A Place for Everything
The Curious History of Alphabetical Order
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A Place for Everything
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Narrated by:
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Julia Winwood
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By:
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Judith Flanders
About this listen
From a New York Times best-selling historian comes the story of how the alphabet ordered our world.
A Place for Everything is the first-ever history of alphabetization, from the Library of Alexandria to Wikipedia. The story of alphabetical order has been shaped by some of history's most compelling characters, such as industrious and enthusiastic early adopter Samuel Pepys and dedicated alphabet champion Denis Diderot. But though even George Washington was a proponent, many others stuck to older forms of classification - Yale listed its students by their family's social status until 1886. And yet, while the order of the alphabet now rules - libraries, phone books, reference books, even the order of entry for the teams at the Olympic Games - it has remained curiously invisible.
With abundant inquisitiveness and wry humor, historian Judith Flanders traces the triumph of alphabetical order and offers a compendium of Western knowledge, from A to Z.
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Critic reviews
A Times (UK) Best Book of 2020
"Surprising and copiously researched." (Times Literary Supplement)
"Quirky and compelling.... [Flanders] is a meticulous historian with a taste for the offbeat; the story of alphabetical order suits her well." (Dan Jones, Sunday Times, UK)
"For readers who love language or armchair historians interested in the evolution of linguistics, this is catnip. For the mildly curious, it's accessible, narratively adventurous, and surprisingly insightful about how the alphabet marks us all in some way.... A rich cultural and linguistic history." (Kirkus)
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 148
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 134
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Story4 out of 5 stars 133
In the tradition of Simon Winchester and Dava Sobel, The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code tells one of the most intriguing stories in the history of language, masterfully blending history, linguistics, and cryptology with an elegantly wrought narrative. When famed archaeologist Arthur Evans unearthed the ruins of a sophisticated Bronze Age civilization that flowered on Crete 1,000 years before Greece's Classical Age, he discovered a cache of ancient tablets, Europe's earliest written records.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Discovery and Translation of Linear B Script
- By Sires on 01-11-14
By: Margalit Fox
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The Map of Knowledge
- A Thousand-Year History of How Classical Ideas Were Lost and Found
- By: Violet Moller
- Narrated by: Susan Duerden
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 106
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 87
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 86
The foundations of modern knowledge - philosophy, math, astronomy, geography - were laid by the Greeks, whose ideas were written on scrolls and stored in libraries across the Mediterranean and beyond. But as the vast Roman Empire disintegrated, so did appreciation of these precious texts. Christianity cast a shadow over so-called pagan thought, books were burned, and the library of Alexandria, the greatest repository of classical knowledge, was destroyed. Yet some texts did survive and The Map of Knowledge explores the role played by seven cities around the Mediterranean....
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3 out of 5 stars
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Terrible narration.
- By nathan535 on 11-05-19
By: Violet Moller
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Paper
- Paging Through History
- By: Mark Kurlansky
- Narrated by: Andrew Garman
- Length: 13 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 388
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 331
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 323
Paper is one of the simplest and most essential pieces of human technology. For the past two millennia, the ability to produce it in ever more efficient ways has supported the proliferation of literacy, media, religion, education, commerce, and art; it has formed the foundation of civilizations, promoting revolutions and restoring stability.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Very enjoyable
- By Vicki on 02-16-17
By: Mark Kurlansky
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Knowing What We Know
- The Transmission of Knowledge: From Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
- Length: 14 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 142
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 111
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 111
From the creation of the first encyclopedia to Wikipedia, from ancient museums to modern kindergarten classes—this is Simon Winchester’s brilliant and all-encompassing look at how humans acquire, retain, and pass on information and data, and how technology continues to change our lives and our minds. Throughout this fascinating tour, Winchester forces us to ponder what rational humans are becoming. What good is all this knowledge if it leads to lack of thought? What is information without wisdom?
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3 out of 5 stars
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Colorful anecdotes but tiring after a while.
