Your reference shelf

Cafe Society
1

What do you have on your reference shelf? What do you wish you had? Feel free to add comments, recommendations, or whatever. Any subject allowed.

My shelf, or as much of it as I can get at just now:

American Heritage Dictionary, college ed.
Webster’s and Roget’s Thesaurus
A generic, cheapo dictionary of quotations
Scrabble Dictionary
Dictionaries of Middle English, Danish, Russian, German, and Spanish
Strunk and White’s Elements of Style
Chicago Manual of Style
Torn Wings and Faux Pas–one of Karen Elizabeth Gordon’s books, on style
Fowler’s Modern English Usage
Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (truly cool book; get an old edition)
An Exaltation of Larks, or, the Venereal Game–a book of ‘nouns of multitude’

Home Comforts–greatest housekeeping book ever
Household Hints for Dummies
The Encyclopedia of Country Living–everything from how to milk a goat to what to do with a dead body
Most of Miss Manners’ books

Merriam-Webster Encyc. of World Religions

A lot of tomes of folklore and poetry anthologies
Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes
Oxford Book of Children’s Verse (those aren’t meant for reading with kids, but as reference books with sources and footnotes and whatnot)

A bunch of child-care stuff, including Dr. Spock and a couple of “What to expect…” books

Merck Manual of Medical Information

Barnes and Noble’s Essential Atlas of the World–not much, but kind of adequate
Timetables of History (old and beat-up)

And, of course, every Straight Dope book.
My wish list:

The Oxford English Dictionary, the compact edition that puts nine pages on every page so you need a magnifying glass but it fits into two volumes
A real atlas and quotation dictionary
More Gordon books
And many, many more…

2

Well… for dictionaries, I use either dictionary.com or the OED Online, to which I have free access through my university. For thesaurus and encyclopedia, basically the same. Books that are actually sitting on my shelf, though… (you’ll be able to tell that I have degrees in biology, literature, and linguistics)

[ul]
[li]Gray’s Anatomy[/li][li]The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Treatment[/li][li]Intro to Biology book[/li][li]Cell Biology book[/li][li]Neuroscience book[/li][li]Intro to Psychology book[/li][li]Abnormal Psychology book[/li][li]A Very Short Introduction to Literary Theory[/li][li]Oxford’s Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms[/li][li]The Poetry Handbook[/li][li]The Elements of Style[/li][li]French dictionary[/li][li]Italian dictionary[/li][li]Swahili dictionary & three grammars[/li][li]Latin grammar[/li][li]The Crane Blue Book of Stationery (you must own this)[/li][li]Introducing Sociolinguistics[/li][li]Sociolinguistics: A Reader and Coursebook[/li][li]Semantics: Primes and Universals[/li][li]Syntactic Theory and the Structure of English[/li][li]Understanding Language Structure, Interaction, and Variation[/li][li]A Biography of the English Language[/li][li]Lass’s Old English[/li][li]Understanding Phonology[/li][li]777 And Other Qabalistic Texts (Crowley)[/li][li]Home Comforts (you must own this, too)[/li][/ul]

3

Oh how I would love the OED! Alas, I think we’d need a bigger house first.

We have tons of dictonaries, in many languages, plus I own a lot of *Idiot’s Guides * (no comments from the peanut gallery, please). jeevmon has all his old law books and I’ve got the market cornered on various literary anthologies (I’m not at home right now so I can’t name them). We also have a sickening amount of dog books–first aid, training books, ASPCA reference guides, etc.

We also have a Merck but we hardly ever use it, as my MIL is a doctor and a much quicker source of diagnosis, but there was a time when I used it a lot.

There are quite a few decorating, financial and ‘all the geography you never learned’-type reference works, as well, and a whole lot of general history (but I guess those are more non-fiction than reference).

4

OED–20-year-old compact ed.
Chicago Manual–15th and most recent ed.
Wired Style
an old edition–50s–of the Joy of Cooking; more recent editions don’t have all the old basics. This book would give an alien scientist a pretty accurate picture of what, why, and how the human race eats.
dictionary and thesaurus are almost online nowadays.

As a freelance factchecker, my references have to be pretty up to date. So nowadays I use Google more than any single hardcopy book on my shelf.

