' and ends the acknowledgement with these words. “In many ways, this book is as much to her credit as to mine."

 

According to her X profile, Professor Sheeba Thattil is a consultant copyeditor at Aleph Book Company, Delhi, a Professor of English, and a researcher. The excellent illustration before each section is by Priya Kurian, the Bengaluru-based illustrator and comics maker. I started following her on Instagram because of the beautiful cover and the charcoal illustrations she designed for Manu Pillai's "The Courtesan, the Mahatma & the Italian Brahmin." 

 

The book has thirteen sections covering topics like punctuation, spelling, literary tools, and language of inclusion. I plan to take up some of the book's topics for the next 100-day challenge. 

 

The book inspires me to take non-academic research more seriously. It always amazes me that a busy bee like Shashi Tharoor finds time to write books, deliver well-crafted lectures, and attend literary festivals. The same can be said of Manu S Pillai, who has written his latest book, "Gods, Guns, and Missionaries," which is more than 600 pages long. It is all about the time taken and the quality of research that makes the work great. 

 

Tharoor recently published three books about the power and magic of words. The first one, "Tharoorosaurus,” came out in 2020. The second book, published in 2023, is "The Less You Preach, the More You Learn," a collaboration with Joseph Zacharias. The latest book about the magical world of words is "A Wonderland of Words." As an English teacher, I welcome this shift in the content from arid and squally political topics to much more enriching and inspiring content.