- By reader on 05-03-23
By: Simon Winchester
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The Light Ages
- The Surprising Story of Medieval Science
- By: Seb Falk
- Narrated by: Seb Falk
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 92
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 78
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 77
An illuminating guide to the scientific and technological achievements of the Middle Ages through the life of a crusading astronomer-monk.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating exploration of medieval science
- By Celia on 07-05-21
By: Seb Falk
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The Library
- A Fragile History
- By: Andrew Pettegree, Arthur der Weduwen
- Narrated by: Sean Barrett
- Length: 15 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 58
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 53
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 51
Famed across the known world, jealously guarded by private collectors, built up over centuries, destroyed in a single day, ornamented with gold leaf and frescoes, or filled with bean bags and children’s drawings - the history of the library is rich, varied, and stuffed full of incident.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Stays on point
- By Alex on 04-29-23
By: Andrew Pettegree, and others
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Sacred Treasure - The Cairo Genizah
- The Amazing Discoveries of Forgotten Jewish History in an Egyptian Synagogue Attic
- By: Rabbi Mark Glickman
- Narrated by: Rabbi Mark Glickman
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 172
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 148
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Story4 out of 5 stars 146
Indiana Jones meets The Da Vinci Code in an old Egyptian synagogue - the amazing story of one of the most important discoveries in modern religious scholarship. In 1897, Rabbi Solomon Schechter of Cambridge University stepped into the attic of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Cairo, Egypt, and there found the largest treasure trove of medieval and early manuscripts ever discovered.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Not what I thought it would be, but worth it
- By Lisa on 03-14-12
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Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts
- By: Christopher de Hamel
- Narrated by: Christopher de Hamel
- Length: 17 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 39
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 27
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 27
Coming face to face with an important illuminated manuscript in the original is rather like meeting a very famous person. We may all pretend that a well-known celebrity is no different from anyone else, and yet there is an undeniable thrill in actually meeting and talking to a person of world stature. The idea for this book, which is entirely new, is to invite the listener into an intimate conversation with a selection of the most famous manuscripts in existence and to let each of those manuscripts illuminate the Middle Ages and sometimes the modern world too.
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5 out of 5 stars
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I've been waiting a long time for a book like this
- By Robert on 04-15-18
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The World's Greatest Book
- The Story of How the Bible Came to Be
- By: Lawrence H. Schiffman Ph.D., Jerry Pattengale Ph.D.
- Narrated by: George W. Sarris
- Length: 7 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 42
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 36
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 35
From the earliest oral traditions to ink on parchment and ultimately the printing press, this is the story behind the best-selling book of all time. Original texts were captured and passed down from generation to generation by elders and leaders, many inked by hand in extreme conditions. Christians and Jews canonized the Christian, Catholic, and Hebrew Bibles over a period of thousands of years. Devoted people dedicated their lives throughout time to put this unique book into the hands of people worldwide.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Couple of errors.
- By Simandl on 12-13-17
By: Lawrence H. Schiffman Ph.D., and others
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What We Talk About When We Talk About Books
- The History and Future of Reading
- By: Leah Price
- Narrated by: Elisabeth Rodgers
- Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 46
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 40
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Story4 out of 5 stars 40
Do you worry that you've lost patience for anything longer than a tweet? If so, you're not alone. Digital-age pundits warn that as our appetite for books dwindles, so too do the virtues in which printed, bound objects once trained us: the willpower to focus on a sustained argument, the curiosity to look beyond the day's news, the willingness to be alone. The shelves of the world's great libraries, though, tell a more complicated story. Examining the wear and tear on the books that they contain, English professor Leah Price finds scant evidence that a golden age of reading ever existed.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Wasn't a fan.
- By Erika on 12-27-20
By: Leah Price
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Printer's Error
- Irreverent Stories from Book History
- By: Rebecca Romney, J. P. Romney
- Narrated by: J.P. Romney
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 84
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 74
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 76
Since the Gutenberg Bible first went on sale in 1455, printing has been viewed as one of the highest achievements of human innovation. But the march of progress hasn't been smooth; downright bizarre is more like it. Printer's Error chronicles some of the strangest and most humorous episodes in the history of Western printing. Take, for example, the Gutenberg Bible. While the book is regarded as the first printed work in the Western world, Gutenberg's name doesn't appear anywhere on it.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Porn for Ye Old Bibliophiles
- By George M. Liveakos on 03-24-17
By: Rebecca Romney, and others
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The Written World
- The Power of Stories to Shape People, History, Civilization
- By: Martin Puchner
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 12 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 89
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 79
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 78
Martin Puchner leads us on a remarkable journey through time and around the globe to reveal the powerful role stories and literature have played in creating the world we have today. Puchner introduces us to numerous visionaries as he explores 16 foundational texts selected from more than 4,000 years of world literature and reveals how writing has inspired the rise and fall of empires and nations, the spark of philosophical and political ideas, and the birth of religious beliefs. Indeed, literature has touched generations and changed the course of history.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Powerful and illuminating!