5

I’m a bit of a reference book addict, I love trolling library book sales for them. I have more than one quotation dictionary, a dictionary of phrase and fable, the New York Public Library Desk Reference, a couple year old Statistical Abstract of the US, a biographical encyclopedia, a couple film summary guides, various history books from all eras (I really like old history books), an architectural dictionary, a really really old Merk (from when my mother was in nursing school, I think), German/English and French/English dictionaries, a world atlas, an encylopedia of world religions, several art text books, and then your various style manuals (every university program I attended required different ones) - that’s all I can come up with off the top of my head, I know I have more…

But my pride and joy is my two volume OED. The best thing about it is that I bought it at an estate auction for the grand total of $10 (I was the only one to place a bid) - my non-nerd friends just didn’t understand why I was almost shaking with excitement over the idea of getting it.

I really miss the Encyclopedia Brittanica we had when I was growing up. I know it’s online now, but that’s just not the same as thumbing through actual volumes.

6

I love reference books! Lessee… from memory:

Shorter OED (the two-volume version)

Bartlet’s Familiar Quotations

Fowler’s Modern English Usage

The Baseball Encyclopedia, c. 1990 edition; largely supplanted by the Internet

Halliwell’s Film Guide, ditto

Halliwell’s Filmgoer’s Companion, ditto

The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits – every song, by artist (and title) that made the charts between the '50s and the '80s.

TV Encyclopedia (exact title escapes me) – every TV show, with cast and air dates.

Miss Manners’ Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior

Dictionary of American Slang

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•American Slang
•Foreign Words in Englis
•Cartridges of the World
•Military Small Arms of the 20th Century
•The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft
•The Anime Encyclopedia
•Luftwaffe Secret Projects
•Secret Wonder Weapons of the Third Reich
•Directory of the World’s Weapons
•The Illustrated Book of Guns
•The Order of Things
•Roger Ebert’s Movie Glossary
•Weapons, an Illustrated Encyclopedia

And about, oh…two, three dozen others. Maybe more.

That’s not counting things like my dictionary, Time’s almanac, etc. Plus, the three and a half megs of odd data that I have stored in a series of text files, that I always add to. (You never know when you’ll need to know what “Black Damp” is, or what military districts the south was divided into after the civil war, or what a “Leman” is.)

8

Timetables of History

Writing research Papers
Practical English Handbook
Shrunk and White
MLA
Chicago Manual of Style

Doug Hinman, The Kinks: All Day and All of the Night: Day-by-Day Concerts, Recordings, and Broadcasts, 1961-1996
Doug Hinman, The Kinks, Part One: You Really Got Me: An Illustrated World Discography of the Kinks, 1964-1993
N Martin and J Hudson, The Kinks: Well Respected Men
Official Kinks Fanclub Magazine, various back issues
Johnny Rogan, The Complete Guide to the Music of the Kinks
Johnny Rogan, The Kinks: A Mental Institution
*Rolling Stone Rock and Roll Encyclopedia
*

Guide to Western Historical Scripts from Antiquity to 1600
Capelli – a guide to shorthand in mediaeval manuscripts
Oxford Latin Dictionary
Freund’s Latin Dictionary
Oxford Classical Dictional

Brewer’s
Oxford Dictionary of Quotations

Many textile and fabric guides; wool and sheep breed books

Mediaeval, Roman, and Greek history texts

Latin dictionaries, grammars, verb books
German dictionaries, grammars, verb book, idiom and slang books
French dictionary, grammars, verb book, idiom and slang book

(British) slang thesaurus
Synonym dictionary (NOT a thesaurus; it’s about 100 years old, and I swear by it)

a brilliant book called Britspeak, Amerispeak

Lots more, but I’m packing stuff away as I just got ‘the call’ today that I have been accepted into a museum studies programme for my postdoc…

:slight_smile:

9

Crowley counts as ‘reference’?!?! :stuck_out_tongue:

Ah well, I’ve got The notation of polyphonic music 900-1500 to keep me company.

10

Oh, I also have The Dictionary of Rude and The Dictionary of Filth
:smiley:

11

Well, it’s pretty easy to figure out who I am from my reference shelf. I’ve got several engineering textbooks, including

Sidra and Smith’s Microelectronic Circuits,
Rao’s Mechanical Vibrations,
Hibbeler’s Statics and Mechanics of Materials,
Incropera and DeWitt’s Heat and Mass Transfer,
Fox and McDonald’s Fluid Dynamics,
Hilsen’s Mechatronics,
Groover’s Fundamentals of Manufacturing,
and
Lai, Rubin, and Krempl’s Introduction to Continuum Mechanics.
(etc. etc. - I’m sure I’ve forgotten or blocked out other texts… like Thermodynamics).

Math texts include

Etgen’s Calculus in Several Variables,
Anton and Rorris’ Elementary Linear Algebra,
and a differential equations book I can’t find.
Oh, and a book on magic squares with several articles by Martin Gardner, probably entitled something creative like Magic Squares.

Computer texts:

O’Reilly: Learning Perl and Programming Perl,
Deitel & Deitel, C/C++, an Introductory Course,
and
Nyhoff and Leetsma’s FORTRAN 77.

Literature and General Reference:

Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the King James Bible,
Strunk & White’s Elements of Style,
An Incomplete Education,
Perrine & Arp’s Sound and Sense and Story and Structure (6th and 7th eds.)
The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 3d ed.
The Tongue And Quill (Air Force Handbook 37-137),
and
The National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America

12

All of the Dope, of course, including a copy of Triumph autographed by Cecil
One of Asimov’s essay collections

The Boy Scout Handbook
The Audubon Guide to the Rockies
The SMAS 50 guidebook to the 51 best astronomical objects viewable from Montana (put together by the local astronomy club)

Second edition D&D Players Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide, Monstrous Compendium, and Psionics Handbook
Third edition D&D Players Handbook and Monster Manual

Assorted Tolkien references
The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction

Guiness Book of World Records, 2001 edition
World Almanac and Book of Facts, some edition or another

The CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, 56th edition
The Essentials of Calculus book of formulae
The Handbook of Particle Physics, 2001 edition
A groaning shelfload of astronomy, physics, math, and programming textbooks
Three chemistry textbooks, and a biology textbook

Caesar’s War Commentaries
Augustine’s Confessions
On the Origin of the Species
Newton’s Principia Mathematica
Copernicus’ De Revolutionibus
Galileo’s Starry Messenger
Galileo’s Dialogues on Two Sciences
Einstein’s The Theory of Relativity

A Brief History of Time
Gould’s Bully for Brontosaurus

The Jerusalem Bible

Assorted software users’ manuals

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Tell me about it:

Textbooks
McQuarry and Rock General Chemistry
Howard Anton Calculus (third ed.)
Halliday & Resnick Fundamentals of Physics (third ed.)
Douglas Giancoli Physics for Scientists and Engineers (second ed.)
Keeton Biological Science (third ed.)
A bunch of people General Zoology (sixth ed.)
Oberlander & Muller Essentials of Physical Geography Today (second ed.)
John McMurry Organic Chemistry (second ed.)
Kardong Vertebrates: Comparative Anatomy, Function, Evolution (second ed.)
Withers Comparative Animal Physiology
Scott Gilbert Developmental Biology (fifth ed.)
Weaver & Hedrick Genetics
Eric Chaisson Universe: An Evolutionary Approach to Astronomy
A bunch of people Fossil Invertebrates
Milton Hildebrand Analysis of Vertebrate Structure (third ed.)
Knudt Schmidt-Nielsen Animal Physiology: Adaptation and Environment (fourth ed.)
Michael J. Benton Vertebrate Palaeontology
Raup & Stanley Principles of Paleontology (second ed.)