- By Gloria J. Petit-Clair on 12-04-17
By: Martin Puchner
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The Yoga Sutra of Patanjali
- A Biography
- By: David Gordon White
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 100
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 87
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Story4 out of 5 stars 86
Consisting of fewer than 200 verses written in an obscure if not impenetrable language and style, Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra is today extolled by the yoga establishment as a perennial classic and guide to yoga practice. As David Gordon White demonstrates in this groundbreaking study, both of these assumptions are incorrect. Virtually forgotten in India for hundreds of years and maligned when it was first discovered in the West, the Yoga Sutra has been elevated to its present iconic status.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Academic Hubris
- By John on 10-31-14
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The House of Wisdom
- How Arabic Science Saved Ancient Knowledge and Gave Us the Renaissance
- By: Jim Al-Khalili
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 346
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 308
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 309
The Arabic legacy of science and philosophy has long been hidden from the West. British-Iraqi physicist Jim Al-Khalili unveils that legacy to fascinating effect by returning to its roots in the hubs of Arab innovation that would advance science and jump-start the European Renaissance.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Very interesting book, well-narrated for sure
- By Roderic Rinehart on 11-07-20
By: Jim Al-Khalili
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Writing on the Wall
- Social Media: The First 2,000 Years
- By: Tom Standage
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 91
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 78
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 76
Papyrus rolls and Twitter have much in common, as each was their generation's signature means of "instant" communication. Indeed, as Tom Standage reveals in his scintillating new audiobook, social media is anything but a new phenomenon. From the papyrus letters that Roman statesmen used to exchange news across the Empire to the advent of hand-printed tracts of the Reformation to the pamphlets that spread propaganda during the American and French revolutions, Standage chronicles the increasingly sophisticated ways people shared information with each other....
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5 out of 5 stars
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technology changes, we don't
- By Andy on 12-02-13
By: Tom Standage
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Kingdom of Characters
- The Language Revolution That Made China Modern
- By: Jing Tsu
- Narrated by: Jing Tsu
- Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 70
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 59
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 59
After a meteoric rise, China today is one of the world’s most powerful nations. Just a century ago, it was a crumbling empire with literacy reserved for the elite few, as the world underwent a massive technological transformation that threatened to leave them behind. In Kingdom of Characters, Jing Tsu argues that China’s most daunting challenge was a linguistic one: the century-long fight to make the formidable Chinese language accessible to the modern world of global trade and digital technology.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Missed important information
- By Ms. on 04-01-22
By: Jing Tsu
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The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books
- Christopher Columbus, His Son, and the Quest to Build the World's Greatest Library
- By: Edward Wilson-Lee
- Narrated by: Richard Trinder
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 56
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 51
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 50
The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books tells the story of the first and greatest visionary of the print age, a man who saw how the explosive expansion of knowledge and information generated by the advent of the printing press would entirely change the landscape of thought and society. He also happened to be Christopher Columbus’ illegitimate son.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Erudite. Stimulating. Rewarding.
- By R. P. RIBEYRE on 10-26-20
What listeners say about A Place for Everything
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amy
- 10-27-24
Like ordering things?
If you like putting things in order or categories by size / color / use - you’ll love this. If you’re an ontologist, it’s a must read.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Mark Elliott Smith
- 04-16-23
Very interesting
And informative! And interesting twist on history and a bit of insight in some other cultures. Very well presented
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- CSM
- 12-13-22
Interesting and enjoyable.
As a retired librarian/cataloger I found this history most enjoyable. The text was thorough but not dry at all. I particularly liked learning about people I had not before encountered in my other reading. I also found the reader to be easy to listen to, with excellent pronunciation of the various languages discussed in the book.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Eric
- 06-29-21
interesting but admittedly dry
it's pretty hard to make something like the history of alphabetization exciting I would imagine. this is an accounting of historical occurrences and as such is not all that adrenaline inducing but who would have expected it to be right? I think the narrator did a pretty good job although having a British accent did make it more difficult at times to focus on what was being said rather than how she was saying it.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- A. Yoshida
- 10-23-21
You have to love library science
This book provides a thorough history of alphabetical order and other ordering methods, such as hierarchical (God and king before other subjects), chronological, or topical as the organizer sees fit. It is an extremely pedantic book. You have to love library science to enjoy this book.
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1 person found this helpful