Dinosaur (non-avian) Books
Michael Benton The Dinosaur Encyclopedia
Halstead & Halstead Dinosaurs
Glut Dinosaurs: The Encyclopedia, plus Supplements I, II and III
Weishampel, Dodson, Osmolska (Eds) The Dinosauria
A bunch of people The Macmillan Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Mammals
Gregory S. Paul Predatory Dinosaurs of the World: A Complete Illustrated Guide
Glut The New Dinosaur Dictionary
Kenneth Carpenter & Phillip Currie (Eds) Dinosaur Systematics: Approaches and Perspectives
Sattler The New Illustrated Dinosaur Dictionary
A bunch of people A Field Guide to Dinosaurs: The First Complete Guide to Every Dinosaur Now Known (“Now” being in 1983 - it’s decidely out of date now)

The Rest
Peter Wellnhoffer The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Pterosaurs
Bejcek & Statny Bird Encyclopedia
Chiappe & Witmer Mesozoic Birds: Above the heads of Dinosaurs
Gregory S. Paul Dinosaurs of the Air
The Smithsonian Institution’s Animal
CRC Handbook of Chemistry & Physics (first student ed.)
Pierre Pfeffer (Ed.) Predators and Predation: The Struggle for Life in the Animal World
Fritz Schider An Atlas of Anatomy for Artists
Gray’s Anatomy
Carruth & Ehrlich The Giant Book of American Quotations
Peterson Fieldguides Western Reptiles and Amphibians
Gardner The Whale Watchers’ Guide
National Geographic Society’s Field Guide to the Birds of North America
The Penguin Dictionary of Biology
Guernsey & Doerr Principles of Physical Geography
Chris Matison Snakes of the World
Harrington & Durrell How to Identify Plants
Piven & Borgenicht The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook
William Zinsser On Writing Well
Merriam-Webster’s Manual for Writers & Editors
Bryan Garner A Dictionary of Modern American Usage
Turner & Anton The Big Cats and Their Fossil Relatives
Robert Carroll Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language
American Heritage History of the United States
John’s Hopkins Family Health Book
The Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages
Springhouse Physician’s Drug Handbook (sixth ed.)
The Oxford Illustrated History of Modern War
The Diagram Group Weapons: An International Encyclopedia from 5000 BC to 2000 AD

And a bunch of other assorted books that while they probably don’t really count as “reference” books are still referenced on occassion for various reasons.

14

In addition to the usual stuff, I am very fond of:

M-W Georgraphic Dictionary
Scarne’s Complete Guide to Gambling
Davidson’s The Oxford Companion to Food

A couple of Spanish and English dictionaries and grammars.

For on-line use I reply on the Wikipedia.

15

Forgot three off my shelf:

Petersen’s Guide to North American Birds
Guinness Book of World Records
An Incomplete Education

16

That first one should be a geology text. And that second one is my favorite general physics text ever. I can’t believe I gave it away. I know that poor freshman needed it, and I felt beatific and saintly for saving him a hundred bucks, but damn I wish I had it back now. :slight_smile:

17

Some great ones here, but if I’m not mistaken, I haven’t seen my two most dog-eared and invaluable:

Stephen Glazier’s remarkable ***Word Menu ***- a language reference organized by subject matter rather than alphabet;

often used in conjunction with

J. I. Rodale’s fantastic The Synonym Finder - a thesaurus on HGH
I do a lot of brainstorming and concepting in the company of these two books.

18

I’m working on entering my library into bibliophil.org & as it happens, I’ve been working on my reference shelves:

Besides a couple of dictionaries (no OED, alas) and a thesarus…
Why Things Are: Answers to Every Essential Question in Life -Achenbach, Joel
Why Things Are: The Big Picture -Achenbach, Joel
More of the Straight Dope -Adams, Cecil
Return of the Straight Dope -Adams, Cecil
Straight Dope Tells All, The -Adams, Cecil
Triumph of the Straight Dope -Adams, Cecil
You Know What They Say: The Truth About Popular Beliefs -Alfie Kohn
Panic Encyclopedia: The Definitive Guide to the Postmodern Scene -Arthur Kroker
Real Men Don’t Bond : How to Be a Real Man in an Age of Whiners -Bruce Feirstein
Baby Train and Other Lusty Urban Legends, The -Brunvand, Jan Harold
Life’s Little Destruction Book : Everyday Rescue for Beauty, Fashion, Relationships, and Life -Charles S. Dane
Why Do Clocks Run Clockwise? -Feldman, David
How Does Aspirin Find a Headache? -Feldman, David
What Are Hyenas Laughing At, Anyway? An Imponderables Book -Feldman, David
Do Penguins Have Knees? -Feldman, David
Life’s Little Frustration Book: A Parody -G. Gaynor McTigue
Life’s Little Instruction Book -H. Jackson, Jr. Brown
Wrong Again!: More of the Biggest Mistakes and Miscalculations Ever Made by People Who Should Have K -Jane O’Boyle
Tricks of the Trade: Over 79 Experts Reveal the Secrets Behind What They Do Best -Jerry Dunn
Have You Ever Noticed? -Joe Moore
Are You Normal? -Kanner, Bernice
Forgotten Fads and Fabulous Flops: An Amazing Collection of Goofy Stuff That Seemed Like a Good Idea -Kirchner, Paul
Blunder Book : Gigantic -M. H. Goldberg
A Field Guide to Demons, Fairies, Fallen Angels, and Other Subversive Spirits -MacK, Carol K.
The True Cognoscente’s Culture Test: Your Know Your I.Q.–Now Learn Your C.Q. (Culture Quotient) -Marvin Grosswirth
Life 101 -McWilliams, Peter
Best Book Of Urban Myths Ever -Mike Flynn
Oops!: Movie Mistakes That Made the Cut -Molinari, Matteo
Five Minute Iliad Other Instant Classics : Great Books For The Short Attention Span, The -Nagan, Greg
Panati’s Extraordinary Endings of Practically Everything & Everybody -Panati, Charles
Panati’s Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things -Panati, Charles
Panati’s Parade of Fads, Follies, and Manias: The Origins of Our Most Cherished Obsessions -Panati, Charles
Myth-Informed: Legends, Credos, and Wrongheaded ‘Facts’ We All Believe -Paul Dickson
There are alligators in our sewers, and other American credos -Paul Dickson
Oops!: A Stupefying Survey of Goofs, Blunders & Botches, Great & Small -Paul Kirchner
Loony Sex Laws -Pelton, Robert Wayne
Bigger Secrets: More Than 125 Things They Prayed You’d Never Find Out -Poundstone, William
Big Secrets -Poundstone, William
Biggest Secrets -Poundstone, William
The Play of Words: Fun & Games for Language Lovers -Richard Lederer
The Miracle of Language -Richard Lederer
VideoHound’s Cult Flicks & Trash Pics -Schwartz, Carol A.
The Dictionary of Misinformation -Tom Burnam
The Ultimate : The Great Armchair Debates Settled Once and for All -William Poundstone
It Seemed Like a Good Idea… : A Compendium Of Great Historical Fiascoes -William R. Forstchen
Fumblerules -William Safire
Take My Word for It (More on Language from William Safire) -William Safire

19

I’m jealous. My reference library is limited by space considerations, so I rely heavily on Googling these days. It works, but it just doesn’t have the same air as snagging a book (seemingly at random) from a huge shelf, flipping it open to the relevant page, and handing it to the poor fool who questioned me. :slight_smile:

So, I just have references that are essential and/or are difficult to access online:

Webster’s Unabridged (weighing in at roughly 20 pounds and adequate for those who don’t have the OED)
Dictionaries and grammars for
Latin
Spanish
French
Gaelic
Japanese
Tagalog
Swedish
The Complete Encylcopedia of Arms and Armor*
Gray’s Anatomy
Knuth’s The Art of Computer Programming
an annotated dissection of the Linux kernel source code
various programming language references
an assortment of math textbooks, covering algebra, trig, and calculus
an assortment of electrical engineering texts

20

Does Monty Python’s Flying Circus - All the Words count?

Seriously, a quick look shows:

American Heritage Distionary
American Medical Association Family Medical Guide
Quite a few mathematics (mine) and economics (my wife’s) textbooks
The Victory Drill Book
The Complete National Geographic on CD-ROM
Michael Jackson’s *New World Guide to Beer * and Complete Guid to Single Malt Scotch

The dog peed all over my National Geographic Atlas of the World, so that is currently waiting for a replacement.

The OED (complete 20 volume set) is on my Amazon.com wish list for only $895 if anyone is feeling generous. I’ll pay your SDMB membership fee for the next ten years :slight_smile:
But really, who needs a reference library when you’ve got the Straight Dope?